Lincoln, the Politician Part 11

[D] Johnson, 307.

There was then, already, a complexity of opinion on the slavery question that shadowed forth the future alignment of parties. While many were confounded by wavering lights, Lincoln picked his way with sure footed precision through maze and pitfall. His unprejudiced mind wondered at the conduct of the "Liberty men" that deprecating the annexation of Texas, deliberately promoted its success by indirection. Their application of the proposition "we are not to do evil that good may come of it" he reduced to plain sophistry, saying that if by their votes they could have prevented the extension of slavery, it would have been good, and not evil, so to have used their votes, even though it involved the casting of them for a slaveholder, and he earnestly asked if the fruit of electing Clay would have been to prevent the extension of slavery, could the act of electing him have been evil?[197] He held that it was a paramount duty of the free States to let the slavery of the other States alone, while it was equally clear that they should never knowingly lend themselves, directly or indirectly, to prevent slavery from dying a natural death--to find new places for it to live in, when it could no longer exist in the old.[198] Here, is clearly announced the seeming paradox that, though slavery was an evil, there still remained the duty to let it alone in the States where it then existed. This further piles up evidence that his views suffered little change with years.

[197] Tarbell, 2, 293.

[198] _Ibid._, 293-294.

Lincoln boldly partic.i.p.ated in the campaign of 1844; Clay was the political hero of his youth and manhood as Was.h.i.+ngton was of his boyhood. Like many other Whigs, he, too, was enthralled by the magic of the far famed eloquence of the name, that, in the words of the orator who nominated Clay, expressed more enthusiasm, that it had in it more eloquence than the names of Chatham, Burke, Patrick Henry, and, more than any other and all other names together.[199]

[199] Nicolay & Hay, 1, 225.

During the campaign, Lincoln encountered his former employer, John Calhoun, and other old antagonists. It is said that Calhoun came nearer whipping Lincoln in debate than Douglas did.[200] Nothing survives of those speeches. Still, his enthusiasm and skill in the controversies of the campaign awakened a demand for his services throughout the State.

His name as an orator even invaded Indiana. In the closing hours of the contest his voice was heard on the soil that he hastened from some fifteen years before as an adventurer. While speaking at Gentryville, his old friend Nat Grigsby entered the room. Lincoln stopped and crying out "There's Nat," scrambled through the crowd to his modest a.s.sociate of former days. After greeting him warmly, he returned to the platform.

When the speech was done, he pa.s.sed the rest of the evening with Nat.

Then Lincoln insisted that they should sleep together; and long into the night, they talked over old times and were once more Abe and Nat.[201]

[200] Lamon, 274.

[201] _Ibid._, 274-5.

The appearance of Clay's August letter stirred the political Abolitionists to fateful activity. They insisted that his antagonism to annexation, not being founded on anti-slavery convictions, was of no account.[202] They polled enough votes to elect pro-slavery Polk.

Mingled with the ribaldry, the din and howl of abandoned politicians over the election of Polk, were the exultant shouts of the sober and respectable men of the Liberty Party. They celebrated in unison the victory they both promoted.

[202] Greeley, 1, 167.

The solemn selection of James K. Polk instead of Henry Clay as President, was a discordant incident that the Whig patriot did not linger over willingly. That a pigmy should sit in the seat of the statesman, that a puppet should stand in the place of the nature-dowered son of American policies,--this opinion made Clay's followers doubt the wisdom of republican government. To them this defeat was more than a partisan grief, it was a national loss. From loyal supporters hurried a grand tribute to their uncrowned champion in his retreat: "We will remember you, Henry Clay, while the memory of the glorious or the sense of the good remains in us, with a grateful and admiring affection which shall strengthen with our strength and shall not decline with our decline. We will remember you in all our future trials and reverses as him whose name honored defeat and gave it a glory which victory could not have brought. We will remember you when patriotic hope rallies again to successful contest with the agencies of corruption and ruin; for we will never know a triumph which you do not share in life, whose glory does not accrue to you in death."[203]

[203] Nicolay & Hay, 1, 236.

