Part 9 (2/2)
Lincoln's modesty made it impossible for him to be ambitious He appreciated honors, and he desired them up to a certain point But they did not, in his way of looking at the to him He was slow to realize that he was of more than ordinary importance to the community
At the first republican convention in 1856, when Fremont was nominated for President, 111 votes were cast for Lincoln as the nominee for vice- president The fact was published in the papers When he saw the item it did not enter his head that he was the man He said ”there was a celebrated man of that name in Massachusetts; doubtless it was he”
In 1858, when he asked Douglas the fatal question at Freeport, he was silas's aspirations for the presidency It ith no thought of being hilas had twice been a candidate for nomination before the democratic convention Had it not been for this question he would have been elected at the next following presidential election
As late as the early part of 1860, Lincoln vaguely desired the nolad to be the running-ht to be beyond his reach, so slowly did he corowth of his falas debates had produced a profound sensation in the West They were printed in large nun literature Some Eastern men, also, had been alert to observe these events Willia Post_, had shown keen interest in the debates
Even after the election Lincoln did not cease the vigor of his criticisms It will be remembered that before the forlas and to answer hi He now, after the election of 1858, followed him to Ohio and answered his speeches in Columbus and Cincinnati
The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, as alatchful of the development of the anti-slavery sentiment, now invited Lincoln to lecture in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn The invitation was accepted with the provision that the lecture ht be a political speech
J G Holland, who doubtless knehereof he wrote, declares that it was a great misfortune that Lincoln was introduced to the country as a rail-splitter As, they are proud of self- in the ability to split rails which necessarily qualifies one for the demands of statesmanshi+p Some of his ardent friends, far lory over Abe the rail-splitter, that it left the impression that he was little more than a rail-splitter who could talk volubly and tell funny stories This naturally alienated the finest culture east of the Alleghanies ”It took years for the country to learn that Mr Lincoln was not a boor It took years for thereat ht them It took years for them to comprehend the fact that in Mr Lincoln the country had the wisest, truest, gentlest, noblest, acious President who had occupied the chair of state since Washi+ngton retired from it”
When he reached New York he found that there had been a change of plan, and he was to speak in Cooper Institute, New York, instead of Beecher's church He took the ut his speech, for he felt that he was on new ground and h he made the most perfect intellectual preparation, the esthetic elelected He was angular and loose-jointed,--he could not help that He had provided himself, or had been provided, with a brand-new suit of clothes, whether of goodor ill-fitting we do not know, though we uess But we do know that it had been crowded into a s the speech the collar or lappel annoyed both speaker and audience by persisting in rising up unbidden
These details are mentioned to show the difficulty of the task before the orator In the audience and on the platform were many of the most brilliant and scholarly e numbers who had come chiefly to hear the westerner tell a lot of funny stories The orator was introduced by Bryant
The speech was strictly intellectual froh Lincoln was not known in New York, Douglas was So he fittingly took his start frolas The speech cannot be epito and closing sentences
The quotation frolas was that which had been uttered at Coluovernment under which we live, understood this question (the question of slavery) just as well, and even better, than we do now” To this proposition the orator assented That raised the inquiry, What was their understanding of the question? This was a historical question, and could be answered only by honest and painstaking research
Continuing, the speaker said: ”Does the proper division of local fro in the Constitution, forbid our Federal government to control as to slavery in our Federal territories? Upon this Senator Douglas holds the affirative This affirmation and denial form an issue, and this issue-- this question--is precisely what the text declares our fathers understood 'better than we'
”I defy any one to show that any livingof the present century (and Iof the last half of the present century), declare that in his understanding any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal government to control as to slavery in the Federal territories To those who now so declare, I give, not only 'our fathers who fraovernwhom to search, and they shall not be able to find the evidence of a single raph is quoted for the aptness of its illustration: ”But you will not abide the election of a republican President! In that supposed event, you say you will destroy the Union; and then you say, the great crihwayh his teeth, 'Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!' To be sure, what the robber deht to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union to extort uished in principle”
The speech reached its cli as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that sofrom its actual presence in the nation; but can hile our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national territories, and to overrun us here in the free states? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances e are so industriously plied and belabored--contrivances such as groping for so, vain as the search for aman nor a dead man; such as a policy of 'don't care' on a question about which all true men do care; such as Union appeals to beseech all true Unionthe divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous, to repentance; such as invocations to Washi+ngton, iton said, and undo what Washi+ngton did
”Neither let us be slandered frohtened froeons to ourselves Let us have faith that right ht, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it”
This speech placed Lincoln in the line of the presidency Not only was it received with unbounded enthusiasm by the mass of the people, but it was a revelation to the more intellectual and cultivated Lincoln afterwards told of a professor of rhetoric at Yale College as present He made an abstract of the speech and the next day presented it to the class as a ency and finish This professor followed Lincoln to Meriden to hear hiave to the speech unstinted praise, declaring that ”no man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience”
The greatest compliment, because the most deliberate, was that of the coeneral distribution Their preface is sufficiently explicit:
”No one who has not actually attempted to verify its details can understand the patient research and historical labors which it embodies The history of our earlier politics is scattered through numerous journals, statutes, pamphlets, and letters; and these are defective in completeness and accuracy of statement, and in indices and tables of contents Neither can any one who has not traveled over this precise ground appreciate the accuracy of every trivial detail, or the self-denying impartiality hich Mr Lincoln has turned froeneral question of slavery, to present the single question which he discusses From the first line to the last, from his pre directness which no logician ever excelled, an argu, and without the stiffness which usually accole, easy, silo-Saxon words, contains a chapter of history that, in some instances, has taken days of labor to verify, and which ation to acquire”
Surely Mr Bryant and Mr Beecher and the rest had every reason for gratification that they had introduced this s to so brilliant a New York audience