Alger Horatio Jr.
The Backwoods Boy
CHAPTER XV
MR. LINCOLN’S FAMILY
When Mr. Lincoln’s first Congressional term expired, he declined to be a candidate for re-election. He was a delegate to the convention that nominated General Taylor for the Presidency, and did what he could to bring about his election. He would have preferred Henry Clay, who was unquestionably far more fit for the position of Chief Magistrate, being an experienced statesman, while Taylor was only a rough soldier; but availability then, as now, controlled the choice of conventions, and Clay was laid aside, failing, like Webster, to reach the Presidency.
My young readers are aware that President Taylor died about a year after his inauguration, and was succeeded by Millard Fillmore, the Vice-President. Mr. Fillmore offered Lincoln the position of Governor of Oregon, then a Territory. The offer was considered, and might have been accepted but for the opposition of Mrs. Lincoln, who naturally objected to going so far from home and friends. So, for the time, Mr. Lincoln retired from politics, though he by no means ceased to feel an interest in the state of the country. He, like other sagacious statesmen, saw that slavery was to be the rock in the way of national harmony, and we are told by Mr. Lamon, that when coming home to Springfield from the Fremont Court in company with Mr. Stuart, he said: “The time will come when we must all be Democrats or Abolitionists. When that time comes my mind is made up. The slavery question can’t be compromised.”
About this time his father, who had lived to see the first political success of his son, was drawing near the end of his life. His latter years had been made comfortable by the pecuniary help freely tendered by his son, who gave, but not out of his abundance. Anxious that his father should have every comfort which his case required, he wrote the following letter, which I quote, because it illustrates not only his solicitude for his family, but also exhibits his faith in his Maker:
“Springfield, January 12, 1851.
“Dear Brother – On the day before yesterday I received a letter from Harriet, written at Greenup. She says she has just returned from your house, and that father is very low, and will hardly recover. She also says that you have written me two letters, and, although I have not answered them, it is not because I have forgotten them, or not been interested about them, but because it appeared to me I could write nothing which could do any good. You already know that I desire that neither father nor mother shall be in want of any comfort, either in health or sickness, while they live; and I feel sure you have not failed to use my name, if necessary, to procure a doctor or anything else for father in his present sickness. My business is such that I could hardly leave home now, if it were not, as it is, that my own wife is sick-a-bed.
“I sincerely hope father may yet recover his health; but, at all events, tell him to remember to call upon and confide in our great and good and merciful Maker, who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of a sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our heads; and He will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in him. Say to him that, if we could meet now, it is doubtful whether it would not be more painful than pleasant, but that, if it be his lot to go now, he will soon have a joyous meeting with loved ones gone before, and where the rest of us, through the help of God, hope ere long to join him.
“Write me again when you receive this.
“Affectionately,“A. Lincoln.”
The money expended for his father and mother we may be sure that Mr. Lincoln gave cheerfully, and I should have a very poor opinion of him if it were otherwise; but he was also called upon to assist another member of the family who was far less deserving. His step-brother, John Johnston, was a rolling-stone, idle, shiftless, and always hard up. I am going to quote here the greater part of a letter written to this step-brother, because it contains some very practical advice, which most of my young readers will not need, but it may fall under the eye of some one who will be benefited by it. It appears that John had made application for a loan of eighty dollars. Mr. Lincoln writes:
“Your request for eighty dollars I do not think it best to comply with now. At the various times when I have helped you a little, you have said to me, ‘We can get along very well now’; but in a very short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now this can only happen by some defect in your conduct; what that defect is, I think I know. You are not lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether, since I saw you, you have done a good whole day’s work in any one day. You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much, merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it. This habit of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; and it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should break the habit. It is more important to them because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it easier than they can get out after they are in.
“You are now in need of some money; and what I propose is, that you should go to work ‘tooth and nail’ for somebody who will give you money for it. Let father and your boys take charge of things at home, prepare for a crop, and make the crop, and you go to work for the best money, wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get; and, to secure you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you that, for every dollar you will, between this and the first of next May, get for your own labor, either in money or your own indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for your work. In this I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines in California; but I mean for you to go at it for the best wages you can get close to home, in Coles County. Now, if you will do this, you will be soon out of debt, and, what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting into debt again. But, if I should now clear you out of debt, next year you would be just as deep in as ever. You say you would almost give your place in heaven for seventy or eighty dollars. Then you value your place in heaven very cheap; for I am sure you can, with the offer I make, get the seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months’ work. You say, if I will furnish you the money, you will deed me the land, and, if you don’t pay me the money back, you will deliver possession. Nonsense! If you can’t now live with the land, how will you then live without it? You have always been kind to me, and I do not mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more than eighty times eighty dollars to you.”
