Chapter M: T. Johnstone, of the United States Coast Survey, wrote from (5)

Such is the testimony of a Government witness. In the face of this testimony, concurring with the reason of the case, it is hard to tolerate the allegation against these respondents founded on price. Indeed, it is hard to tolerate the allegation on any ground.

Under these seven heads, this whole case, so far as concerns the contract for tin, may be considered. It appears that the loss to the United States, from the delivery of Revely instead of what is called Banca, was not more than one hundred dollars in a mass of transactions amounting to more than one million two hundred thousand dollars; that, according to extensive and long-continued usage, Revely is included under Banca; that, according to usage at the Navy Yard, it was treated as Banca; that the whole transaction and the delivery were open and without any concealment; that Revely was actually accepted by the officers of the Government in performance of the contract; that the respondents never expected to supply other than Revely; and, lastly, that the price paid shows that Revely was intended. This is enough. I forbear to go into the evidence of founders and plumbers, derived from experience, of assayers and chemists, derived from analysis of the two tins, and also of business men, as to their comparative value,--for all this is superfluous. To charge fraud against the respondents under such circumstances is cruel, irrational, preposterous. Their conduct cannot be tortured or twisted into fraud. As well undertake to spin sunbeams into cables, or extract oil from Massachusetts granite.

It is difficult to imagine the origin of these unfortunate proceedings, which, beginning in unheard-of harshness, threaten to end in unexampled injustice, unless arrested by the President. But there are certain facts which may shed light upon some of the hidden springs. Nobody supposes that the able and candid Head of the Navy Department became acquainted with this prosecution until after it had been already conceived, shaped, and set in motion. Others in the Department used its great powers, if not for purposes of oppression, at least recklessly and unaccountably.

It appears that Franklin W. Smith, one of the respondents, published a pamphlet, in which he exposed abuses in the contract system of the Navy Department; and it is understood that sundry officials felt aggrieved by these disclosures. The spirit of these officials appears sufficiently in the following extract from a letter of a Government witness, holding an important position in the Navy Department, addressed to another witness, himself also an official.

“I have been summoned before the Select Committee of the
Senate for investigating frauds in Naval Supplies; and _if the
wool don’t fly, it won’t be my fault_. Norton, the Navy Agent,
has complained that I have interfered with his business: he and
his friend Smith are _dead cocks in the pit. We have got a sure
thing on them in the tin business._ They that dance must pay
the fiddler.”

The writer of this letter, after appearing before the Senate Committee at a later day, came on from Washington to appear before the court-martial at Charlestown as a witness against the respondents, where he underwent a cross-examination on which I forbear to comment. If the prosecution did not originate in the spirit which fills his letter, it is evident that this spirit entered into it. “If the wool don’t fly, it won’t be my fault”; “Dead cocks in the pit”; “A sure thing on them in the tin business”: such are the countersigns adopted by the agent of this dark proceeding, showing clearly two things: first, the foregone conclusion, that these respondents were to be sacrificed; and, secondly, that the case turned on “the tin business.”

It is hard that citizens enjoying a good name, who had the misfortune to come into business relations with the Government, should be exposed to such a spirit; that they should be dragged from their homes, and hurried to a military prison; that, though civilians, they should be treated as military offenders; that they should be compelled to undergo a protracted trial by court-martial, damaging their good name, destroying their peace, breaking up their business, and subjecting them to untold expense,--when, at the slightest touch, the whole case vanishes into thin air, leaving behind nothing but the incomprehensible spirit in which it had its origin.

Of course, the findings and sentence of the Court ought, without delay, to be set aside. But this is only the beginning of justice. Some positive reparation should be made to citizens who have been so deeply injured.

CHARLES SUMNER.

WASHINGTON, March 17, 1865.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

The President promptly overruled the judgment and sentence. The
result was received with manifestations of joy. The defendants,
whose cruel prosecution had been protracted for six months,
had an ovation in the congratulations of their friends and
fellow-citizens. Strangers at a distance, feeling that public
liberty had suffered through them, sent their sympathy. The
press gave expression to the prevailing sentiment. Nor was Mr.
Sumner forgotten. The defendants made haste by telegraph to
say: “Accept the lasting gratitude of Smith Brothers, their
families, and their many friends.” Others wrote in the same
spirit,--as, for instance, J. C. Hoadley, of New Bedford, who,
though not knowing the sufferers, said: “I thank you, in the
name of all fair dealing, for your opinion upon the case of
Franklin W. Smith”; and John Clark, who, having been connected
with the press in Boston, had passed into the public service,
wrote from Norfolk:--

“Will you permit me to thank you for your able exposition
of the case of the Smith Brothers? I do not know those
parties; but I am interested in public liberty, and I have
seen no abler defender of it, since the beginning of the
war, than you have shown yourself to be on this occasion. I
thank you, Sir.”

From these expressions it appears that the effort of Mr. Sumner
was regarded as not only a defence of the individual citizen,
but a contribution to good government. The testimony of Mr.
Clark was of the more value, as he had not been accustomed to
sympathize with Mr. Sumner in his public course.

