Part 22 (1/2)
Mr. Herndon, his law partner, said, ”The love and death of that girl shattered Lincoln's purposes and tendencies. He threw off his infinite sorrow only by leaping wildly into the political arena.” The memory of that love never faded from his heart, nor the sadness from his face.
The following year, 1837, when he was twenty-eight, he was admitted to the bar, and moved from New Salem to the larger town of Springfield, forming a partners.h.i.+p with Mr. J. P. Stuart of whom he had borrowed his law-books. Too poor even yet to pay much for board, he slept on a narrow lounge in the law-office. He was again elected to the legislature, and in the Harrison Presidential campaign, was chosen one of the electors, speaking through the State for the Whig party. To so prominent a position, already, had come the backwoods boy.
Four years after Ann Rutledge's death, he married, Nov. 4, 1839, Mary Todd, a bright, witty, somewhat handsome girl, of good family, from Kentucky. She admired his ability, and believed in his success; he needed comfort in his utter loneliness. Till his death he was a true husband, and an idolizing father to his children,--Robert, Willie, and Tad (Thomas).
In 1846, seven years after his marriage, having steadily gained in the reputation of an honest, able lawyer, who would never take a case unless sure he was on the right side, Mr. Lincoln was elected to Congress by an uncommonly large majority. Opposed to the war with Mexico, and to the extension of slavery, he spoke his mind fearlessly. The ”Compromise measures of 1850,” by which, while California was admitted as a free State, and the slave-trade was abolished in the District of Columbia, the Fugitive Slave Law was pa.s.sed, giving the owners of slaves the right to recapture them in any free State, had disheartened all lovers of freedom. Lincoln said gloomily to his law partner, Mr. Herndon, ”How hard, oh, how hard it is to die and leave one's country no better than if one had never lived for it!”
His father died about this time, his n.o.ble son sending him this message, ”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 the sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our heads; and He will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in Him.”
In 1854, through the influence of Stephen A. Douglas, a brilliant senator from Illinois, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was pa.s.sed, whereby those States were left to judge for themselves whether they would have slaves or not. But by the Missouri Compromise of 1820, it was expressly stated that slavery should be forever prohibited in this locality. The whole North grew to white heat. When Douglas returned to his Chicago home the people refused to hear him speak. Illinois said, ”His arguments must be answered, and Abraham Lincoln is the man to answer them!”
At the State Fair at Springfield, in October, a great company were gathered. Douglas spoke with marked ability and eloquence, and then on the following day, Abraham Lincoln spoke for three hours. His heart was in his words. He quivered with emotion. The audience were still as death, but when the address was finished, men shouted and women waved their handkerchiefs. Lincoln and the right had triumphed. After this, the two men spoke in all the large towns of the State, to immense crowds. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill worked out its expected results. Blood flowed in the streets, as pro-slavery and anti-slavery men contested the ground, newspaper offices were torn down by mobs, and Douglas lost the great prize he had in view,--the Presidency of the United States.
When the new party, the Republican, held its second convention in Philadelphia, June 17, 1856, Abraham Lincoln received one hundred and ten votes for Vice President. What would Nancy Hanks Lincoln have said if she could have looked now upon the boy to whom she taught the Bible in the log cabin!
An incident occurred about this time which increased his fame. A man was murdered at a camp-meeting, and two young men were arrested. One was a very poor youth, whose mother, Hannah Armstrong, had been kind to Lincoln in the early years. She wrote to the prominent lawyer about her troubles, because she believed her son to be innocent. The trial came on. The people were clamorous for Armstrong to be hanged. The princ.i.p.al witness testified that ”by the aid of the brightly s.h.i.+ning moon, he saw the prisoner inflict the death-blow with a slung shot.”
After careful questioning, Mr. Lincoln showed the perjury of the witness, by the almanac, no moon being visible on the night in question.
