Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  The moral need not be insisted on, and this instance is not out of the order of Abraham Lincoln’s whole life. That the old neighbors and friends of such a man should regard him with an affection and faith little short of man-worship, is the logical result of a life singularly pure, and an integrity without flaw.

  CHAPTER IV.

  IT is seen that Abraham Lincoln was first elected to a seat in the Legislature, in 1834, in the face of the unpopularity of his political principles, by a larger vote than that given to any other candidate. As a legislator he served his constituents so well that he was three times afterward returned to his place; in 1836, in 1838, and in 1840. He then terminated his legislative career by a positive refusal to be again a candidate.

  The period embraced by the eight years in which Lincoln represented Sangamon county, was one of the greatest material activity in Illinois. So early as 1820, the young State was seized with the “generous rage” for public internal improvements, then prevalent in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and in its sessions for a score of succeeding years, the Legislature was occupied by the discussion of various schemes for enhancing the prosperity of the State. The large canal uniting the waters of Lake Michigan and the Illinois river was completed at a cost of more than eight millions. By a Board of Commissioners of Public Works, specially created, provisions were made for expensive improvements of the rivers Wabash. Illinois. Rock, Kaskaskia, and Little Wabash, and the great Western mail route from

  Vincennes to St. Louis. Under the charge of the same Board, six railroads connecting principal points were projected, and appropriations made for their completion at an immense outlay.

  One effect of a policy so wild and extravagant was to sink the State in debt. Another was to attract vast immigration, and fill up her broad prairies with settlers. Individuals were ruined; the corporate State became embarrassed; but benefits have resulted in a far greater degree than could have been hoped when the crash first came. It is not yet time to estimate the ultimate good to be derived from these improvements, though the immediate evil has been tangible enough.

  The name of Abraham Lincoln is not found recorded in favor of the more visionary of these schemes; but he has always favored public improvements, and his voice was for whatever project seemed feasible and practical. During his first term of service, he was a member of the Committee on Public Accounts and Expenditures. He voted for a bill to incorporate agricultural societies; for the improvement of public roads; for the incorporation of various institutions of learning; for the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal; he always fostered the interests of public education, and favored low salaries for public officials. In whatever pertained to the local, benefit of his own county, he was active and careful; but his record on this subject is of little interest to the general reader. — .

  Lincoln’s voice was ever for measures that relieved the struggling poor man from pecuniary or political difficulties; he had himself experienced these difficulties. He therefore supported resolutions for the removal of the property qualification in franchise, and for the granting of pre-emption rights to settlers on the public lands. He was the author of a measure permitting Revolutionary pensioners to loan their pension money without taxation. He advocated a bill exempting from execution Bibles, school-books, and mechanics’ tools.

  His first recorded vote against Stephen A. Douglas, was on ‘the election of that politician to the Attorney-Generalship by the Legislature.

  He twice voted for the Whig candidates for the United States Senate. Otherwise than in the election of Senators, State Legislatures were not then occupied with national affairs, and it is difficult to find anything in Mr. Lincoln’s legislative history which is of great national interest. There were no exciting questions, and Mr. Lincoln’s speeches were few and brief. (A protest from Mr. Lincoln appears on the journal of the House, in regard to some resolutions which had passed. In this protest he pronounces distinctly against slavery, and takes the first public step toward what is now Republican doctrino.) He was twice the candidate (in 1838 and 1840) of the Whig minority for Speaker of the House.

  In 1836, when Lincoln was first re-elected to the Legislature, Sangamon county, then of greater geographical importance than now, was represented by nine members, no one of whom was less than six feet in height — several of them considerably exceeding that altitude. This immensity of stature attracted attention, and the Sangamon members were at once nicknamed The Long-Nine, They” were genial, hearty-humored fellows, famous whittiers, and distinguished spinners of yarns. They all boarded at the same place, and being of gregarious habits, spent their evenings together. Lincoln was the favorite of the circle; admired for his gift of storytelling, and highly esteemed for his excellent qualities of head and heart, his intellectual shrewdness, his reliability, his good-nature, and generosity. The Illinois Legislature then held its sessions at Vandalia, and Lincoln used to perform his journeys between New Salem and the seat of government on foot, though the remaining eight of the Long-Nine traveled on horseback.

  A pleasant story connected with this part of his political career is related by Hon. John H. Stuart. Lincoln and Stuart were both candidates for the Legislature in 1834. Stuart’s election was conceded, while that of Lincoln was thought to be comparatively uncertain. The two candidates happened to be present together at a back-woods frolic, when some disaffected of Stuart’s party took Lincoln aside, and offered to withdraw votes enough from Stuart to elect him. He rejected the proposal, and at once disclosed the scheme to Stuart, declaring that he would not make such a bargain for any office.

  It is by such manly and generous acts that Lincoln has endeared himself to all his old neighbors. It maybe said of him without extravagance that he is beloved of all — even by those against whose interests he has conscientiously acted. When in the practice of the law he was never known to undertake a cause which he believed founded in wrong and injustice. “You are not strictly in the right,” he said to a person who once wished him to bring a certain suit, and who now tells the story with profound admiration. “I might give the other parties considerable trouble, and perhaps beat them at law, but there would be no justice in it. I am sorry — I can not undertake your case.”