* * * * *

Independent of its character, this case has an incidental
interest. It was one of the last, if not the last, having a
personal relation, that ever occupied the mind of President
Lincoln. His indorsement, overruling the judgment and sentence,
bears date March 18th. This was Saturday. Meanwhile the
Rebellion was about to fall, and the President left Washington,
by boat, Thursday, March 23d, for City Point, the headquarters
of the Army of Virginia, where he remained till after the
surrender of Richmond, returning to Washington Sunday evening,
April 9th, and being assassinated Friday evening, April 14th.

* * * * *

Some circumstances associated with this case help exhibit the
character of the President. They will be stated briefly. As
soon as Mr. Sumner had prepared his Opinion, he hurried to
the President. It was late in the afternoon, and the latter
was about entering his carriage for a drive, when Mr. Sumner
arrived with the papers in his hand. He at once mentioned the
result he had reached, and added that it was a case for instant
action. The President proposed that he should return the next
day, when he would consider it with him. Mr. Sumner rejoined,
that, in his opinion, the President ought not to sleep on
the case,--that he should interfere promptly for the relief
of innocent fellow-citizens,--and urged, that, if Abraham
Lincoln had suffered unjust imprisonment as a criminal, with
degradation before his neighbors, an immense bill of expense,
a trial by court-martial, and an unjust condemnation, he would
cry out against any postponement of justice for a single day.
The President, apparently impressed by Mr. Sumner’s earnestness
and his personal appeal, appointed eleven o’clock that evening,
when he would go over the case, and hear Mr. Sumner’s Opinion.

Accordingly, at eleven o’clock that evening, in the midst of a
thunder-storm, filling the streets with water, and threatening
chimneys, Mr. Sumner made his way to the Presidential mansion.
At the very hour named he was received, and at the request
of the President proceeded to read his Opinion. The latter
listened attentively, with occasional comments, and at the
close showed his sympathy with the respondents. It was now
twenty minutes after midnight, when the President said that
he would write his conclusion at once, and that Mr. Sumner
must come and hear it the next morning,--“when I open shop,”
said he. “And when do you open shop?” Mr. Sumner inquired.
“At nine o’clock,” was the reply. At that hour Mr. Sumner was
in the office he had left after midnight, when the President
came running in, and read at once the indorsement in his own
handwriting, as follows:--

“I am unwilling for the sentence to stand and be
executed, to any extent, in this case. In the absence
of a more adequate motive than the evidence discloses,
I am wholly unable to believe in the existence of
criminal or fraudulent intent on the part of one of such
well-established good character as is the accused. If the
evidence went as far toward establishing a guilty profit
of one or two hundred thousand dollars, as it does of one
or two hundred dollars, the case would, on the question of
guilt, bear a far different aspect. That on this contract,
involving from one million to twelve hundred thousand
dollars, the contractors should attempt a fraud which at
the most could profit them only one or two hundred, or even
one thousand dollars, is to my mind beyond the power of
rational belief. That they did not, in such a case, strike
for greater gains proves that they did not, with guilty or
fraudulent intent, strike at all. The judgment and sentence
are disapproved and declared null, and the accused ordered
to be discharged.

“A. LINCOLN.

“March 18, 1865.”

Then followed an incident as original as anything in the
life of Henry the Fourth, of France, or of a Lacedæmonian
king. As Mr. Sumner was making an abstract of the indorsement
for communication by telegraph to the anxious parties, the
President broke into quotation from Petroleum V. Nasby, and,
seeing that his visitor was less at home than himself in this
patriotic literature, he said, “I must initiate you,” and then
repeated with enthusiasm the message he had sent to the author:
“For the genius to write these things I would gladly give up
my office.” Then rising and turning to a standing-desk behind,
he opened it and took out a pamphlet collection of the letters
already published, which he proceeded to read aloud, evidently
enjoying it much. For the time he seemed to forget the case
he had just decided, and Presidential duties. This continued
more than twenty minutes, when Mr. Sumner, thinking there must
be many at the door waiting to see the President on graver
matters, took advantage of a pause, and, thanking him for the
lesson of the morning, left. Some thirty persons, including
Senators and Representatives, were in the anteroom as he passed
out.[185]

Though with the President much during the intervening days
before his death, this was the last business Mr. Sumner
transacted with him.

RESPECT FOR THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

RESOLUTION ADOPTED AT A MEETING OF SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 17, 1865.

President Lincoln breathed his last on the morning of Saturday,
April 15th. Congress not being in session, there was a meeting
of Senators and Representatives then in Washington, April
17th, at noon, when Hon. Lafayette S. Foster, President _pro
tempore_ of the Senate, was called to the Chair, and Hon.
Schuyler Colfax was chosen Secretary. Senator Foot, of Vermont,
stated the object of the meeting. On motion of Mr. Sumner, a
Committee of five from each House was ordered to report at
four o’clock, P. M., on the action proper for the meeting.
The Chair appointed Mr. Sumner, Mr. Harris, of New York, Mr.
Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, Mr. Ramsey, of Minnesota, and Mr.
Conness, of California, on the part of the Senate, also Mr.
Washburne, of Illinois, Mr. Smith, of Kentucky, Mr. Schenck, of
Ohio, Mr. Pike, of Maine, and Mr. Coffroth, of Pennsylvania,
on the part of the House of Representatives. On motion of Mr.
Schenck, the Chairman and Secretary of the meeting were added
to the Committee.