CHAPTER VIII

LINCOLN OPPOSES THE INCEPTION OF THE MEXICAN WAR IN CONGRESS

It is quite generally believed in Sangamon County that a bargain was entered into between Baker, Lincoln, Logan and Hardin whereby the "four should 'rotate' in Congress until each had had a term."[204] There is evidence in the writings of Lincoln that there was some kind of an understanding between Baker, Lincoln and Logan. There is a startling story as to the character of the arrangement. A delegate to the Pekin Convention of 1843 states, that he was asked by Lincoln immediately after the nomination of Hardin, if he would favor a resolution recommending Baker for the next term. On being answered in the affirmative Lincoln told the delegate to prepare the resolution, and he would support it. It created a profound sensation, especially among the friends of Hardin. After angry discussion, the resolution pa.s.sed by a bare majority.[205] This incident ill.u.s.trates the sagacious policy of Lincoln in furthering his restless political ambition. He publicly declined to contest the nomination of Baker in 1844. Pursuant to a widespread expectation, Baker did not stand in the way of Lincoln two years later.

[204] Lamon, 275.

[205] Tarbell, 195-6.

Lincoln kept close to those who moulded public opinion,--the men of the press. Then the personality of an editor was a weighty factor in the decision of political contests. He wrote to an editor and supporter in 1846 that as the paper at Pekin had nominated Hardin for governor and the Alton paper indirectly nominated him for Congress, it would give Hardin a great start, and perhaps use him up, if the Whig papers of the district should nominate Hardin for Congress, and that he wished that the editor would let nothing appear in his paper which might operate against him.[206]

[206] Lincoln's Speeches, 1, 82.

To this, he received a reply that this supporter had, in fact, nominated Hardin for governor. The tactful response deserves attention: "Let me a.s.sure you that if there is anything in my letter indicating an opinion that the nomination for governor, which I supposed to have been made in the Pekin paper, was operating or could operate against me, such was not my meaning. Now that I know that nomination was made by you, I say that it may do me good, while I do not see that it can do me harm. But, while the subject is in agitation, should any of the papers in the district nominate the same man for Congress, that would do me harm; and it was that which I wished to guard against. Let me a.s.sure you that I do not for a moment suppose that what you have done is ill-judged, or that anything that you shall do will be."[207]

[207] _Ibid._, 83.

"I should be pleased," he wrote another friend, "if I could concur with you in the hope that my name would be the only one presented to the convention; but I cannot. Hardin is a man of desperate energy and perseverance, and one that never backs out; and I fear, to think otherwise is to be deceived in the character of our adversary. I would rejoice to be spared the labor of a contest; but 'being in', I shall go it thoroughly, and to the bottom." He then admonished his friend not to relax any of his vigilance.[208]

[208] _Ibid._, 84.

He was sensitive to the s.h.i.+fting changes of the campaign. "Nathan Dresser is here," he wrote a friend, "and speaks as though the contest between Hardin and me is to be doubtful in Menard County.--I know he is candid and this alarms me some--I asked him to tell me the names of the men that were going strong for Hardin; he said Morris was about as strong as any--Now, tell me, is Morris going it openly? You remember you wrote me, that he would be neutral. Nathan also said that some man he could not remember had said lately that Menard County was going to decide the contest and that that made the contest very doubtful. Do you know who that was?

"Don't fail to write me instantly on receiving telling me all--particularly the names of those who are going strong against me."[209]

[209] Tarbell, 1, 204.

The splendid generals.h.i.+p of Lincoln, his telling blows gradually disposed of the gallant Hardin, who gracefully declined to be longer considered as a candidate. Through the inspiration of Lincoln, with equal gallantry, there promptly appeared in the leading Whig journal, a statement superbly designed to soothe the dignity of his late antagonist: "We have had, and now have, no doubt that he (Hardin) has been, and now is, a great favorite with the Whigs of the district. He states, in substance, that there was never any understanding on his part that his name was not to be presented in the canva.s.ses of 1844 and 1846.

This, we believe, is strictly true. Still, the doings of the Pekin Convention did seem to point that way; and the general's voluntary declination as to the canva.s.s of 1844 was by many construed into an acquiescence on his part. These things had led many of his most devoted friends to not expect him to be a candidate at this time. Add to this the relation that Mr. Lincoln bears, and has borne, to the party, and it is not strange that many of those who are as strongly devoted to Gen.

Hardin as they are to Mr. Lincoln should prefer the latter at this time.

We do not entertain a doubt, that, if we could reverse the positions of the two men, that a very large portion of those who now have supported Mr. Lincoln most warmly would have supported Gen. Hardin quite as warmly."[210]

[210] Lamon, 276-7.