This was certainly excellent advice, and the offer was a kind and generous one. But it does not seem to have convinced the one who received it, for we find him nursing plans of emigration. Shiftless people are very apt to think they can earn a living away from home better than at home. But the trouble is in themselves, not in their surroundings. Abraham Lincoln finds it necessary, under date of November 4, 1851, to combat this fancy of his step-brother. I shall not apologize for copying a second letter, and I hope all my young readers will carefully read and consider it.
“When I came into Charleston day before yesterday, I learned that you are anxious to sell the land where you live, and move to Missouri. I have been thinking of this ever since, and can not but think such a notion is utterly foolish. What can you do in Missouri better than here? Is the land any richer? Can you there, any more than here, raise corn and wheat and oats without work? Will anybody there, any more than here, do your work for you? If you intend to go to work, there is no better place than right where you are; if you do not intend to go to work you can not get along anywhere.
“Squirming and crawling about from place to place can do no good. You have raised no crop this year; and what you really want is to sell the land, get the money, and spend it. Part with the land you have, and my life upon it, you will never after own a spot big enough to bury you in. Half you will get for the land you will spend in moving to Missouri, and the other half you will eat and drink and wear out, and no foot of land will be bought. Now, I feel it is my duty to have no hand in such a piece of foolery. I feel that it is so even on your own account, and particularly on mother’s account. The eastern forty acres I intend to keep for mother while she lives; if you will not cultivate it, it will rent for enough to support her; at least it will rent for something. Her dower in the other two forties she can let you have, and no thanks to me. Now, do not misunderstand this letter; I do not write it in any unkindness – I write it, in order, if possible, to get you to face the truth, which truth is, you are destitute because you have idled away all your time. Your thousand pretences for not getting along better are all nonsense: they deceive nobody but yourself. Go to work is the only cure in your case.”
Nothing can be plainer, or more in accordance with common sense than this advice. Though it was written for the benefit of one person only, I feel that I am doing my young, and possibly some older, readers a service in transferring it to my pages, and commending them to heed it. In my own experience, which is by no means exceptional, I have known many who have been willing to move anywhere, and make any change, for the chance of earning a living more easily. About thirty years ago, a great wave of emigration flowed toward the far Pacific, and men of all callings and professions, including not a few college graduates, put on the miner’s humble garb and delved for gold among the mountains and by the river-courses of California. Some came back rich, but in many cases had they been willing to work as hard and live as frugally at the East, they would have fared as well. In this case, perhaps, it was as well to remove where the incentives to work overcame their natural indolence, and awakened their ambition.
In this country, fortunately, there are few places where an industrious man can not get a living, if he is willing to accept such work as falls in his way. This willingness often turns the scale, and converts threatening ruin into prosperity and success. Some years since, I made one of the passengers in a small steamer on Puget Sound. My attention was drawn to a young man, apparently about twenty, who was accompanied by his wife and two young children. They were emigrating from Indiana, I believe. He was evidently an industrious man, and his brown face and hands spoke of labor in the field, and under the summer sun. I entered into conversation, and my new acquaintance told me with perfect cheerfulness that when he arrived at Seattle, he would have just ten dollars left, to keep himself and family till he could secure work.
“How should I feel,” I could not help asking myself, “if I were placed in similar circumstances, though I had myself only to provide for?”
Yet the young man appeared quite undisturbed. He had faith in himself, and in Providence, and borrowed no trouble. I have no doubt he found something to do before his money gave out. He was not one of that shiftless and restless class to whom it is very clear Mr. Lincoln’s step-brother belonged. Such men thrive in a new country, and make a living anywhere.
CHAPTER XVI
THE SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN
Mr. Lincoln had served a term in the House of Representatives with credit to himself and profit to the country. He was regarded as a rising man, and every year made him more prominent. It is not strange that his ambition should have coveted a seat in the Senate. In 1855 he was a candidate before the Legislature to succeed General Shields, but, failing to get the required number of votes, he counselled his friends to vote for Judge Trumbull, who was elected. It was a personal disappointment, for he wished to be Senator, but in the end it proved to his advantage. A seat in the Senate would have stood in the way of his later triumph, and some one else in all probability would have been nominated and elected President of the United States in 1860.
I have already spoken of Mr. Lincoln’s opposition to slavery. He was not an extreme man, and he was never classed with the Abolitionists – that intrepid band who worked early and late, and for years almost without hope, against the colossal system of wrong whose life seemed so entwined with the life of the republic that it looked as if both must fall together. Abraham Lincoln moved slowly. He was not an impulsive man, but took time to form a determination. Even in the war there were many who blamed him for what appeared to be his slowness, but after a while they were led to see that if slow he was sure, and struck only when the time had come.