The Committee reported a list of pall-bearers for the funeral,
and also a Congressional Committee of one from each State to
accompany the remains of the late President to Illinois, which
were adopted by the meeting.

They also reported the following resolution, drawn by Mr.
Sumner, which was unanimously agreed to.

The members of the Senate and House of Representatives now assembled in Washington, humbly confessing their dependence upon Almighty God, who rules all that is done for human good, make haste, at this informal meeting, to express the emotions with which they have been filled by the appalling tragedy that has deprived the nation of its head and covered the land with mourning, and, in further declaration of their sentiments, resolve unanimously,--

1. That, in testimony of their veneration and affection for the illustrious dead, who has been permitted, under Providence, to do so much for his country and for Liberty, they will unite in the funeral services, and by an appropriate committee will accompany his remains to their place of burial in the State from which he was taken for the national service.

2. That in the life of Abraham Lincoln, who, by the benignant favor of republican institutions, rose from humble beginnings to the height of power and fame, they recognize an example of purity, simplicity, and virtue which should be a lesson to mankind; while in his death they acknowledge a martyr whose memory will become more precious as men learn to prize those principles of constitutional order, and those rights, civil, political, and human, for which he was made a sacrifice.

3. That they invite the President of the United States, by solemn proclamation, to recommend that the people of the United States should assemble on a day appointed by him, in public testimony of their grief, and to dwell on the good that has been done on earth by him we now mourn.

4. That a copy of these resolutions be communicated to the President of the United States, and also to the afflicted widow of the late President, as an expression of sympathy in her great bereavement.

RIGHT AND DUTY OF COLORED FELLOW-CITIZENS IN THE ORGANIZATION OF GOVERNMENT.

LETTER TO COLORED CITIZENS OF NORTH CAROLINA, MAY 13, 1865.

The letter to Mr. Sumner by colored citizens is the first
public expression of their interest in the suffrage. The answer
was according to the sentiments Mr. Sumner had early declared.

WILMINGTON, N. C., April 29, 1865.

HON. CHARLES SUMNER, _Washington_.

DEAR SIR,--We, the undersigned citizens, Executive Board of
the Colored Union Leagues of this city, respectfully ask
your attention to the subject of Reconstruction in this
State, and for a few plain directions in relation to a
proper stand for us to make.

We forward also a copy of the _Herald_, containing an
article on Reconstruction, which causes us much anxiety,
in connection with other facts that are constantly pressed
upon our attention in this Rebel State, although much
is said concerning its loyalty that is unreliable and
untrue. Many of us have done service for the United States
Government, at Fort Fisher and elsewhere, and we shrink
with horror at the thought that we may be left to the
tender mercies of our former Rebel masters, who have taken
the oath, but are filled with malice, and swear vengeance
against us as soon as the military are withdrawn.

We are loyal colored citizens, and strive in all things so
to conduct ourselves that no just cause of complaint may
exist, although we suffer much from the unwillingness of
the Secessionists to regard us as _freemen_, and look up
to the flag of our country with trembling anxiety, knowing
that the _franchise_ alone can give us security for the
future.

We speak with moderation and care, we lay no charges, but
we fear that an ill-judged lenity to Rebels in this State
will leave little to us and our children but the bare name
of freedmen. We remember Louisiana! Better “smash the egg”
than permit it to produce a viper.

We beg an early answer. Direct, simply, “Alfred Howe,
Wilmington, North Carolina.” Do not frank your letter: I
send a stamp. For reference, Jonathan C. Gibbs mentions
the name of Rev. H. H. Garnett, a colored Presbyterian
minister in Washington, and Hon. Judge Kelley, from
Pennsylvania.

ALFRED HOWE, _President_.
D. SADGENAR,
H. D. SAMPSON,
JONATHAN C. GIBBS,
OWEN BURNEY,
HENRY TAYLOR,
RICHARD REED.

WASHINGTON, May 13, 1865.

GENTLEMEN,--I am glad that the colored citizens of North Carolina
are ready to take part in the organization of government. It is
unquestionably their right and duty.

I see little chance of peace or tranquillity in any Rebel State,
unless the rights of all are recognized without distinction of
color. On this foundation we must build.

The article on Reconstruction to which you call my attention
proceeds on the idea, born of Slavery, that persons with a white
skin are the only “citizens.” This is a mistake.

As you do me the honor to ask me the proper stand for you to
make, I have no hesitation in replying that you must insist on
all the rights and privileges of a citizen. They belong to you.
They are yours; and whoever undertakes to rob you of them is a
usurper and impostor.

Of course you will take part in any primary meetings for
political organization, open to citizens generally, and will not
miss any opportunity to show your loyalty and fidelity.

Accept my best wishes, and believe me, Gentlemen,

Faithfully yours,

CHARLES SUMNER.

