The Lincoln Story Book Part 18

A VOICE FROM THE DEAD.

"Fellow citizens, my friend, Mr. Douglas, made the startling announcement to-day that the Whigs are dead. If that be so, you will now experience the novelty of hearing a speech from a dead man." With his arms waving like windmill-sails, and his frame vibrating in every one of the seventy-five inches perpendicular, he shrilled: "And I suppose you might properly say, or sing, in the language of the old hymn: 'Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound!'"--(Lincoln-Douglas Debate, 1858.)

"IF I MUST GO DOWN, LET IT BE LINKED TO TRUTH."

In 1856, a red-letter day in American politics, the Republican party was organized at Bloomington, Illinois, and, after his speech at the inauguration, Abraham Lincoln was hailed as the foremost of the league throughout the West. A civil war raged, as he had foretold, in Kansas, through repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and Douglas was forced to about face and actually vote, as senator in Congress against the very measures he advocated, with the Republicans. He sought reelection, and so believed he would allure them over to his side. At the Republican State Convention in June, however, Lincoln was the unanimous representative for Cook County, and he made the celebrated speech known as "The House Divided Against Itself." This discourse had been rehea.r.s.ed before his clique of friends--the men who afterward boasted that they made the President out of the "little one-horse lawyer of a little one-horse town!" They agreed that it was sound and energetic, but that it would not be politic to speak it then. The Republicans were cautious, and shrank from uniting with the advanced theorists known as the Abolitionists.

Lincoln slowly repeated the debated pa.s.sage:

"'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I will deliver it as written. I would rather be defeated with this expression in the speech than be victorious without it."

Before the persistence the advisers again implored him to moderate the lines. "It would defeat his election--it will kill the embryo party!"

and so on.

But after silent reflection, he suddenly and warmly said:

"Friends, if it must be that I must go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to truth--_die_ in the advocacy of what is right and just."

That famous utterance of what was fermenting in the great heart of the people, and which perfect oneness with it and his own, enabled him to be the touchstone of the Satan yet disguised, cleared the sky, and all saw the battle, if not the doom, of the black stain on the United States.

COME ONE, COME ALL!

On his road to inauguration, Lincoln held a reception at Chicago.

The autograph fiend was not prominent in the thick crowd, but still several little girls were pushed forward by their besieging mamas and, under pretense of one gift deserving a return, gave flowers, and the spokesgirl said as she waved a sheet of paper:

"Your name, Mr. President, please!"

"But here are several other little girls----"

"They come with me," replied the little miss, with the intention of gaining her end alone.

"Oh, then, as my signature will be little among eight--more paper!"

And he wrote a sentiment on each of eight sheets and affixed his sign manual.

a.s.sISTING THE INEVITABLE.

In 1854, the Missouri Compromise Bill of 1820, made to shut out the free States from the invasion of slavery, was repealed. The author of this yielding on a vital question to the pro-slavery party was Stephen A. Douglas, leader of the Democrats. He had been Lincoln's early friend, and they were rivals for the hand of the Miss Todd who wedded Lincoln, with spoken confidence, and woman's astonis.h.i.+ng art of reading men and the future, that he would attain a loftier station in the national Walhalla than his brilliant and more bewitching adversary. Indignant at this revoke in the great game of immunity which should have been played aboveboard, the lawyer sprang forth from his family peace and studious retirement to fall or fulfil his mission in the irrepressible conflict.

Lincoln delivered a speech at Springfield when the town was crammed by the spectators attending the State Fair. It was rated the greatest oratorical effort of his career, and demolished Douglas' political stand. The State, previously Democratic, slid upon and crushed out Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and a Whig legislature was chosen.

Having "the senators.h.i.+p in his eye," or even a dearer if not a nearer object, Lincoln resigned the seat he won in this revolutionary house.

On the other hand, a vacancy in the State senators.h.i.+p at Was.h.i.+ngton falling pat, he was set up as Whig candidate. Douglas had selected General James s.h.i.+elds, who had married Miss Todd's sister, but was as antagonistic to his brother-in-law as Douglas himself. The fight was made triangular, by the Anti-Kansas-Nebraska Bill party advancing Lyman Trumbull. Although s.h.i.+elds was not strong enough, a subst.i.tute in Governor Mattheson, "a dark horse," uncommitted to either side, came within an ace of election in the ballotage.

SELF-SACRIFICE.

Mr. Lincoln had the finished art of the politician; he had also a magnanimous heart, ready to sacrifice all personal gain to the party.

He proposed withdrawing, and throwing all his supporters' votes over to Mattheson--anything to beat Douglas! His friends resisted; he had distinguished himself sufficiently as a "retiring man" in letting Baker get the seat over his head. But he was terribly bent on this stroke of victory. He gave up the reins and, in his great self-sacrifice, pa.s.sionately exclaimed:

"It _must_ be done!"

He was said to be, then, a fatalist, and so vented this command as if he believed "What must be, must be!" unlike the doubter who said: "No!

what must be, won't be!" The Douglasites could not meet this change of base, and Trumbull became senator by the Lincolnites' coalition.

Lincoln publicly disavowed any such formal compact.

A FIGHT PROVES NOTHING.

Stung by the repet.i.tion here in the West by Horace Greeley's quip upon Douglas, whose tr.i.m.m.i.n.g lost him supporters, "He is like the man's pig which did not weigh as much as he expected, and he always knew he wouldn't," a partizan of the senator's wanted to challenge Lincoln.

The latter declared that he would not fight Judge Douglas or his second.

"In the first place, a fight would prove nothing in issue in this contest. If my fighting Judge Douglas would not prove anything, it would prove nothing for me to fight his _bottle_-holder."

(It is to be borne in mind that the senator had a high reputation as a convivial host, and the toady was believed to be his familiar --"the Bottle Imp.")

"WIN THE FIGHT, OR DIE A-TRYING."

Though Douglas had his misgivings from knowing Lincoln is "the ablest of the Republican party," he was forced by his standing and the pressure of his less dubious followers to accept the oratorical challenge of the other. The trumpeteers at once boasted the Little Giant could make small feed of the animated fence-rail. Lincoln said on the subject to Judge Beckwith, of Danville, on the eve:

"You have seen two men about to fight? Well, one of them brags about what he means to do. The other fellow, he says not a word. He is saving his wind for the fight, and as sure as it comes off, he will win it--or die a-trying!"