This will act as a prelude to examining Lincoln’s political career from the Nebraska watershed of 1854 to his celebrated debates with Stephen Douglas in 1858. Lincoln never felt the politically destabilizing power of public opinion more intensely during his Illinois career than in the mid-1850s, when the state’s popular revolt over Kansas-Nebraska seriously wounded the Democrats, while the concerns of nativists made it improbable that the Whigs—as Whigs—would be able to seize the initiative. Lincoln himself would have an influential role in the interplay between public opinion and party agenda-setting, and in the stuttering emergence of a new anti-Nebraska, antislavery coalition. The experience left him well placed in 1858 to make a second bid for election to the United States Senate, now as a Republican. His first attempt, three years earlier, had been played out within the precincts of the state legislature, but now he was able, uniquely for the era, to take his candidacy directly to the people. He won the popular vote (though not, given the vagaries of outdated apportionment, the seat) after a campaign in which a speaker at the height of his rhetorical power succeeded in giving ordinary citizens a sense of their extraordinary moral duty to sustain his vision for the future of the American republic.
LINCOLN, DEMOCRATIC POLITICS, AND PUBLIC OPINION
Lincoln’s thoughts on democratic politics and on the role of opinion were shaped by his experience of living and working in small western villages and towns, most numbering only a few hundred inhabitants; even Springfield, the new state capital, had a population of no more than twenty-five hundred in the mid-1840s. These were face-to-face communities where people felt especially close to the institutions of government and to those who represented them. They prided themselves on their democratic faith and practice. Lincoln took the common view that the people were sovereign and that American government rested on public opinion. Even the most capable of public officers, he noted in 1850, “are wholly inefficient and worthless, unless they are sustained by the confidence and devotion of the people.” Public sentiment might sometimes be wrong but, as he insisted in his Peoria speech, “A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded.” He would later declare, “In this age, and this country, public sentiment is every thing. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions.”2
Early in his career Lincoln followed the fashion of promising obedience to the popular will. Standing for reelection to the state legislature in 1836 he told his Sangamon constituents that he would be “governed by their will, on all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what their will is; and upon all others, I shall do what my own judgment teaches me will best advance their interests.” But before long he shed this doctrine of “instruction” and the idea that the politician was mainly a mouthpiece for the views of his constituents. Instead he came to work by the rule that public sentiment was to some degree plastic and that elected representatives had the power to shape it, as well as the moral responsibility to improve it. Opinion-forming was the most potent of all the politician’s activities, for it provided the means of changing the government. Just as moral individuals could construct their own character and transform themselves, so public opinion was susceptible to education and redirection, through the efforts of teachers, ministers of religion, and elected representatives. In his Lyceum speech of 1838, as elsewhere, he celebrated the power of lucidity, logic, and reason to speak to the intelligence, self-respect, and moral sense of the people. At the same time, pointing to the lessons of history and alarmed by the mobs that scarred the face of Jacksonian society, he warned against the arrival of some demagogic genius able to enchant a populace that had exchanged “sober judgement” for “wild and furious passions.”3
Lincoln’s preference for swaying opinion by reasoned argument rather than by feeding prejudice remained a constant of his political career. It contributed to his protest over the resolutions of the Illinois General Assembly on slavery in 1837, when he refused to succumb to the visceral anti-abolitionism of most of his colleagues. It separated him from panicking nativists and fellow Whigs during the fever of anti-Catholic rioting and church-burning in Philadelphia in 1844, when his Springfield resolutions against the proscription of foreigners earned him the respect of leading Democrats. It informed his opposition to the Mexican War, which he argued had originated in Americans’ territorial avarice (reminding him of the western farmer who said, “I am not greedy about land; I only want what jines mine”), and had been sustained by false patriotism and a willful blindness to the fact of Polk’s aggression. It would become even more self-conscious in his speeches after 1854: while Stephen Douglas played on white Illinoisans’ deep racial fears to protect himself from the anti-Nebraska reaction, Lincoln appealed chiefly to their sense of justice and loyalty to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, and castigated Democrats for striving to “cultivate and excite hatred and disgust” against the black population. Lincoln was no saint, was careful not to move too far ahead of opinion, and did fall into demagoguery at times. But Trumbull was off-target in describing him as “a follower not a leader in public affairs.” The admiring Carl Schurz—contrasting Lincoln’s “candid truth-telling and grave appeals to conscience” with Douglas’s use of the “arts of the demagogue . . . to befog the popular understanding”—was nearer the mark when he judged that Lincoln “was not a mere follower of other men’s minds, not a mere advocate and agitator, but a real leader.”4
That Lincoln held to this approach was a measure not only of his sense of duty toward the Founding Fathers but of a well-judged confidence in his ability to connect with the public. Only once in his political career did he lose an election when his name was on the ballot, and that was at his first attempt for office, in 1832. Even then he ran well, and in his own precinct of New Salem, where he was best known, he won by an encouraging 227 votes to 3. Thereafter he built an ever wider constituency of admirers and never lost his enormous popularity during his years in Illinois politics.