This letter was extensively circulated. The New York _Herald_
printed it in an editorial article entitled “The Chase-Sumner
Political Movement--Social War Threatened,” where it said:--

“As soon as Mr. Johnson assumed the reins of the
Government, Mr. Sumner made an effort to control his
official action and secure his assistance in carrying on
this appendix warfare to the Abolition question, and thus
plunge the country into a sanguinary social war. Finding it
impossible to draw President Johnson into his schemes, he
at once plants himself in opposition.…

“This letter, although short, is explicit and unmistakable
in its meaning. Its purpose is evident to the most
casual observer. Knowing, as he must, at the time, that
the President held that the question of conferring the
privilege of suffrage upon the colored people of the South
rested exclusively with the States, he endeavors to stir
up a feud and create a dissatisfaction among this class.
Like the speech of Chief Justice Chase, its whole tendency
is to incite the negroes to insurrection, by giving them
the impression that the Government is against them. There
is not a word in the communication counselling obedience
or respect to the laws of the Government. They ask him for
direction, and he, in response, counsels them to take part
in the organization of the Government,--that it is their
right and duty. In the face of the fact that there is no
law in their State or in the Constitution of the United
States recognizing that right, he tells them that those who
oppose them are usurpers and impostors.”

HOPE AND ENCOURAGEMENT FOR COLORED FELLOW-CITIZENS.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF “THE LEADER,” IN CHARLESTON, S. C., MAY, 1865.

The following brief note appeared in the first number of _The
Leader_, a weekly paper which began at Charleston, 1865.

I trust that you will do everything possible to arouse hope and
encouragement in the colored people. Let them know that their
friends will stand by them. All white persons who have any regard
for the Declaration of Independence ought to unite in favor of
its principles, and insist that they shall be made the foundation
of the new order of things. Courage! the cause cannot fail.

Believe me, dear Sir, faithfully yours,

CHARLES SUMNER.

PROMISES OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

EULOGY ON ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BEFORE THE MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES OF THE CITY OF BOSTON, JUNE 1, 1865.

Think nothing of me, take no thought for the political fate of
any man whomsoever, but come back to the truths that are in the
Declaration of Independence. You may do anything with me you
choose, if you will but heed these sacred principles. You may
not only defeat me for the Senate, _but you may take me and put
me to death_.--ABRAHAM LINCOLN: _Crosby’s Life of Lincoln_, p.
33.

* * * * *

They [colored people having the ballot] would probably help,
in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of Liberty in
the family of Freedom.--IBID., _Letter to Michael Hahn, of
Louisiana, March 13, 1864_: _McPherson’s Political History of
the United States during Reconstruction_, p. 20, note.

Omnia incrementa sua sibi debuit, vir novitatis
nobilissimæ.--VELLEIUS PATERCULUS, _Historia_, Lib. II. cap.
34, § 3.

* * * * *

Offensarum inimicitiarumque minime memor
executorve.--SUETONIUS, _Vespasianus_, Cap. XIV.

EULOGY

In the universe of God there are no accidents. From the fall of a sparrow to the fall of an empire or the sweep of a planet, all is according to Divine Providence, whose laws are everlasting. No accident gave to his country the patriot we now honor. No accident snatched this patriot, so suddenly and so cruelly, from his sublime duties. Death is as little an accident as life. Never, perhaps, in history has this Providence been more conspicuous than in that recent procession of events, where the final triumph is wrapped in the gloom of tragedy. It is our present duty to find the moral of the stupendous drama.

* * * * *

For the second time in our annals, the country is summoned by the President to unite, on an appointed day, in commemorating the life and character of the dead. The first was on the death of GEORGE WASHINGTON, when, as now, a day was set apart for simultaneous eulogy throughout the land, and cities, towns, and villages all vied in tribute. Since this early observance for the Father of his Country more than half a century has passed, and now it is repeated in tribute to ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Thus are WASHINGTON and LINCOLN associated in the grandeur of their obsequies. But this association is not accidental. It is from the nature of things, and because the part Lincoln was called to perform resembled in character the part performed by Washington. The work left undone by Washington was continued by Lincoln. Kindred in service, kindred in patriotism, each is surrounded in death by kindred homage. One sleeps in the East, the other sleeps in the West; and thus, in death, as in life, one is the complement of the other.

The two might be compared after the manner of Plutarch; but it must suffice for the present to glance only at points of resemblance and of contrast, so as to recall the parts they respectively performed.

Each was head of the Republic during a period of surpassing trial; and each thought only of the public good, simply, purely, constantly, so that single-hearted devotion to country will always find a synonym in their names. Each was national chief during a time of successful war. Each was representative of his country at a great epoch of history. Here, perhaps, resemblance ends and contrast begins. Unlike in origin, conversation, and character, they were unlike also in the _ideas_ they served, except as each was servant of his country. The war conducted by Washington was unlike the war conducted by Lincoln, as the peace which crowned the arms of the one was unlike the peace which began to smile upon the other. The two wars did not differ in scale of operations and in tramp of mustered hosts more than in the ideas involved. The first was for National Independence; the second was to make the Republic one and indivisible, on the indestructible foundation of Liberty and Equality. The first cut the connection with the mother country, and opened the way to the duties and advantages of Popular Government; _the second will have failed, unless it consummates all the original promises of the Declaration our fathers took upon their lips when they became a Nation_. In the relation of cause and effect the first was natural precursor and herald of the second. National Independence became the first epoch in our history, whose mighty import was exhibited when Lafayette boasted to the First Consul of France, that, though its battles were but skirmishes, they decided the fate of the world.[186]

The Declaration of our fathers, entitled simply “The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America,” is known familiarly as the Declaration of Independence, because the remarkable words with which it concludes made independence the final idea, to which all else was tributary. Thus did the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled solemnly publish and declare “that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; … and for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” To sustain this mutual pledge Washington drew his sword and led the national armies, until at last, by the Treaty of Peace in 1783, Independence was acknowledged.