He was a thorough politician. He attended to details himself. Like a general on the battlefield, he kept his reserve forces well in hand. He would rather minimize his own strength than mistake the power of opposing forces. He never lost a victory through misplaced confidence.

Though he looked darkly at a contest, this rather increased than abated his activity. From policy as well as inclination he did not engage in the crimination of his adversaries. He had a marvelous capacity of personally commanding the conduct of men.

Out of their ranks, the Democrats called the famed preacher--Peter Cartwright, as their standard bearer in this Congressional contest.

Until he was sixteen years old, he was a slave to the common vices of his day. His dramatic conversion during the revival of 1801 preluded the marvelous career of a man who unflinchingly, for sixty years, "breasted the storm and suffered the hards.h.i.+ps" of his calling in forest and prairie. His heroic treatment of Jackson shows the man. "Just then,"

Cartwright says, "I felt some one pull my coat in the stand, and turning my head, my fastidious preacher, whispering a little loud, said: 'General Jackson has come in: General Jackson has come in.' I felt a flash of indignation run all over me like an electric shock and facing about to my congregation, and purposely speaking out audibly, I said, 'Who is General Jackson? If he don't get his soul converted, G.o.d will d.a.m.n him as quick as he would a Guinea negro!'"[211]

[211] Cartwright, 192.

The reasons that prompted Cartwright to follow the trail from Kentucky to Illinois are of historical importance. "First, I would get entirely clear of the evil of slavery. Second, I could raise my children to work where work was not considered a degradation. Third, I believed I could better my temporal circ.u.mstances, and procure lands for my children as they grew up. And fourth, I could carry the gospel to dest.i.tute souls that had, by their removal into some new country, been deprived of the means of grace."[212] The South poorly reckoned the cost to her, of the inst.i.tution that drove into exile such master spirits, who enriched the states of their adoption.

[212] _Ibid._, 245.

Hating human bondage, still he was no friend of abolitionism. He declared that it riveted the chains of slavery tighter; blocked the way to reasonable emanc.i.p.ation; threw fire brands into legislative halls; that millions were expended every year in angry debates and that laws for the good of the people were neglected; talents and money thrown away; that prejudice, strife, and wrath, and every evil pa.s.sion stirred up until the integrity of the Union was in imminent danger, and that not one poor slave was set free; not one dollar expended to colonize them and send them home happy and free; that through unchristian, excited prejudices mobs were fast becoming the order of the day.

He maintained that after more than twenty years' experience as a traveling preacher in slave states, he was convinced that the most successful way to ameliorate the condition of the slaves and Christianize them, and finally secure their freedom was to treat their owners kindly and not to meddle politically with slavery!

Patriot and prophet alike, he contended that abolitionism awakened a bitter and wrathful spirit among the guardians of the black man that made discord a partner in the Federal Union; that despite the legion moral evils of slavery, he had never seen a rabid abolition or free soil society that he could join, because they resorted to unjustifiable agitation, confounding the innocent with the guilty, and that if force was resorted to the Union would be dissolved, a civil war would follow, death and carnage would ensue, and the only free nation on the earth would be destroyed.[213] In early manhood, Cartwright cherished sentiments that were brother to those Lincoln later avowed at the outset of his career.

[213] Cartwright, 129.

In his autobiography, Cartwright states that he was twice elected as a representative from Sangamon County, and he found that almost every measure had to be carried by a corrupt bargain and sale.[214]

[214] _Ibid._, 262.

For nearly half a century he had traversed the western states. In nearly every Methodist Church and mission his voice had summoned many to a better life. His ministration to the sick, his rides at night over the lonely prairie to the death bed had endeared him to thousands of homes.

He had a host of relations in the Congressional district. All this and his steady advocacy of Jacksonian Democracy const.i.tuted him no paltry antagonist.

An active campaign ensued. Lincoln was again subjected to the harsh charge of religious infidelity. The Whigs, taking up the challenge rallied to his support. Their activity soon turned the tide. Lincoln carried the district by 1511, exceeding the vote of Clay in 1844 by nearly 600. Sangamon County showed her loyalty by piling up a larger majority than ever before given to a political favorite.[215] The battle largely centered around the wisdom of a preacher partic.i.p.ating in politics. The pioneer, who twenty years before, had voted for Cartwright had now become a citizen of a settled community. After this election, there was no question as to the deep seated distrust of the average voter permitting a church official to be the political representative of the people.