Part 2 (2/2)
The appeal was received by some with apathy, by others with caviling and opposition, and was followed by action on the part of none. Meanwhile his friends urged emanc.i.p.ation. They declared there could be no permanent peace while slavery lived. ”Seize,” cried they, ”the thunderbolt of Liberty, and shatter Slavery to atoms, and then the Republic will live.” After the great battle of Antietam, the President called his cabinet together, and announced to them that ”_in obedience to a solemn vow to G.o.d_,” he was about to issue the edict of Freedom.
The proclamation came, modestly, sublimely, reverently the great act was done. ”Sincerely believing it to be an act of justice, warranted by the Const.i.tution, upon military necessity, he invoked upon it the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty G.o.d.”
On the first of January, 1863, the Executive mansion, as is usual on New Year's Day, was crowded with the officials, foreign and domestic, of the National Capital; the men of mark of the army and navy and from civil life crowded around the care-worn President, to express their kind wishes for him personally, and their prayers for the future of the country.
During the reception, after he had been shaking hands with hundreds, a secretary hastily entered and told him the Proclamation (the final proclamation) was ready for his signature. Leaving the crowd, he went to his office, taking up a pen, attempting to write, and was astonished to find he could not control the muscles of his hand and arm sufficiently to write his name. He said to me, ”I paused, and a feeling of superst.i.tion, a sense of the vast responsibility of the act, came over me; then, remembering that my arm had been well-nigh paralyzed by two hours' of hand-shaking, I smiled at my superst.i.tious feeling, and wrote my name.”
This Proclamation, the Declaration of Independence, and _Magna Charta_, these be great landmarks, each indicating an advance to a higher and more Christian civilization. Upon these will the historian linger, as the stepping-stones toward a higher plane of existence. From this time the war meant _universal liberty_. When, in June, 1858, at his home in Springfield, Lincoln startled the country by the announcement, ”this nation can not endure half _slave_, and _half free_,” and when he concluded that remarkable speech by declaring, with uplifted eye and the inspired voice of a prophet, ”we shall not fail if we stand firm, _we shall not fail_, wise councils may accelerate or mistakes delay, but sooner or later the victory is sure to come,” he looked to years of peaceful controversy and final triumph through the ballot-box. He antic.i.p.ated no war, and he did not foresee, unless in those mysterious, dim shadows, which sometimes startle by half revealing the future, his own elevation to the presidency; he little dreamed that he was to be the instrument in the hands of G.o.d to speak those words which should emanc.i.p.ate a race and free his country!
I have not s.p.a.ce to follow the movements of the armies; the long, sad campaigns of the grand army of the Potomac under McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, Meade; nor the varying fortunes of war in the great Valley of the Mississippi under Freemont, and Halleck, and Buell. Armies had not only to be organized, but educated and trained, and especially did the President have to search for and find those fitted for high command.
Ultimately he found such and placed them at the head of the armies. Up to 1863, there had been vast expenditures of blood and treasure, and, although great successes had been achieved and progress made, yet there had been so many disasters and grievous failures, that the hopes of the insurgents of final success were still confident. With all the great victories in the South, and Southwest, by land and on the sea, the Mississippi was still closed. The President opened the campaign of 1863 with the determination of accomplis.h.i.+ng two great objects, first to get control of and open the Mississippi; second to destroy the army of Virginia under Lee, and seize upon the rebel capital. By the capture of Vicksburg, and the fall of Port Hudson, the first and primary object of the campaign was realized.
”The 'Father of Waters' again went unvexed to the sea. Thanks to the great Northwest for it, nor yet wholly to them. Three hundred miles up they met New England, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey, hewing their way right and left. The army South, too, in more colors than one, lent a helping hand.”[7] While the gallant armies of the West were achieving these victories, operations in the East were crowned by the decisively important triumph at Gettysburg. Let us pa.s.s over the scenes of conflict, on the sea and on the land, at the East and at the West, and come to that touching incident in the life of Lincoln, the consecration of the battle-field of Gettysburg as a National cemetery.
[7] See letter of Mr. Lincoln to State Convention of Illinois.
GETTYSBURG.
Here, late in the autumn of that year of battles, a portion of that battle-ground was to be consecrated as the last resting-place of those who there gave their lives that the Republic might live.
There were gathered there the President, his Cabinet, members of Congress, Governors of States, and a vast and brilliant a.s.semblage of officers, soldiers, and citizens, with solemn and impressive ceremonies to consecrate the earth to its pious purpose. New England's most distinguished orator and scholar was selected to p.r.o.nounce the oration.
The address of Everett was worthy of the occasion. When the elaborate oration was finished, the tall, homely form of Lincoln arose; simple, rude, majestic, slowly he stepped to the front of the stage, drew from his pocket a ma.n.u.script, and commenced reading that wonderful address, which an English scholar and statesman has p.r.o.nounced the finest in the English language. The polished periods of Everett had fallen somewhat coldly upon the ear, but Lincoln had not finished the first sentence before the magnetic influence of a grand idea eloquently uttered by a sympathetic nature, pervaded the vast a.s.semblage. He said:--
”Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
”Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
”But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate--we can not consecrate--we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we _say_ here, but it can never forget what they _did_ here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so n.o.bly advanced.
”It is, rather, for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain: that this nation, under G.o.d, shall have a new birth of freedom: and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
He was so absorbed with the heroic sacrifices of the soldiers as to be utterly unconscious that he was _the great actor_ in the drama, and that his simple words would live as long as the memory of the heroism he there commemorated.
Closing his brief address amidst the deepest emotions of the crowd, he turned to Everett and congratulated him upon his success. ”Ah, Mr.
Lincoln,” said the orator, ”I would gladly exchange my hundred pages for your twenty lines.”
1864.
On the first of January, 1864, Mr. Lincoln received his friends as was usual on New Year's day, and the improved prospects of the country, made it a day of congratulation. The decisive victories East and West enlivened and made buoyant and hopeful the spirits of all. One of the most devoted friends of Mr. Lincoln calling upon him, after exchanging congratulations over the progress of the Union armies during the past year, said:--
”I hope, Mr. President, one year from to-day, I may have the pleasure of congratulating you on the consummation of three events which seem now very probable.”
<script>