  “I never knew Lincoln to do a mean act in his life,” said Stuart, the veteran lawyer, who first encouraged Lincoln to adopt his profession. “God never made a finer man,” exclaimed the old backwoods-man, Close, when applied to for reminiscences of Lincoln. So by the testimony of all, and in the memory of every one who has known him, Lincoln is a pure, candid, and upright man, unblemished by those vices which so often disfigure greatness, utterly incapable of falsehood, and without one base or sordid trait.

  During the Legislative canvass of 1834, John D. Stuart advised Lincoln to study law, and after the election he borrowed some of Stuart’s books, and began to read. Other warm and influential friends, (Wm. Butler, the present Treasurer of State in Illinois, was one of these,) came to Lincoln’s material aid and encouragement, and assisted him to retrieve his early errors of generosity. With the support of these friends — for

  Lincoln is a man “who could receive benefits as nobly as be conferred them — and the slender revenues of his surveyorship, he struggled through the term of his law studies, and was admitted to the bar in 1836. Business flowed in upon him, and quitting New Salem, he took up his residence at Springfield, where he united his professional fortunes with those of Major Stuart. The two old friends remained in partnership until Stuart’s election to Congress, by which time Lincoln had elevated himself to a position among the first lawyers of the place. In the midst of affairs, however, he never relaxed his habits of study; taking up, one by one, the natural sciences, and thoroughly acquainting himself with the abstruses! metaphysics. He remains to this day a severe and indefatigable student — never suffering any subject to which he directs his attention, to pass without profound investigation.

  CHAPTER V.

  WE now find Abraham Lincoln beginning
to assume an active part in the political affairs of Illinois.

  He is known to the Whigs throughout the State, and his general popularity is as great as the esteem and regard in which he is held by those personally acquainted with him.

  The talented young Whig has founded his reputation upon qualities that make every man proud to say he is the friend of Lincoln.

  No admirer, who speaks in his praise, must pause to conceal a stain upon his good name. No true man falters in his affection at the remembrance of any mean action or littleness in the life of Lincoln.

  The purity of his reputation, the greatness and dignity of his ambition, ennoble every incident of his career, and give significance to all the events of his past.

  It is true that simply to have mauled rails, and commanded a flat-boat, is not to have performed splendid actions. But the fact that Lincoln has done these things, and has risen above them by his own force, confers a dignity upon them; and the rustic boy, who is to be President in 1900, may well be consoled and encouraged in his labors when he recalls these incidents in the history of one whose future once wore no brighter aspect than his own wears now.

  The emigrant, at the head of the slow oxen that drag his household gods toward the setting sun — toward some Illinois yet further west — will take heart and hope when he remembers that Lincoln made no prouder entrance into the State of which he is now the first citizen.

  The young student, climbing unaided up the steep ascent — he who has begun the journey after the best hours of the morning are lost forever — shall not be without encouragement when he finds the footprints of another in the most toilsome windings of his path.

  Lincoln’s future success or unsuccess can affect nothing in the past. The grandeur of his triumph over all the obstacles of fortune, will remain the same. Office can not confer honors brighter than those he has already achieved; it is the Presidency, not a great man, that is elevated, if such be chosen chief magistrate.

  We have seen that, in 1842, he declines re-election to the State Legislature, after eight years’ service in that body. He has already been on the Harrison electoral ticket, and has distinguished himself in the famous canvass of 1840.

  But it is not as a politician alone, that Lincoln is heard of at this time. After Stuart’s election to Congress has dissolved their connection; Lincoln forms a partnership with Judge Logan, one of the first in his profession at Springfield, and continues the practice of the law, with rising repute.

  His characteristics as an advocate, are an earnestness and sincerity of manner, and a directness, conciseness, and strength of style; ho appeals, at other times, to the weapons of good-humored ridicule as ably as to the heavier arms of forensic combat. He is strongest in civil cases, but in a criminal cause that enlists his sympathy he is also great. It is then that the advocate’s, convictions, presented to the jury in terse and forcible, yet eloquent language, sometimes outweigh the charge of the judge. Juries listen to him, and concur in his arguments; for his known truth has preceded his arguments, and he triumphs. There may be law and evidence against him, but the belief that Lincoln is right, nothing can shake in the minds of those who know the man.

  He prepares his cases with infinite care, when he has nothing but technical work before him. The smallest detail of the affair does not escape him. All the parts are perfectly fitted together, and the peculiar powers of his keen, analytic mind are brought into full play. He has not the quickness which characterizes Douglas, and which is so useful to the man who adventures in law or politics. But he is sufficiently alert, and recovers himself in time to achieve success.

  Lincoln does not grow rich at the law, and has not grown rich to this day, though possessing a decent competence, and owing no man anything. Poor men, who have the misfortune to do with courts, come to Lincoln, who has never been known to exact an exorbitant fee, and whose demands are always proportioned to their poverty. There is record of a case which he gained for a young mechanic, after carrying it through three courts, and of his refusal to receive more than a comparative trifle in return.