The jury were melted to tears by the touching address, and their sympathy went out to the wronged youth and his poor old mother, who fainted in his arms. Tears, too, poured down the face of Mr. Lincoln, as the young man was acquitted. ”Why, Hannah,” he said, when the grateful woman asked what she should try to pay him, ”I shan't charge you a cent; never.” She had been well repaid for her friendliness to a penniless boy.
The next year he was invited to deliver a lecture at Cooper Inst.i.tute, New York. He was not very well known at the East. He had lived unostentatiously in the two-story frame-house in Springfield, and when seen at all by the people, except in his addresses, was usually drawing one of his babies in a wagon before his door, with hat and coat off, deeply buried in thought. When the crowd gathered at Cooper Inst.i.tute, they expected to hear a fund of stories and a ”Western stump speech.”
But they did not hear what they expected. They heard a masterly review of the history of slavery in this country, and a prophecy concerning the future of the slavery question. They were amazed at its breadth and its eloquence. The ”New York Tribune” said, ”No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience.”
After this Mr. Lincoln spoke in various cities to crowded houses. A Yale professor took notes and gave a lecture to his students on the address.
Surprised at his success among learned men, Mr. Lincoln once asked a prominent professor ”what made the speeches interest?”
The reply was, ”The clearness of your statements, the unanswerable style of your reasoning and your ill.u.s.trations, which were romance, and pathos, and fun, and logic, all welded together.”
Mr. Lincoln said, ”I am very much obliged to you for this. It throws light on a subject which has been dark to me. Certainly I have had a wonderful success for a man of my limited education.”
The sabbath he spent in New York, he found his way to the Sunday-school at Five Points. He was alone. The superintendent noticing his interest, asked him to say a few words. The children were so pleased that when he attempted to stop, they cried, ”Go on, oh! do go on!” No one knew his name, and on being asked who he was, he replied, ”Abraham Lincoln of Illinois.” After visiting his son Robert at Harvard College, he returned home.
When the Republican State Convention met, May 9, 1860, at Springfield, Ill., Mr. Lincoln was invited to a seat on the platform, and as no way could be made through the dense throng, he was carried over the people's heads. Ten days later, at the National Convention at Chicago, though William H. Seward of New York was a leading candidate, the West gained the nomination, with their idolized Lincoln. Springfield was wild with joy. When the news of his success was carried to him, he said quietly, ”Well, gentlemen, there's a little woman at our house who is probably more interested in this dispatch than I am; and if you will excuse me, I will take it up and let her see it.”
The resulting canva.s.s was one of the most remarkable in our history. The South said, ”War will result if he is elected.” The North said, ”The time has come for decisive action.” The popular vote for Abraham Lincoln was nearly two millions (1,857,610), while Stephen A. Douglas received something over a million (1,291,574). The country was in a fever of excitement. The South made itself ready for war by seizing the forts.
Before the inauguration most of the Southern States had seceded.
Sad farewells were uttered as Mr. Lincoln left Springfield for Was.h.i.+ngton. To his law partner he said, ”You and I have been together more than twenty years, and have never pa.s.sed a word. Will you let my name stay on the old sign till I come back from Was.h.i.+ngton?”
The tears came into Mr. Herndon's eyes, as he said, ”I will never have any other partner while you live,” and he kept his word. Old Hannah Armstrong told him that she should never see him again; that something told her so; his enemies would a.s.sa.s.sinate him. He smiled and said, ”Hannah, if they do kill me, I shall never die another death.”
He went away without fear, but feeling the awful responsibility of his position. He found an empty treasury and the country drifting into the blackness of war. He spoke few words, but the lines grew deeper on his face, and his eyes grew sadder.
In his inaugural address he said, ”In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.
The government will not a.s.sail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.... Physically speaking we cannot separate.”
The conflict began April 12, 1861, by the enemy firing on Fort Sumter.
That sound reverberated throughout the North. The President called for seventy-five thousand men. The choicest from thousands of homes quickly responded. Young men left their college-halls and men their places of business. ”The Union must and shall be preserved,” was the eager cry.
Then came the call for forty-two thousand men for three years.