Abraham Lincoln, a History — Volume 02 · Chapter 4Table of Contents Vol. II (3)
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There was a dash of romance in the personal history of Frémont which gave his nomination a high popular relish. Of French descent, born in Savannah, Georgia, orphaned at an early age, he acquired a scientific education largely by his own unaided efforts in private study; a sea voyage as teacher of mathematics, and employment in a railroad survey through the wilderness of the Tennessee Mountains, developed the taste and the qualifications that made him useful as an assistant in Nicollet's scientific exploration of the great plateau where the Mississippi River finds its sources, and secured his appointment as second lieutenant of topographical engineers. These labors brought him to Washington, where the same Gallic restlessness which made the restraint of schools insupportable, brought about an attachment, elopement, and marriage with the daughter of Senator Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri.
Reconciliation followed in good time; and the unexplored Great West being Benton's peculiar hobby, through his influence Frémont was sent with an exploring party to the Rocky Mountains. Under his command similar expeditions were repeated again and again to that mysterious wonderland; and never were the wildest fictions read with more avidity than his official reports of daily adventure, danger and discovery, of scaling unclimbed mountains, wrecking his canoes on the rapids of unvisited rivers, parleying and battling with hostile Indians, and facing starvation while hemmed in by trackless snows. One of these journeys had led him to the Pacific coast when our war with Mexico let loose the spirit of revolution in the Mexican province of California. With his characteristic restless audacity Frémont joined his little company of explorers to a local insurrectionary faction of American settlers, and raised a battalion of mounted volunteers. Though acting without Government orders, he cooperated with the United States naval forces sent to take possession of the California coast, and materially assisted in overturning the Mexican authority and putting the remnant of her military officials to flight. At the close of the conquest he was for a short time military governor; and when, through the famous gold discoveries, California was organized as a State and admitted to the Union, Frémont became for a brief period one of her first United States Senators.
So salient a record could not well be without strong contrasts, and of these unsparing criticism took advantage. Hostile journals delineated Frémont as a shallow, vainglorious, "woolly-horse," "mule-eating," "free-love," "nigger-embracing" black Republican; an extravagant, insubordinate, reckless adventurer; a financial spendthrift and political mountebank. As the reading public is not always skillful in winnowing truth from libel when artfully mixed in print, even the grossest calumnies were not without their effect in contributing to his defeat. But to the sanguine zeal of the new Republican party, the "Pathfinder" was a heroic and ideal leader; for, upon the vital point at issue, his anti-slavery votes and clear declarations satisfied every doubt and inspired unlimited confidence.
However picturesquely Frémont for the moment loomed up as the standard-bearer of the Republican party, historical interest centers upon the second act of the Philadelphia Convention. It shows us how strangely to human wisdom vibrate the delicately balanced scales of fate; or rather how inscrutable and yet how unerring are the far-reaching processes of divine providence. The principal candidate having been selected without contention or delay, the convention proceeded to a nomination for Vice-President. On the first informal ballot William L. Dayton, of New Jersey, received 259 votes and Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, 110; the remaining votes being scattered among thirteen other names.[1] The dominating thought of the convention being the assertion of principle, and not the promotion of men, there was no further contest;[2] and though Mr. Dayton had not received a majority support, his nomination was nevertheless at once made unanimous. Those who are familiar with the eccentricities of nominating conventions when in this listless and drifting mood know how easily an opportune speech from some eloquent delegate or a few adroitly arranged delegation caucuses might have reversed this result; and imagination may not easily construct the possible changes in history which a successful campaign of the ticket in that form might have wrought. What would have been the consequences to America and humanity had the Rebellion, even then being vaguely devised by Southern Hotspurs, burst upon the nation in the winter of 1856, with the nation's sword of commander-in-chief in the hand of the impulsive Frémont, and Lincoln, inheriting the patient wariness and cool blood of three generations of pioneers and Indian-fighters, wielding only the powerless gavel of Vice-President? But the hour of destiny had not yet struck.
