"Familiarize yourself with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them."
In pioneer days it was very common for individuals to conclude any personal controversy by resort to the settlement of "fist and skull,"
and, on the far frontier of the Wild West, the convincing evidence that brought peace was often the quickest and most skillful use of the gun.
We are now in that pioneer day and wild-west age of nations whose "fist and skull" arguments and wild-west "gun-play" must end. This is what Lincoln thought of it in the midst of the Civil War. It was written to the Springfield convention.
"Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that among freemen there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such an appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost."
It is interesting here, as he came up out of the darkness into the dawn of his supreme humanity, to know what the greatest men of his times thought of him, when that great day of human service closed down over him, in the martyrdom of a.s.sa.s.sination. It is not eulogy, but an estimate of values in a personality, and as appreciation of righteousness exalting a man into an ideal of his age.
Lord Beaconsfield, addressing the House of Commons, said, "In the life of Lincoln there is something so homely and so innocent that it takes the subject, as it were, out of the pomp of history, and out of the ceremonial of diplomacy. It touches the heart of nations, and appeals to the domestic sentiments of mankind."
John Stuart Mill, one of the most distinguished philosophers of the last century, speaks in his writings of Lincoln as "The great citizen who afforded so n.o.ble an example of the qualities befitting the first magistrate of a free people, and who, in the most trying circ.u.mstances, won the admiration of all who appreciate uprightness and love freedom."
D"Aubigne, the historian of the Reformation, wrote,
"While not venturing to compare him to the great sacrifice of Golgotha, which gave liberty to the captive, is it not just to recall the word of the apostle John (I John 3:16): "Hereby perceive we the love of G.o.d, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." Among the legacies which Lincoln leaves to us, we shall all regard as the most precious his spirit of equity, of moderation, and of peace, according to which he will still preside, if I may so speak, over the destinies of your great nation."
IV. THE BEGINNINGS OF GREAT TRAGEDY
As we all now know, there was never a more fearless man than Abraham Lincoln, but so bitter and so threatening were his enemies that it was believed by his friends that the Presidency should not be endangered by taking any chances as to his a.s.sa.s.sination on the way to Washington, for his inauguration. Open boasts were widely made that he would never be inaugurated. a.s.sa.s.sination was especially threatened if he should pa.s.s through Baltimore, and it was thought best by the managers of his transportation that it should not be known when he pa.s.sed through Baltimore.
Evidence was uncovered that a band of sworn a.s.sa.s.sins, headed by a man calling himself Orsini, was to throw the train from the track somewhere between Philadelphia and Baltimore, and then do their monstrous deed. If this failed, they were to mingle with the crowds about the carriage and at the first chance a.s.sa.s.sinate him, by discharging pistols at him and then throwing hand grenades. In the confusion they expected to make their escape to a vessel awaiting them in the harbor.
The plot was defeated by the managers of the journey sending Lincoln back to Philadelphia from Harrisburg, while all who might be watching him as spies for the plotters thought him to be asleep in a Harrisburg hotel. At Philadelphia he was placed on board a night train for Washington, where he arrived safely the next morning.
It was here at Baltimore, where there was such opposition to the preservation of the Union, that a delegation was some time later sent to Lincoln, demanding that no more troops pa.s.s through Maryland.
Lincoln replied that the troops had to go to their destination, and, since they could neither go under nor over Maryland, they would have to go through it. Another delegation demanded that all hostilities should cease, and the controversy be left in the hands of Congress, otherwise seventy-five thousand men would oppose any more troops going through Maryland.
President Lincoln a.s.sured them that hostilities would not cease until the rebellion was ended, and that he supposed they had room on the soil of Maryland to bury seventy-five thousand men.
This unequivocal language ended such conferences and deputations.
These stupendous difficulties crowding upon Lincoln in the opening of the war, the opposition of powerful men, and the chaos into which the country had been thrown by the slavery agitation are subjects for political history, and were the trying out of the great soul which seemed to have been built up for that purpose from every experience in the living of men.
General Scott had charge of the inaugural ceremonies and the baffled conspirators, scattered by the police, left their hideous work to be done for a no less monstrous purpose four years later.