Had the Declaration been confined to this pledge, it would have been less grand. Much as it might have been to us, it would have been less of a warning and trumpet-note to the world. There were two other pledges it made. One was proclaimed in the designation “United States of America,” which it adopted as the national name; and the other was proclaimed in those great words, fit for the baptismal vows of a Republic,--“We hold these truths to be self-evident: _that all men are created equal_; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, _deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed_.” By the sword of Washington Independence was secured; but the Unity of the Republic and the principles of the Declaration were left exposed to question. From that early day, through various chances, they were assailed and openly dishonored, until at last the Republic was constrained to take up arms in their defence. And yet, since enmity to the Union proceeded entirely from enmity to the great ideas of the Declaration, history must record that the question of the Union itself was absorbed in the grander conflict to uphold the primal truths our fathers had solemnly proclaimed.

Such are the two great wars where these two chiefs bore each his part. Washington fought for National Independence, and triumphed, making his country an example to mankind. Lincoln drew a reluctant sword to save those great ideas, essential to the life and character of the Republic, which unhappily the sword of Washington failed to put beyond the reach of assault.

By no accident did these two great men become representatives of their country at these two different epochs, so alike in peril, and yet so unlike in the principles involved. Washington was the natural representative of National Independence. He might also have represented National Unity, had this principle been challenged to bloody battle during his life; for nothing was nearer his heart than the consolidation of our Union, which, in his letter to Congress transmitting the Constitution, he declares to be “the greatest interest of every true American.”[187] Then again, in a remarkable letter to John Jay, he plainly says that he does “not conceive we can exist long as a nation without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner as the authority of the State governments extends over the several States.”[188] But another person was needed, of different birth and simpler life, to represent the ideas now impugned.

Washington was of ancient family, traced in English heraldry. Some of his ancestors sleep in close companionship with the noble name of Spencer. By inheritance and marriage he was rich in lands, and, let it be said in respectful sorrow, rich also in slaves, so far as slaves breed riches rather than curses. At the age of fourteen he refused a commission as midshipman in the British Navy. At the age of nineteen he was Adjutant General, with the rank of major. At the age of twenty-one he was selected by the British Governor of Virginia as Commissioner to the French posts. At the age of twenty-two he was at the head of a regiment, and was thanked by the House of Burgesses. Early in life he became an observer of form and ceremony. Always strictly just, according to prevailing principles, and at his death ordering the emancipation of his slaves, he was more a general and statesman than philanthropist; nor did he seem inspired, beyond the duties of patriotism, to active sympathy with Human Rights. In the ample record of what he wrote or said there is no word of adhesion to the great ideas of the Declaration. Such an origin, such an early life, such opportunities, such a condition, such a character, were all in contrast with the origin, early life, opportunities, condition, and character of him we commemorate to-day.

* * * * *

Abraham Lincoln was born, and, until he became President, always lived in a part of the country which at the period of the Declaration of Independence was a savage wilderness. Strange, but happy, Providence, that a voice from that savage wilderness, now fertile in men, was inspired to uphold the pledges and promises of the Declaration! The Unity of the Republic, on the indestructible foundation of Liberty and Equality, was vindicated by the citizen of a community which had no existence when the Republic was formed.

His family may be traced to Quaker stock in Pennsylvania, but it removed first to Virginia, and then, as early as 1780, to the wilds of Kentucky, which at that time was only an outlying territory of Virginia. His grandfather and father both lived in peril from Indians, and the former perished by their knife. The future President was born in a log-house. His mother could read, and perhaps write. His father could do neither, except so far as to sign his name rudely, like a noble of Charlemagne. Trial, privation, and labor entered into his early life. Only at seven years of age, for a very brief period, could he enjoy school, carrying with him Dilworth’s Spelling-Book, one of the three volumes that formed the family library. Shortly afterwards his father turned his back upon that Slavery which disfigured Kentucky, and with his poor effects and the future chief-magistrate set his face towards Indiana, already guarded against Slavery by the famous Northwestern Ordinance. Reaching the chosen home in a land of Liberty, the son, who was less than eight years old, aided his father in building a shelter of poles, fastened together by notches, and filled in with mud. This preceded the log cabin, where for twelve years afterwards he grew in character and knowledge, as in stature, learning to write as well as read, and especially enjoying Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Æsop’s Fables, Weems’s Life of Washington, and the Life of Henry Clay. At the age of ten he lost his mother. At the age of nineteen he became a hired hand, at eight dollars a month, on a flatboat laden with stores for plantations on the Mississippi, and in this way floated on that lordly river to New Orleans, little dreaming that only a few years later iron-clad navies would at his command float on that same proud stream. Here also was he learner. From the slaves he saw on the banks he took a lesson of Liberty, which gained new charms by comparison with Slavery.