The power of Lincoln’s personal appeal can be variously explained, but it clearly owed much to his common touch. Despite his personal flight from the land, he never lost that rapport with country folk that his upbringing in Kentucky and Indiana had fashioned, and which the mix of social backgrounds and classes in New Salem did little to erode. He kept the pronunciation and accent of his native state. As an increasingly successful Springfield lawyer, his tours of the Eighth Judicial Circuit brought him regularly into contact with the ordinary farming folk, artisans, tradesmen, and merchants who made up the juries, thronged the courthouses, and clustered at the hotels. For some lawyers, professional success meant removal to the bustle of Chicago, but Lincoln turned down a partnership there at the end of his term in Congress, according to Judge David Davis, so that he might stay close to the people he knew and loved in the central counties. Of his years in New Salem it was said that his fondness for conversation and visiting had made him known to every man, woman, and child for miles around, and it is clear that his later work as a traveling lawyer, allied to his memory for names, gave many central Illinoisans a sense that he recognized them personally. Lincoln was entirely alert to the political benefits of projecting his humble origins, but this did not mean that there was anything contrived about his interest in the common folk. He empathized with those who were, as he had been, struggling self-improvers; he had, in Joseph Gillespie’s words, a deep faith “in the honesty & good sense of the masses.” Lincoln had dignity, considerable reserve, few real intimates, and a proper sense of the private: as John G. Nicolay and John Milton Hay, his White House secretaries, later remarked, in personal relations with him “there was a line beyond which no one ever thought of passing.” But he was hardly aloof. He cultivated no airs and graces. In the words of a fellow lawyer, “in the ordinary walks of life [he] did not appear the ‘great man,’ that he really was.”5
Lincoln was sharply aware o
f the figure he cut. His unprepossessing appearance and physical attributes did much to reinforce his appeal as a man close to the sons of the soil. Gangling and ill-proportioned as a boy, Lincoln turned into what Joshua Speed rather brutally described as “a long, gawky, ugly, shapeless, man.” His angular, leathery face, crowned with wiry hair, usually unkempt, was probably better described as plain, not ugly, and would indeed “brighten like a lit lantern” with the animation of conversation and infectious laughter. But Lincoln certainly described himself as ugly and used his appearance as a weapon against himself, for humorous effect. It was less his height that merited special comment—though at six foot four he was exceptionally tall for his time—than the extraordinary proportions of his long legs, large feet, and, most remarkable of all, his arms. When he stood straight, with his arms at his sides, and his shoulders in their customary droop, the tips of his fingers reached nearly three inches lower than on the normal adult frame. Whether or not, as one observer claimed, Lincoln’s enormous, bony hands resulted from wielding a heavy, cumbersome ax throughout his formative years, there is no doubt that his early regimen helped make him formidably strong. His physical prowess set him apart in New Salem, where a legendary wrestling match with the leader of a group of local rowdies, the Clary’s Grove Boys, won him the admiration of all; that same reputation played its part in winning him his militia captaincy in 1832, and later, as a campaigning politician, helped him see off bullies bent on intimidating voters. Lincoln’s attire only complemented the picture of an unaffected man of the people. Never the dapper politician, he was essentially inattentive to what he wore. His trousers were invariably too short, sometimes verging on the ludicrous. In his debates with Douglas he usually wore a linen coat but no stylish vest, or waistcoat, over his shirt. His brown hat was as faded as his ever-present green cotton umbrella.6