V. THE LIFE STRUGGLE OF A MAN TRANSLATED INTO THE LIFE STRUGGLE OF A NATION
Lincoln, in his speeches before the beginning of the war, cleared the public mind as to the fundamental issues and made it plain that the first sublime task was to save the Union. In a vague manner all men knew that the establishment of a national slave-labor absolutism in the South meant the development of an aristocratic slave-made oligarchy that would cause perpetual war, or, otherwise, bring about the slave-holding mastery of America. Perhaps no clearer ill.u.s.tration of his mission, as he saw it, is in evidence than may be taken from one of the many characteristic incidents. While en route to Washington for his first inauguration the train conveying Mr. Lincoln came to a temporary stop at Dunkirk, N. Y., and an old farmer in the crowd surrounding the train shouted:
"Mr. Lincoln, what are you going to do when you get to Washington?"
Reaching for one of the little flags that decorated the train, he held it aloft and said:
"By the help of Almighty G.o.d and the a.s.sistance of the loyal people of this country I am going to uphold and defend the Stars and Stripes."
The preservation of the Union, regardless of all the turmoil and clamor on other issues, was the one clear-sighted object of Lincoln.
It is quite true that up to the beginning of the war there was little sentiment in the North for the abolition of slavery. It was the beginning of war that crystalized resentment against slave-holding power, because it was thus capable of destroying the union in the furtherance of its own dominion. But never was a nation more divided into mutually injurious confusions. It is always so in democracies where every one thinks, talks and acts. Authority was regarded as tyrannical and Lincoln soon became widely berated as a despot. But his patience and devotion never swerved. He had already experienced the life-long lessons of holding true. The situation is well represented in the way General McClellan treated Lincoln. He began to show contempt for his commander-in-chief by causing Lincoln to wait outside like any other caller, and once he went to bed ignoring Lincoln"s call.
General McClellan seemed to believe himself so much greater than Lincoln that he more and more publicly ignored the President. When the mistreatment became notorious, Lincoln replied, "I will hold McClellan"s horse if he will only bring success."
"On to Richmond," was the cry of the nation, but McClellan remained preparing in what was bitterly called "masterly inactivity."
Lincoln said one day sadly, "McClellan is a great engineer, but his special talent is for a stationary engine."
One of the popular songs of the time, reflecting the bitterness of the seemingly interminable delay, has for its first and last stanzas the following:
"All quiet along the Potomac, they say, Except now and then a stray picket Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro, By a rifleman hid in the thicket.
"His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim, Grows gentle with memories tender, As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep, For their mother, may Heaven defend her."
Washington"s struggle and patience against adversities and confusions, through his long career as leader in the making of the Union, was doubtless an ever present example and consolation to Lincoln in the no less stupendous task of preserving the Union.
Laboulaye, the French Statesman says, "History shows us the victory of force and stratagem much more than of justice, moderation and honesty.
It is too often only the apotheosis of triumphant selfishness. There are n.o.ble and great exceptions; happy those who can increase the number, and thus bequeath a n.o.ble and beneficent example to posterity.
Mr. Lincoln is among these. He would willingly have repeated, after Franklin, that "falsehood and artifice are the practice of fools, who have not wit enough to be honest." All his private and all his political life was inspired and directed by his profound faith in the omnipotence of virtue."
VI. SOME HUMAN INTERESTS MAKING LIGHTER THE BURDENS OF THE TROUBLED WAY
Great minds always see a ridiculous aspect in the midst of every human crisis, even as Franklin did in the signing of the Declaration of Independence when he said, "We must all hang together or we will all hang separately."
The President on a certain occasion was feeling very ill and he sent for the doctor, who came and told him that he had a very mild form of smallpox.
"Is it contagious?" he asked.
"Yes, very contagious," replied the doctor.
A visitor was present who was very anxious to be appointed to a certain office. On hearing what the doctor said, the visitor hastily arose.
"Don"t be in a hurry, sir," said Lincoln, as if very well intentioned toward him.
"Thank you, sir, I"ll call again," said the retreating office seeker, as he vanished through the door.
"Some people," said Lincoln, laughing at the hurried exit of his friend, "do not take kindly to my Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation, but now I am happy to believe I have something that everybody can take."
Once, when Charles Sumner called upon him, he found Lincoln blacking his boots.
"Why, Mr. President," he exclaimed, "do you black your own boots?"
With a vigorous rub of the brush, the President replied,
"Whose boots did you think I blacked?"