In 1830 the father removed to Illinois, transporting his goods in a wagon drawn by oxen, and the future President, then twenty-one years of age, drove the team. Another cabin was built in primitive rudeness, and the future President split the rails to inclose the lot. In our history these became classical, and the name of rail-splitter more than the degree of a college,--not that the splitting of rails is any way meritorious, but because the people are proud to trace aspiring talent back to humble beginnings, and they found in this tribute new opportunity to vindicate the dignity of free labor, and repel the insolent pretensions of Slavery.

His youth was now spent, and at the age of twenty-one he left his father’s house to begin the world. A small bundle, a laughing face, and an honest heart,--these were his simple possessions, together with that unconscious character and intelligence which his country learned to prize. In the long history of worth depressed there is no instance of such contrast between the depression and the triumph,--unless, perhaps, his successor as President may share with him this distinction. No academy, no university, no Alma Mater of science or learning nourished him. No government took him by the hand and gave him the gift of opportunity. No inheritance of land or money fell to him. No friend stood by his side. He was alone in poverty: and yet not all alone. There was God above, who watches all, and does not desert the lowly. Plain in person, life, and manners, and knowing absolutely nothing of form or ceremony, for six months with a village schoolmaster as his only teacher, he grew up in companionship with the people, with Nature, with trees, with the fruitful corn, and with the stars. While yet a child, his father had borne him away from a soil wasted by Slavery, and he was now citizen of a Free State, where Free Labor had been placed under safeguard of irreversible compact and fundamental law. And thus he took leave of youth, happy at least that he could go forth under the day-star of Liberty.

The early hardships were prolonged into manhood. He labored on a farm as hired hand, and then a second time in a flatboat measured the winding Mississippi to its mouth. At the call of the Governor of Illinois for troops against Black Hawk, the Indian chief, he sprang forward with patriotic ardor, most prompt to enlist at the recruiting station in his neighborhood. The choice of his associates made him captain. After the war he became surveyor, and to his death retained a practical and scientific knowledge of this business. Here again was a parallel with Washington. In 1834 he was elected to the Legislature of Illinois, and three years later was admitted to the practice of the law. He was now twenty-eight years old, and, under the benignant influence of republican institutions, he had already entered upon the double career of lawyer and legislator, with the gates of the mysterious Future slowly opening before him.

How well he served in these two characters I pause not to tell. It is enough, if I exhibit the stages of advance, that you may understand how he became representative of his country at so grand a moment. It is needless to say that his opportunities of study as a lawyer were small, but he was industrious in each individual case, and thus daily added to his stores of professional experience. Faithful in all things, most conscientious in conduct at the bar, so that he could not be unfair to the other side, and admirably sensitive to the behests of justice, so that he could not argue on the wrong side, he acquired a name for honesty, which, beginning with the community where he lived, became proverbial throughout his State,--while his genial, mirthful, overflowing nature, apt at anecdote and story, made him, where personally known, a favorite companion. His opinions on public questions were formed early, under the example and teaching of Henry Clay, and he never departed from them, though constantly tempted, or pressed by local majorities, in the name of a false democracy. It is interesting to know that thus early he espoused those two ideas which entered so largely into the terrible responsibilities of his last years,--I mean the Unity of the Republic, and the supreme value of Liberty. He did not believe that a State, in its own mad will, had a right to break up this Union. As reader of Congressional speeches, and student of what was said by the political teachers of that day, he was no stranger to those marvellous efforts of Daniel Webster, when, in reply to the treasonable pretensions of Nullification, the great orator of Massachusetts asserted the indestructibility of the Union, and the folly of those who assail it. On the subject of Slavery, he had the experience of his own family and the warnings of his own conscience. Naturally, one of his earliest acts in the Legislature of Illinois was a protest in the name of Liberty.

At a later day, he was in Congress for a single term, beginning in December, 1847, being the only Whig Representative from Illinois. His speeches during this brief period have the characteristics of his later productions. They are argumentative, logical, and spirited, with quaint humor and sinewy sententiousness. His votes were constant against Slavery. For the Wilmot Proviso he voted, according to his own statement, “in one way and another, about forty times.” His vote is recorded against the pretence that slaves are property under the Constitution. From Congress he passed again to his profession. The day was at hand, when all his powers, enlarged by experience and quickened to highest activity, would be needed to repel that haughty domination already overshadowing the Republic.

The next field of conflict was in his own State, with no less an antagonist than Stephen A. Douglas, at that time in alliance with the Slave Power. The too famous Kansas and Nebraska Bill, introduced by the latter into the Senate, assumed to set aside the venerable safeguard of Freedom in the territory west of Missouri, under pretence of allowing the inhabitants “to vote Slavery up or to vote it down,” and this barbarous privilege was called by the fancy name of Popular Sovereignty. The champion of Liberty did not hesitate to denounce this most baleful measure in a series of popular addresses, where truth, sentiment, humor, and argument all blended. As the conflict continued, he was brought forward for the Senate against its able author. The debate that ensued is one of the most memorable in our political history, whether we consider the principles involved or the way it was conducted.