The platform devised by the Philadelphia Convention was unusually bold in its affirmations, and most happy in its phraseology. Not only did it "deny the authority of Congress, or of a territorial legislature, of any individual or association of individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States"; it further "Resolved, That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the Territories of the United States for their government, and that in the exercise of this power it is both the right and the duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism—polygamy and slavery." At Buchanan, recently nominated by the Democratic National Convention in Cincinnati, it aimed a barbed shaft: "Resolved, That the highwayman's plea that 'might makes right,' embodied in the Ostend circular, was in every respect unworthy of American diplomacy, and would bring shame and dishonor upon any government or people that gave it their sanction." It demanded the maintenance of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, of the Federal Constitution, of the rights of the States, and the union of the States. It favored a Pacific railroad, congressional appropriations for national rivers and harbors; it affirmed liberty of conscience and equality of rights; it arraigned the policy of the Administration; demanded the immediate admission of Kansas as a State, and invited "the affiliation and coöperation of men of all parties, however differing from them in other respects, in support of the principles declared."
The nominees and platform of the Philadelphia Convention were accepted by the opposition voters of the free-States with an alacrity and an enthusiasm beyond the calculation of even the most sanguine; and in November a vote was recorded in their support which, though then unsuccessful, laid the secure foundation of an early victory, and permanently established a great party destined to carry the country through trials and vicissitudes equal in magnitude and results to any which the world had hitherto witnessed.
In that year none of the presidential honors were reserved for the State of Illinois. While Lincoln thus narrowly missed a nomination for the second place on the Republican ticket, his fellow-citizen and competitor, Douglas, failed equally to obtain the nomination he so much coveted as the candidate of the Democratic party. The Democratic National Convention had met at Cincinnati on the 2d day of June, 1856. If Douglas flattered himself that such eminent services as he had rendered the South would find this reward, his disappointment must have been severe. While the benefits he had conferred were lightly estimated or totally forgotten, former injuries inflicted in his name were keenly remembered and resented. But three prominent candidates, Buchanan, Pierce, and Douglas, were urged upon the convention. The indiscreet crusade of Douglas's friends against "old fogies" in 1852 had defeated Buchanan and nominated Pierce; now, by the turn of political fortune, Buchanan's friends were able to wipe out the double score by defeating both Pierce and Douglas. Most of the Southern delegates seem to have been guided by the mere thought of present utility; they voted to renominate Pierce because of his subservient Kansas policy, forgetting that Douglas had not only begun it, but was their strongest ally to continue it. When after a day of fruitless balloting they changed their votes to Douglas, Buchanan, the so-called "old fogy," just returned from the English mission, and therefore not handicapped by personal jealousies and heart-burnings, had secured the firm adhesion of a decided majority mainly from the North.[3]
The "two-thirds rule" was not yet fulfilled, but at this juncture the friends of Pierce and Douglas yielded to the inevitable, and withdrew their favorites in the interest of "harmony." On the seventeenth ballot, therefore, and the fifth day of the convention, James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, became the unanimous nominee of the Democratic party for President, and John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, for Vice-President.
The famous "Cincinnati platform" holds a conspicuous place in party literature for length, for vigor of language, for variety of topics, for boldness of declaration; and yet, strange to say, its chief merit and utility lay in the skillful concealment of its central thought and purpose. About one-fourth of its great length is devoted to what to the eye looks like a somewhat elaborate exposition of the doctrines of the party on the slavery question. Eliminate the verbiage and there only remains an indorsement of the "principles contained in the organic laws establishing the Territory of Kansas and Nebraska" (non-interference by Congress with slavery in State and Territory, or in the District of Columbia); and the practical application of "the principles" is thus further defined: "Resolved, That we recognize the right of the people of all the Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally and fairly expressed will of a majority of actual residents, and whenever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, to form a constitution with or without domestic slavery, and be admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with the other States."
We have already seen how deliberately the spirit and letter of "the principle" was violated by the Democratic National Administration of President Pierce, and by nearly all the Democratic Senators and Representatives in Congress; and we shall see how the more explicit resolution was again even more flagrantly violated by the Democratic National Administration and party under President Buchanan.