The ten years before the war were years of political commotion. The “irrepressible conflict” between slavery and the spirit of freedom had commenced, and Abraham Lincoln arrayed himself among the champions of freedom. There was a desperate struggle to introduce slavery into the Territories, so that in course of time more slave States might be added to the Union, and thus the slave system might be strengthened and continue to retain the political ascendency it had possessed for years. The rapid growth of the free Northwest alarmed the slave power, and a counterpoise was required. Northern statesmen who cherished an ambition to be President had notice served upon them that they must help the slave power or forfeit its support. Among those who weakly yielded to this arrogant demand was Stephen A. Douglas. He favored the principle of “squatter sovereignty,” permitting the inhabitants of any Territory to establish slavery within its limits if so disposed. In the year 1854, Mr. Lincoln, in a public debate with Mr. Douglas held at Springfield at the State fair, used this significant language:
“My distinguished friend says it is an insult to the emigrants to Kansas and Nebraska to suppose they are not able to govern themselves. We must not slur over an argument of this kind because it tickles the ear. It must be met and answered. I admit that the emigrant to Kansas and Nebraska is able to govern himself, but,” the speaker rising to his full height, “I deny his right to govern any other person WITHOUT THAT PERSON’S CONSENT.”
This was but a preliminary skirmish. Four years later came the memorable series of debates between Lincoln and Douglas, each being the nominee of his party for the United States Senate. The platform on which Lincoln stood contained two significant planks, and these furnished the key-note for the speeches called forth by the campaign. I quote them both, and I hope that my young friends will not skip them.
“3. The present administration has proved recreant to the trusts committed to its hands, and by its extraordinary, corrupt, unjust, and undignified exertions, to give effect to the original intention and purpose of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, by forcing upon the people of Kansas against their will, and in defiance of their known and earnestly-expressed wishes, a constitution recognizing slavery as one of their domestic institutions, it has forfeited all claim to the support of the friends of free men, free labor, and free rights.”
“5. While we deprecate all interference on the part of political organizations with the action of the Judiciary, if such action is limited to its appropriate sphere, yet we can not refrain from expressing our condemnation of the principles and tendencies of the extra judicial opinions of a majority of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States in the matter of Dred Scott, wherein the political heresy is put forth that the Federal Constitution extends slavery into all the Territories of the republic, and so maintains it that neither Congress nor people, through their territorial legislature, can by law abolish it. We hold that Congress possesses sovereign power over the Territories while they remain in a territorial condition, and that it is the duty of the General Government to protect the Territories from the curse of slavery, and to preserve the public domain for the occupation of free men and free labor. And we declare that no power on earth can carry and maintain slavery in the States against the will of the people and the provisions of their constitutions and laws; and we fully endorse the recent decision of the Supreme Court of our own State which declares ‘that property in persons is repugnant to the Constitution and laws of Illinois, and that all persons within its jurisdiction are supposed to be free; and that slavery, where it exists, is a municipal regulation without any extra territorial operation.’ ”
With the other points of difference we are not concerned. Whether slavery should or should not be allowed to extend its blight over the virgin soil of the new Territories, and thus make its final extinction well-nigh impossible: that was the all-important issue, and not Illinois alone, but the country at large, was profoundly interested in the arguments of the two contestants.
Which was likely to win?
It might have been supposed at the outset that Lincoln would find himself overmatched. He was hardly known outside his own State, though he had served two years in Congress. Douglas was a statesman of national reputation. For fifteen years he had been in the thick of the conflict. He was a recognized leader of his party, and already he was looked upon as a probable President at no distant period. In scholastic training he was far ahead of Mr. Lincoln. He was a forcible speaker, an adroit and experienced politician, and his recognized position lent a certain weight to his words which his opponent could not claim.
But, admitting all this, Mr. Douglas found himself confronted by no inferior antagonist. Abraham Lincoln had a strong logical mind, quick to detect sophistry and bold to expose it. He had a fine command of language, a clear and pleasant voice, and a power of sarcasm which he used with powerful execution at times. This is the way in which an intelligent correspondent speaks of his speech at Galesburg:
“For about forty minutes he spoke with a power which we have seldom heard equalled. There was a grandeur in his thoughts, a comprehensiveness in his arguments, and a binding force in his conclusions, which were perfectly irresistible. The vast throng was silent as death, every eye was fixed upon the speaker, and all gave him serious attention. He was the tall man eloquent; his countenance glowed with animation, and his eye glistened with an intelligence that made it lustrous. He was no longer awkward and ungainly; but graceful, bold, and commanding.
“Mr. Douglas had been quietly smoking up to this time, but here he forgot his cigar and listened with anxious attention. When he rose to reply he appeared excited, disturbed, and his second effort seemed to us vastly inferior to his first. Mr. Lincoln had given him a great task, and Mr. Douglas had not time to answer him, even if he had the ability.”
Yet there were many points of resemblance between the two contestants. Both had been cradled in poverty, and had fought their way upward from obscurity to distinction. Douglas had climbed the higher, but the topmost round of the ladder on which he had for some time fixed longing eyes, he was destined never to mount. He had sacrificed much to reach the crowning distinction, but it was not for him. His awkward, ungraceful opponent, obscure in comparison with him, was destined to stride past him and sit in the coveted seat of power. But the smaller prize – the Senatorship – was won by Douglas, though Lincoln carried the popular vote.