It commenced with a close, well-woven speech from the Republican candidate, showing insight into the actual condition of things, in which were these memorable words: “‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.”[189] Here was the true starting-point. Only a few days before his death, in reply to my inquiry, if at the time he had any doubt about this declaration, he said, “Not in the least. It was clearly true, and time has justified me.” With like plainness he exposed the Douglas pretence of Popular Sovereignty as meaning simply, “that, if any _one_ man choose to enslave _another_, no _third_ man shall be allowed to object,”[190] and he announced his belief in the existence of a conspiracy to perpetuate and nationalize Slavery, of which the Kansas and Nebraska Bill and the Dred Scott decision were essential parts. Such was the character of this debate at the beginning, and so it continued on the lips of our champion to the end.

The inevitable topic to which he returned with most frequency, and to which he clung with all the grasp of his soul, was _the practical character of the Declaration of Independence in announcing the Liberty and Equality of all Men_. No idle words were there, but substantial truth, binding on the conscience of mankind. I know not if this grand pertinacity has been noticed before; but I deem it a duty to declare that to my mind it is by far the most important incident of that controversy, and perhaps the most interesting in the biography of the speaker. Nothing previous to his nomination for the Presidency is comparable to it. Plainly his whole subsequent career took impulse and complexion from that championship. And here, too, is our first debt of gratitude. The words he then uttered live after him, and nobody now hears how he then battled without feeling a new motive to fidelity in support of Human Rights.

As early as 1854, in a speech at Peoria against the Kansas and Nebraska Bill, after denouncing Slavery as a “monstrous injustice,” which “enables the enemies of free institutions to taunt us as hypocrites,” and “causes the real friends of Freedom to doubt our sincerity,” he complains especially that “it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves _into open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticizing the Declaration of Independence_.”[191] Thus, according to him, criticism of the Declaration was the climax of infidelity as citizen.

Mr. Douglas opened the debate, on his side, at Chicago, July 9, 1858, by a speech, where he said, among other things, “I am opposed to negro equality. I repeat, that this nation is a white people.… I am opposed to taking any step that recognizes the negro man or the Indian as the equal of the white man. I am opposed to giving him a voice in the administration of the Government.”[192] Thus was the case stated for Slavery.

To this speech the Republican candidate replied promptly, and did not forget his championship. Quoting the great words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” he proceeds:--

“That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the
hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will
link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom
exists in the minds of men throughout the world.… I should
like to know, if, taking this old Declaration of Independence,
which declares that all men are equal, upon principle, and
making exceptions to it, where will it stop? If one man says
it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean
some other man? If that Declaration is not the truth, let us
get the statute-book in which we find it and tear it out. Who
is so bold as to do it? If it is not true, let us tear it out.
[_Cries of “No, no!”_] _Let us stick to it, then; let us stand
firmly by it, then._”

Noble utterance, worthy of perpetual memory! And he finished his speech with a farewell truly apostolic:--

“I leave you, hoping that the lamp of Liberty will burn in your
bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are
created free and equal.”[193]

He has left us now, and for the last time. I catch the closing benediction of that speech, already sounding through the ages like a choral harmony.

The debate continued from place to place. At Bloomington, July 16th, Mr. Douglas denied again that colored persons could be citizens, and then broke forth upon the champion:--

“I will not quarrel with Mr. Lincoln for his views on that
subject. I have no doubt he is conscientious in them. I have
not the slightest idea but that he conscientiously believes
that a negro ought to enjoy and exercise all the rights and
privileges given to white men; but I do not agree with him.…
_I believe that this government of ours was founded on the
white basis._ I believe that it was established by white men.…
I do not believe that it was the design or intention of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence or the framers of
the Constitution to include negroes, Indians, or other inferior
races, with white men, as citizens.… _He wants them to vote.
I am opposed to it. If they had a vote, I reckon they would
all vote for him in preference to me, entertaining the views I
do._”[194]

Then again at Springfield, the next day, Mr. Douglas repeated his denial that the colored man was embraced by the Declaration, and thus argued for the exclusion:--

“Remember that at the time the Declaration was put forth, every
one of the Thirteen Colonies were slaveholding colonies,--every
man who signed that Declaration represented slaveholding
constituents. Did those signers mean by that act to charge
themselves and all their constituents with having violated the
law of God in holding the negro in an inferior condition to
the white man? And yet, if they included negroes in that term,
they were bound, as conscientious men, that day and that hour,
not only to have abolished Slavery throughout the land, _but to
have conferred political rights and privileges on the negro,
and elevated him to an equality with the white man_.… The
Declaration of Independence only included the white people of
the United States.”[195]

On the same evening, at Springfield, the Republican candidate, while admitting that negroes are not “our equal in color,” thus again spoke for the comprehensive humanity of the Declaration:--

“_I adhere to the Declaration of Independence. If Judge
Douglas and his friends are not willing to stand by it, let
them come up and amend it. Let them make it read, that all men
are created equal except negroes._ Let us have it decided,
whether the Declaration of Independence, in this blessed year
of 1858, shall be thus amended. In his construction of the
Declaration last year, he said it only meant that Americans
in America were equal to Englishmen in England. Then, when I
pointed out to him that by that rule he excludes the Germans,
the Irish, the Portuguese, and all the other people who
have come amongst us since the Revolution, he reconstructs
his construction. In his last speech he tells us it meant
Europeans. I press him a little further, and ask if it meant
to include the Russians in Asia. Or does he mean to exclude
that vast population from the principles of our Declaration
of Independence? I expect erelong he will introduce another
amendment to his definition. He is not at all particular.… _It
may draw white men down, but it must not lift negroes up._”[196]

Words like these are gratefully remembered. They make the Declaration, what the Fathers intended, no mean proclamation of oligarchic egotism, but a charter and freehold for all mankind.