For the time, however, these well-rounded phrases were especially convenient: first, to prevent any schism in the Cincinnati Convention itself, and, secondly, to furnish points for campaign speeches; politicians not having any pressing desire, nor voters the requisite critical skill, to demonstrate how they left untouched the whole brood of pertinent queries which the discussion had already raised, and which at its next national convention were destined to disrupt and defeat the Democratic party. For this occasion the studied ambiguity of the Cincinnati platform made possible a last coöperation of North and South, in the face of carefully concealed mental reservations, to secure a presidential victory.
It is not the province of this work to describe the incidents of the national canvass, but only to record its results. At the election of November, 1856, Buchanan was chosen President. The popular vote in the nation at large stood: Buchanan, 1,838,169; Frémont, 1,341,264; Fillmore, 874,534. By States Buchanan received the votes of fourteen slave-States and five free-States, a total of 174 electors; Frémont the vote of eleven free-States, a total of 114 electors; and Fillmore the vote of one slave-State, a total of eight electors.[4]
In the campaign which preceded Mr. Buchanan's election, Mr. Lincoln, at the head of the Frémont electoral ticket for Illinois, took a prominent part, traversing the State in every direction, and making about fifty speeches. Among the addresses which he thus delivered in the different counties, it is interesting to read a fragment of a speech he made at Galena, Illinois, discussing the charge of "sectionalism," the identical pretext upon which the South inaugurated its rebellion against his Administration four years afterwards:
You further charge us with being disunionists. If you mean that it is our aim to dissolve the Union, I for myself answer that it is untrue; for those who act with me I answer that it is untrue. Have you heard us assert that as our aim? Do you really believe that such is our aim? Do you find it in our platform, our speeches, our conventions, or anywhere? If not, withdraw the charge.
But you may say that though it is not our aim, it will be the result, if we succeed, and that we are therefore disunionists in fact. This is a grave charge you make against us, and we certainly have a right to demand that you specify in what way we are to dissolve the Union. How are we to effect this?
The only specification offered is volunteered by Mr. Fillmore in his Albany speech. His charge is that if we elect a President and Vice-President both from the free-States it will dissolve the Union. This is open folly. The Constitution provides that the President and Vice-President of the United States shall be of different States; but says nothing as to the latitude and longitude of those States. In 1828 Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, and John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, were elected President and Vice-President, both from slave-States; but no one thought of dissolving the Union then on that account. In 1840 Harrison, of Ohio, and Tyler, of Virginia, were elected. In 1841 Harrison died and John Tyler succeeded to the presidency, and William R. King, of Alabama, was elected acting Vice-President by the Senate; but no one supposed that the Union was in danger. In fact, at the very time Mr. Fillmore uttered this idle charge, the state of things in the United States disproved it. Mr. Pierce, of New Hampshire, and Mr. Bright, of Indiana, both from free-States, are President and Vice-President, and the Union stands and will stand. You do not pretend that it ought to dissolve the Union, and the facts show that it won't; therefore the charge may be dismissed without further consideration.
Galena "Advertiser," copied into the Illinois "State Journal," August 8, 1856.
No other specification is made, and the only one that could be made is, that the restoration of the restriction of 1820 making the United States territory free territory would dissolve the Union. Gentlemen, it will require a decided majority to pass such an act. We, the majority, being able constitutionally to do all that we purpose, would have no desire to dissolve the Union. Do you say that such restriction of slavery would be unconstitutional, and that some of the States would not submit to its enforcement? I grant you that an unconstitutional act is not a law; but I do not ask and will not take your construction of the Constitution. The Supreme Court of the United States is the tribunal to decide such a question, and we will submit to its decisions; and if you do also, there will be an end of the matter. Will you? If not, who are the disunionists, you or we? We, the majority, would not strive to dissolve the Union; and if any attempt is made it must be by you, who so loudly stigmatize us as disunionists.
But the Union, in any event, will not be dissolved. We don't want to dissolve it, and if you attempt it we won't let you. With the purse and sword, the army and navy and treasury in our hands and at our command, you could not do it. This government would be very weak indeed if a majority with a disciplined army and navy and a well-filled treasury could not preserve itself, when attacked by an unarmed, undisciplined, unorganized minority. All this talk about the dissolution of the Union is humbug, nothing but folly. We do not want to dissolve the Union; you shall not.