  Meantime, in the year 1842, Lincoln married a woman worthy to be the companion of his progress toward honor and distinction. Miss Mary Todd, who became his wife, is the daughter of Robert Todd, of Lexington, Kentucky, a man well known in that State, and formerly the clerk of the lower House of Congress. At the time of her marriage, Miss Todd was the belle of Springfield society — accomplished and intellectual, and possessing all the social graces native in the women of Kentucky. (Three living sons are the children of this marriage; the first of whom was born in 1843, the second in 1850, and the third in 1853. Another son, who was born in 1846, is now dead.)

  If, at this point of his career, Lincoln looked back over his past life with proud satisfaction, his feeling was one in which every reader, who has traced his history, must sympathize.

  It was hardly more than a half-score of years since he had entered Illinois, driving an ox-wagon, laden with the “plunder” of a backwoods emigrant. He was utterly unknown, and without friends who could advance him in any way. He was uneducated, and almost unlettered.

  In ten years he had reversed all the relations of his life. No man had now more friends among all classes of people. No man among his neighbors had a wider intelligence, or more eager and comprehensive mind. No man of his age stood better in his profession, or in politics. No one was in a fairer road to happiness and success. And all this had been accomplished through his own exertion, and the favor which his many noble traits awakened in those around him.

  He might well exult in view of all that had been, and all that was.

  But, however this may have been, Lincoln did not pause to exult. He exulted in full career; for already the great battle of 1844 was approaching, and he was to take a prominent part in the contest. Many of the people of Illinois have distinct recollection of the brilliant debates which he conducted with Calhoun and Thomas, and these are loth to concede that they have ever been surpassed. The debaters met in all the principal cities and towns of that State, and afterward carried the war into Indiana.

  It may be supposed that the fortunes of the war varied, but there are popular stories related of these encounters that give rather amusing results of one of Lincoln’s frequent successes.

  The contest turned upon the annexation of Texas, to which measure Lincoln was opposed, in proportion as he loved and honored Henry Clay. It has been said that no man ever had such friends as Clay possessed. It may be said that he never possessed a friend more ardent, attached, and faithful than Abraham Lincoln. Throughout that disastrous campaign of 1844, Lincoln was a zealous and indefatigable soldier in the Whig cause. His name was on the electoral ticket of Illinois, and he shared the defeat of his gallant leader — a defeat which precipitated the Mexican war, with its attendant evils, and the long train of dissensions, discords, and pro-slavery aggressions which have followed.

  In the lull which comes after a Presidential battle, Lincoln, while mingling in State politics, devoted himself more particularly to professional affairs, though he continued an enemy to the Mexican war, and his election to Congress in 1846, took place in full view of this enmity. It is worthy of note, in this connection, that he was the only Whig elected in Illinois at that time.

  CHAPTER VI.

  THE period over which Lincoln’s Congressional career extends, is one of the most interesting of our history.

  Mr. Polk’s favorite scheme of a war of glory and aggrandizement, had been in full course of unsatisfactory experiment. Our little army in Mexico had conquered a peace as rapidly as possible. The battles of Palo Alto, Reseca de la Palma, Monterey, Buena Vista, Cerro Gordo, and the rest, had been fought to the triumph and honor of the American arms. Everywhere, the people had regarded these successes with patriotic pride. They had felt a yet deeper interest in them because the volunteer system had taken the war out of the hands of mercenaries, and made it, in some sort, the crusade of Anglo-Saxon civilization and vigor against the semi-barbari
sm and effeteness of the Mexican and Spanish races.

  Yet, notwithstanding the popular character thus given to the army, the war itself had not increased in popularity. People, in their sober second thought, rejected the specious creed, “Our country, right or wrong,” and many looked forward earnestly and anxiously to a conclusion of hostilities.

  The elections of Congressmen had taken place, and in the Thirtieth Congress, which assembled on the 6th of December, 1847, the people, by a majority of seven Whigs in the House, pronounced against the war, though hardly more than a year had elapsed since their Representatives, by a vote of one hundred and twenty-two to fourteen, had declared war to exist through the act of Mexico. — .

  In those days, great men shaped the destinies of the nation. In the Senate sat Clay, Calhoun. Benton, Webster, Corwin. In the House were Palfrey, Winthrop, Wilmot, Giddings, Adams.

  The new member from Illinois, who had distinguished himself in 1SI4 as the friend of Clay and the enemy of Texan annexation, took his seat-among these great men as a representative of the purest Whig principles; he was opposed to the war, as Corwin was; he was antislavery, as Clay was; he favored internal improvements, as all the great Whigs did.

  And as Abraham Lincoln never sat astride of any fence, unless in his rail-splitting days; as water was never carried on both of his square shoulders; as his prayers to Heaven have never been made with reference to a compromise with other powers; so, throughout his Congressional career, you find him the bold advocate of the principles which he believed to be right. He never dodged a vote. He never minced matters with his opponents. He had not been fifteen days in the House when he made known what manner of man he was.