At Ottawa, August 21st, Mr. Douglas, still excluding the colored men from the Declaration, exclaimed:--

“I believe this Government was made on the white basis. I
believe it was made by white men, for the benefit of white men
and their posterity forever.”[197]

Again the Republican champion took up the strain.

“Henry Clay once said of a class of men who would repress
all tendencies to Liberty and ultimate Emancipation, that
they must, if they would do this, go back to the era of our
Independence, and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual
joyous return,--they must blow out the moral lights around
us,--they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate there
the love of Liberty; and then, and not till then, could they
perpetuate Slavery in this country. To my thinking, Judge
Douglas is, by his example and vast influence, doing that
very thing in this community, when he says that the negro has
nothing in the Declaration of Independence.”[198]

At Jonesboro’, September 15th, Mr. Douglas once more assailed the rights of the colored race.

“I am aware that all the Abolition lecturers that you find
travelling about through the country are in the habit of
reading the Declaration of Independence to prove that all men
were created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. Mr. Lincoln is very much in the habit
of following in the track of Lovejoy in this particular,
by reading that part of the Declaration of Independence to
prove that the negro was endowed by the Almighty with the
inalienable right of equality with white men. Now I say to you,
my fellow-citizens, that, in my opinion, the signers of the
Declaration had no reference to the negro whatever, when they
declared all men to be created equal.”[199]

At Galesburg, October 7th, his faithful opponent answered:--

“The Judge has alluded to the Declaration of Independence, and
insisted that negroes are not included in that Declaration, and
that it is a slander upon the framers of that instrument to
suppose that negroes were meant therein; and he asks you, Is it
possible to believe that Mr. Jefferson, who penned the immortal
paper, could have supposed himself applying the language of
that instrument to the negro race, and yet held a portion of
that race in slavery? Would he not at once have freed them? I
only have to remark upon this part of the Judge’s speech, that
I believe the entire records of the world, from the date of the
Declaration of Independence up to within three years ago, may
be searched in vain for one single affirmation from one single
man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration. And I
will remind Judge Douglas and this audience, that, while Mr.
Jefferson was the owner of slaves, as undoubtedly he was, in
speaking upon this very subject, he used the strong language,
that ‘he trembled for his country when he remembered that God
was just.’”[200]

And at Alton, October 15th, he renewed this same testimony.

“I assert that Judge Douglas and all his friends may search
the whole records of the country, and it will be a matter of
great astonishment to me, if they shall be able to find that
one human being three years ago had ever uttered the astounding
sentiment that the term ‘all men’ in the Declaration did not
include the negro. Do not let me be misunderstood. I know that
more than three years ago there were men, who, finding this
assertion constantly in the way of their schemes to bring about
the ascendency and perpetuation of Slavery, denied the truth
of it. I know that Mr. Calhoun, and all the politicians of his
school, denied the truth of the Declaration. I know that it
ran along in the mouth of some Southern men for a period of
years, ending at last in that shameful, though rather forcible,
declaration of Pettit, of Indiana, upon the floor of the United
States Senate, that the Declaration of Independence was, in
that respect, ‘a self-evident lie,’ rather than a self-evident
truth. But I say, with a perfect knowledge of all this hawking
at the Declaration without directly attacking it, that three
years ago there never had lived a man who had ventured to
assail it in _the sneaking way of pretending to believe it, and
then asserting it did not include the negro_.”[201]

In another speech, during the same political contest, the champion spoke immortal words. After setting forth the sublime opening of the Declaration by our fathers, he said:--

“This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the
universe. This was their lofty and wise and noble understanding
of the justice of the Creator to His creatures,--yes,
Gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of
man.”

Then, lifted by his cause, he appealed to his fellow-countrymen in tones of pathetic eloquence:--

“Think nothing of me, take no thought for the political fate
of any man whomsoever, but come back to the truths that are in
the Declaration of Independence. You may do anything with me
you choose, if you will but heed these sacred principles. You
may not only defeat me for the Senate, _but you may take me and
put me to death_. While pretending no indifference to earthly
honors, I do claim to be actuated in this contest by something
higher than an anxiety for office. I charge you to drop every
paltry and insignificant thought for any man’s success. It is
nothing. I am nothing. Judge Douglas is nothing. _But do not
destroy that immortal emblem of humanity, the Declaration of
American Independence_.”[202]

Thus, at that early day, before war had overshadowed the land, was he ready for the sacrifice. “Take me and put me to death,” said he, “but do not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity, the Declaration of American Independence.” He has been put to death by the enemies of the Declaration; but, though dead, he will continue to guard that great title-deed of the human race.