With three presidential tickets in the field—with the Democrats seeking the election of Buchanan and Breckinridge, the Americans, or Know-Nothings, asking votes for Fillmore and Donelson, and the Republicans making proselytes for Frémont and Dayton—the political campaign of 1856 was one of unabated activity and excitement. In the State of Illinois the contest resulted in a drawn battle. The American party held together with tolerable firmness in its vote for President, but was largely disintegrated in its vote on the ticket for State officers. The consequence was that Illinois gave a plurality of 9164 for Buchanan, the Democratic candidate for President, while at the same time it gave a plurality of 4729 for Bissell, the Republican candidate for Governor.[5]
Half victory as it was, it furnished the Illinois Republicans a substantial hope of the full triumph which they achieved four years later. About a month after this election, at a Republican banquet given in Chicago on the 10th of December, 1856, Abraham Lincoln spoke as follows, partly in criticism of the last annual message of President Pierce, but more especially pointing out the rising star of promise:
We have another annual presidential message. Like a rejected lover making merry at the wedding of his rival, the President felicitates himself hugely over the late presidential election. He considers the result a signal triumph of good principles and good men, and a very pointed rebuke of bad ones. He says the people did it. He forgets that the "people," as he complacently calls only those who voted for Buchanan, are in a minority of the whole people by about four hundred thousand votes—one full tenth of all the votes. Remembering this, he might perceive that the "rebuke" may not be quite as durable as he seems to think—that the majority may not choose to remain permanently rebuked by that minority.
The President thinks the great body of us Frémonters, being ardently attached to liberty, in the abstract, were duped by a few wicked and designing men. There is a slight difference of opinion on this. We think he, being ardently attached to the hope of a second term, in the concrete, was duped by men who had liberty every way. He is the cat's-paw. By much dragging of chestnuts from the fire for others to eat, his claws are burnt off to the gristle, and he is thrown aside as unfit for further use. As the fool said of King Lear, when his daughters had turned him out-of-doors, "He's a shelled peascod." [That's a sheal'd peascod.]
So far as the President charges us "with a desire to change the domestic institutions of existing States," and of "doing everything in our power to deprive the Constitution and the laws of moral authority," for the whole party on belief, and for myself on knowledge, I pronounce the charge an unmixed and unmitigated falsehood.
Illinois "State Journal," December 16, 1856.
Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion can change the government practically just so much. Public opinion, on any subject, always has a "central idea," from which all its minor thoughts radiate. That "central idea" in our political public opinion at the beginning was, and until recently has continued to be, "the equality of men." And although it has always submitted patiently to whatever of inequality there seemed to be as matter of actual necessity, its constant working has been a steady progress towards the practical equality of all men. The late presidential election was a struggle by one party to discard that central idea and to substitute for it the opposite idea that slavery is right in the abstract, the workings of which as a central idea may be the perpetuity of human slavery and its extension to all countries and colors. Less than a year ago the Richmond "Enquirer," an avowed advocate of slavery, regardless of color, in order to favor his views, invented the phrase "State equality," and now the President, in his message, adopts the "Enquirer's" catch-phrase, telling us the people "have asserted the constitutional equality of each and all of the States of the Union as States." The President flatters himself that the new central idea is completely inaugurated; and so indeed it is, so far as the mere fact of a presidential election can inaugurate it. To us it is left to know that the majority of the people have not yet declared for it, and to hope that they never will. All of us who did not vote for Mr. Buchanan, taken together, are a majority of four hundred thousand. But in the late contest we were divided between Frémont and Fillmore. Can we not come together for the future? Let every one who really believes, and is resolved, that free society is not and shall not be a failure, and who can conscientiously declare that in the past contest he has done only what he thought best, let every such one have charity to believe that every other one can say as much. Thus let bygones be bygones; let past differences as nothing be; and with steady eye on the real issue, let us reinaugurate the good old "central ideas" of the republic. We can do it. The human heart is with us; God is with us. We shall again be able not to declare that "all States as States are equal," nor yet that "all citizens as citizens are equal," but to renew the broader, better declaration, including both these and much more, that "all men are created equal."