Lincoln used his great gifts in storytelling and humor to reinforce his folksiness, whether amongst the knots of men who gathered informally outside neighborhood stores and on courthouse steps, or at set-piece political rallies. He had excelled in telling anecdotes and cracking jokes since boyhood, and the practice became an important part of his professional repertoire. Few could match him for the sheer number and pertinence of the humorous tales with which he illustrated almost any topic. “The application was always perfect,” Joseph Gillespie recalled, “and his manner of telling a story was inimitable although there was no acting in his manner. . . . [H]ow he could gather up such a boundless supply & have them ever ready at command was the wonder of all his acquaintences.” The stories often operated didactically, as parable, explanation, and analogy. Though his early political opponents scolded him for a sort of “assumed clownishness,” his humor really did little if anything to compromise his essential dignity. Generally devoid of malice and sarcasm, and rarely made at anyone’s expense, his jokes and anecdotes left no trail of wounded feelings and political bitterness. Many of Lincoln’s friends detected in him an underlying sadness and reserve, which set limits to his sociability, but few would have dissented from Mentor Graham’s claim that thanks to his lively conversation he was “one of the most companiable persons you will ever see in this world.”7
The rapport that Lincoln enjoyed with his public was enhanced by his reputation for honest dealing. The nickname “honest Abe” was not the fabrication of party publicists but a mark of the universal respect in which he was held as a lawyer of scrupulous honesty. This reputation spilled into the political arena, where he was widely perceived as just and fair-minded in debate, and averse to gaining an advantage by foul means. A Springfield colleague, Turner R. King, summarized his political speeches as “candid—fair—honest—courteous,” thus alluding to another source of public admiration, his avoidance of anger and his preference for tolerant debate. “I never in my life saw him out of humor,” recalled the Petersburg lawyer Nathaniel W. Branson. Hill Lamon knew differently (sometimes, he said, Lincoln “would burst out”), but he, too, agreed that Lincoln was in most circumstances good-humored.8
Many thought Lincoln handicapped in some ways as an orator. His voice was unmusical and high-keyed. Early in a speech, before he warmed up, it was “shrill-squeaking-piping, unpleasant,” according to Herndon, who was not alone in alluding to its shrillness. Carl Schurz, another admirer, found his gestures awkward: “He swung his long arms sometimes in a very ungraceful manner. Now and then he would, to give particular emphasis to a point, bend his knees and body with a sudden downward jerk, and then shoot up again with a vehemence that raised him to his tip-toes and made him look much taller than he really was.” But these were scarcely disabling features. Many judged his gestures “striking and original,” not awkward, while his voice had great carrying power and reached to the extremities of even the largest crowd. Lincoln suffered none of the vocal strain that afflicted Stephen Douglas’s rich baritone during their joint debates.9
Lincoln’s power over his audiences derived far less from his physical attributes than from the clarity and directness with which he appealed to their understanding. Taking pains to provide cogent explanations of complex or obscure subjects had been a hallmark of his youth. Anna C. Gentry, who was acquainted with Lincoln during his years in Indiana, remembered how, as “the learned boy among us unlearned folks,” he patiently explained to her the movement of the earth, the moon, and the planets. Preparing his addresses, whether to juries or to political rallies, he devoted enormous attention to making himself understood by all, however poorly educated. He spoke extemporaneously, though he prepared notes for the most important of his speeches, and used the clearest, simplest language. It was this concern for clarity that chiefly prompted his anecdotes, not merriment for its own sake. Observing his developing rhetorical control over a period of three decades, Joseph Gillespie recognized that Lincoln “confined himself to a dry bold statement of his point and then worked away with sledge hammer logic at making out his case.” When the young New Englander Edward L. Pierce encountered Lincoln for the first time, in Chicago in the mid-1850s, he was powerfully struck with the Illinoisan’s “logical and reflective power, and the absence of all attempt throughout his speech to produce a sensational effect.” Pierce considered this an unusual style for the West, but failed to notice how much Lincoln had learned from the “frontier utilitarianism” of his idol, Henry Clay.10