Though these fragments of addresses give us only an imperfect reflection of the style of Mr. Lincoln's oratory during this period, they nevertheless show its essential characteristics, a pervading clearness of analysis, and that strong tendency to axiomatic definition which gives so many of his sentences their convincing force and durable value. They also show us the combination, not often found in such happy balance, of the politician's discernment of fact with the statesman's wisdom of theory—how present forces of national life are likely to be moved by future impulses of national will. The politician could see the four hundred thousand voters who would give victory to some party in the near future. It required the wisdom of the statesman to divine that the public opinion which would direct how these votes were to be cast, could most surely be created by an appeal to those generous "central ideas" of the human mind which favor equality against caste and freedom against slavery. Perhaps the most distinctively representative quality these addresses exhibit is the patriotic spirit and faith which led him to declare so dogmatically in this campaign of 1856, what the nation called upon him a few years later to execute by the stern powers of war, "We do not want to dissolve the Union; you shall not."
[1] For David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, 43; Preston King, of New York, 9; Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, 36; Thomas H. Ford, of Ohio, 7; Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, 3; Jacob Collamer, of Vermont, 15; William F. Johnston, of Pennsylvania, 2; Nathaniel P. Banks, of Massachusetts, 46; Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, 7; William Pennington, of New Jersey, 1; — Carey, of New Jersey, 3; S.C. Pomeroy, of Kansas, 8; J.R. Giddings, of Ohio, 2. The vote in detail for Lincoln was: Maine, 1; New Hampshire, 8; Massachusetts, 7; Rhode Island, 2; New York, 3; Pennsylvania, 11; Ohio, 2; Indiana, 26; Illinois, 33; Michigan, 5; and California, 12.
[2] Mr. T.S. Van Dyke, son of one of the delegates, kindly writes us: "Nothing that Mr. Lincoln has ever written is more characteristic than the following note from him to my father just after the convention—not for publication, but merely as a private expression of his feelings to an old acquaintance:
"SPRINGFIELD, ILL., June 27, 1856. Hon. JOHN VAN DYKE.
MY DEAR SIR: Allow me to thank you for your kind notice of me in the Philadelphia Convention.
When you meet Judge Dayton present my respects, and tell him I think him a far better man than I for the position he is in, and that I shall support both him and Colonel Frémont most cordially. Present my best respects to Mrs. V., and believe me,
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN."
[3] On the sixteenth ballot Buchanan received 168 votes, of which 121 were from the free-States and 47 from the slave-States; Douglas received 122 votes, of which 49 were from the free-States and 73 from the slave-States; Cass received 6 votes, all from the free-States; Pierce had been finally dropped on the previous ballot.—"Proceedings of the Cincinnati Convention," p. 45.
[4] The vote more in detail was as follows:
For Buchanan, slave-States, Alabama, 9; Arkansas, 4; Delaware, 3; Florida, 3; Georgia, 10; Kentucky, 12; Louisiana, 6; Mississippi, 7; Missouri, 9; North Carolina, 10; South Carolina, 8; Tennessee, 12; Texas, 4; Virginia, 15. Free States, California, 4; Illinois, 11; Indiana, 13; New Jersey, 7; Pennsylvania, 27. Total, 174.
For Frémont, free-States, Connecticut, 6; Iowa, 4; Maine, 8; Massachusetts, 13; Michigan, 6; New Hampshire, 5; New York, 35; Ohio, 23; Rhode Island, 4; Vermont, 5; Wisconsin, 5. Total, 114.
For Fillmore, slave-State, Maryland, 8.
[5] For President, Buchanan (Democrat), 105,344; Frémont (Republican), 96,180; Fillmore (American), 37,451. For Governor, Richardson (Democrat), 106,643; Bissell (Republican), 111,372; Morris (American), 19,241.
CHAPTER III CONGRESSIONAL RUFFIANISM
The official reports show that the proceedings of the American Congress, while in the main conducted with becoming propriety and decorum, have occasionally been dishonored by angry personal altercations and scenes of ruffianly violence. These disorders increased as the great political struggle over the slavery question grew in intensity, and reached their culmination in a series of startling incidents.
Charles Sumner, one of the Senators from the State of Massachusetts, had become conspicuous, in the prevailing political agitation, for his aggressive and radical anti-slavery speeches in the Senate and elsewhere. The slavery issue had brought him into politics; he had been elected to the United States Senate by the coalition of a small number of Free-soilers with the Democrats in the Massachusetts Legislature.
The slavery question, therefore, became the dominant principle and the keynote of his public career. He was a man of liberal culture, of considerable erudition in the law, of high literary ability, and he had attained an enviable social eminence. Of large physical frame and strength, gifted with a fine presence and a sonorous voice, fearless and earnest in his opposition to slavery, Charles Sumner was one of the favorite orators of the early declamatory period of the Republican party.
He joined unreservedly in the exciting Senate debates, provoked by the rival applications from Kansas for her admission as a State. On the 19th and 20th of May, 1856, he delivered an elaborate speech in the Senate, occupying two days. It was one of his greatest efforts, and had been prepared with his usual industry. In character it was a philippic rather than an argument, strong, direct, and aggressive, in which classical illustration and acrimonious accusation were blended with great effect.
It described what he called "The Crime against Kansas"; and the excuses for the crime he denominated the apology tyrannical, the apology imbecile, the apology absurd, and the apology infamous. "Tyranny, imbecility, absurdity, and infamy," he continued, "all unite to dance, like the weird sisters, about this crime."
In the course of his speech he alluded, among others, to A.P. Butler, of South Carolina, and in reply to some severe strictures by that Senator during preceding debates, indulged in caustic personal criticism upon his course and utterance, as well as upon the State which he represented.
With regret [said Sumner], I come again upon the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Butler], who, omnipresent in this debate, overflowed with rage at the simple suggestion that Kansas had applied for admission as a State; and with incoherent phrases discharged the loose expectoration of his speech, now upon her representative and then upon her people. There was no extravagance of the ancient parliamentary debate which he did not repeat; nor was there any possible deviation from truth which he did not make, with so much of passion, I am glad to add, as to save him from the suspicion of intentional aberration. But the Senator touches nothing which he does not disfigure—with error, sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He shows an incapacity of accuracy, whether in stating the Constitution or in stating the law, whether in details of statistics or the diversions of scholarship. He cannot open his mouth but out there flies a blunder.
Butler was not present in the Senate on either day; what he might have said or done, had he been there, can only be conjectured. The immediate replies from Douglas and others were very bitter. Among pro-slavery members of both Houses there was an under-current of revengeful murmurs. It is possible that this hostile manifestation may have decided a young member of the House, Preston S. Brooks, a nephew of Senator Butler, to undertake retaliation by violence. Acquainting Henry A. Edmundson, another member, with his design, he waited on two different occasions at the western entrance to the Capitol grounds to encounter Mr. Sumner, but without meeting him.
1856.
On the 22d of May, two days after the speech, Brooks entered the Senate Chamber on the same errand. The session had been short, and after adjournment Sumner remained at his desk, engaged in writing. The sessions were at that time held in the old Senate Chamber, now occupied by the Supreme Court. The seats were arranged in semicircles, with a railing to separate them from a narrow lobby or open space next the wall; a broad aisle ran from the main door to the desk of the presiding officer. Mr. Sumner's seat was in the outside row next to the railing, at the second desk to the right from the entrance and the main aisle. Occupied with his work, Mr. Sumner did not notice Mr. Brooks, sitting across the aisle to his left, and where in conversation with a friend he was manifesting his impatience that a lady seated near Mr. Sumner did not take her departure from the chamber. Almost at that moment she arose and went out; quickly afterwards Brooks got up and advanced to the front of Sumner's desk. The act attracted the attention of Brooks's friend; he was astonished, amid the bitterness of party feeling, to see a South Carolina Representative talk to a Massachusetts Senator. His astonishment was quickly corrected. Leaning upon the desk and addressing Sumner with a rapid sentence or two, to the effect that he had read his speech, that it was a libel upon his absent relative, and that he had come to punish him for it, Brooks began striking him on the head with a gutta-percha walking-cane, of the ordinary length and about an inch in diameter.