Lincoln especially admired what he called Clay’s “great sincerity and thorough conviction . . . of the justice and importance of his cause.” He was far less enamored of the “florid and exuberant rhetoric” of a Daniel Webster or the declamatory style of an Edward Everett, both widely esteemed as political orators. As Gillespie said, he “despised ornament or display.” What made his speeches compelling was a lawyer’s mode of analysis allied to a Clay-like earnestness. His oratory fell into the “forensic” category of Whig rhetoric, typified by historical review, the examination of precedents, close questioning, and the call to arms against an identified threat. Having heard him many time before a jury, Judge Thomas Drummond remarked that when thoroughly roused Lincoln “would come out with an earnestness of conviction, a power of argument, a wealth of illustration, that I have never seen surpassed.” It was an earnestness which could build to impassioned eloquence.11
As one of his party’s most effective speakers, Lincoln found himself called on regularly to take the stump during state and national canvasses, whether or not he was a candidate for office himself. He first made his mark as a self-composed, assured, often humorous speaker in Sangamon County in the boisterous campaign of 1836. The year of his arrival in the front rank, though, was 1840, when he survived the disfavor into which the Springfield junto had fallen amongst rank-and-file Whigs. Hurt, like his fellow leaders, by the internal improvements issue, Lincoln feared he would be punished by the county nominating convention, which was dominated by delegates from the country areas. But his value as a talented and entertaining stump speaker overrode other considerations. He not only secured his renomination to the state legis
lature but won appointment as a Whig presidential elector. In both the rumbustious Log Cabin campaign of that year and the Clay-Polk canvass four years later, Lincoln spoke far and wide, notably in the southern parts of the state, where he could address his fellow Kentuckians in their own accents.12 It was an enjoyable role, one he performed energetically and well. As well as giving many more people the opportunity to see a rising star, it allowed Lincoln to deepen his knowledge of public opinion in a state where evolving patterns of immigration, settlement, and economic development were creating a variety of political subcultures.
LINCOLN’S ILLINOIS: CULTURAL REGIONS AND THE DEBATES OF 1858
“Yankees” originating from New England and New York dominated the area of settlement around the Chicago hub. The area of southern cultural dominance was in its lower reaches (“Egypt”), settled by Tennesseeans and Carolinians in particular; Kentuckians predominated farther north. Settlers from Ohio and Pennsylvania most influenced the culture of the intermediate “midlands” region. [Source: Kenneth J. Winkle, The Young Eagle: The Rise of Abraham Lincoln (Dallas: Taylor, 2001), pp. 23–25.]
Almost four hundred miles in length from its northern boundary to its southern tip, Illinois was typical of the then Northwest in its broad patterns of settlement. As in Indiana and Ohio, its northern counties attracted migrants from New England and the wider Northeast, though at the time of Lincoln’s arrival, in 1830, that region was still in essence a wilderness. In the southern and central counties, poor white pioneers from Kentucky, Virginia, and the border slave states had developed an economy that mixed subsistence, primitive barter, and a limited circulating currency; some of them had tried, and just failed, to introduce slavery into the new state. They were, in Governor Thomas Ford’s description, “a very good, honest, kind, hospitable people, unambitious of wealth, and great lovers of ease and social enjoyment.” The arrival of free-state immigrants into the northern prairies and the area around Lake Michigan gave rise to a profound clash of cultures. Southerners treated the northern farmers and merchants—much wealthier, more enterprising—with great suspicion, judging that the “genuine Yankee was a close, miserly dishonest, selfish getter of money, void of generosity, hospitality, or any of the kindlier feelings of human nature.” Closely related to this was their conviction that all easterners were covert abolitionists, a judgment reinforced by the advance of radical antislavery parties in Chicago and its surrounding counties in the 1840s and 1850s. For their part, northerners regarded the southerner as “a long, lank, lean, lazy, and ignorant animal, but little in advance of the savage state; one who was content to squat in a log-cabin, with a large family of ill-fed and ill-clothed, idle, ignorant children.” Such stereotypes profoundly affected political stances. Southerners, for instance, opposed the building of a canal from Lake Michigan to the Illinois River “for fear it would open a way for flooding the State with Yankees.” One Jacksonian bitterly complained that “the Yankees spread everywhere.” He expected them to overrun Illinois, for they “could be found in every country on the globe.”13
Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power Page 8