Helen Nicolay

“ Music and artillery crashed in jubilant sound; other cannon at a distance took up the tale; and in this way news of the oath was borne to the utmost limits of France. The day ended with fireworks, dancing, and a great feast. Lafayette was the center of the cheers and adulation, admirers pressing upon him from all sides. He was even in danger of bodily harm from the embraces, "perfidious or sincere," of a group of unknown men who had to be forcibly driven away by his aides-de-camp. ”

“ The lawyer who works his way up from a five-dollar fee in a suit before a justice of the peace, to a five-thousand-dollar fee before the Supreme Court of his State, has a long and hard path to climb. Lincoln climbed this path for twenty-five years, with industry, perseverance, patience—above all, with that self-control and keen sense of right and wrong which always clearly traced the dividing line between his duty to his client and his duty to society and truth. ”

“ These people who suffered in Paris at every turn were now beginning to find a cyclopedia of their own in another invention of comparatively recent date—the cafés, warmed and lighted, where even men who had not sous enough to satisfy their hunger might cheat their stomachs with a thimbleful of sour wine or a morsel of food, and sit for hours listening and pondering the talk of others who came and went. There was much talk, and in one part of Paris or another it touched upon every known subject. Each café had its specialty; politics in one, philosophy in another, science in a third. ”

“ Yet, though he hated slavery, he never hated the slave-holder. His feeling of pardon and sympathy for Kentucky and the South played no unimportant part in his dealings with grave problems of statesmanship. It is true that he struck slavery its death blow with the hand of war, but at the same time he offered the slaveowner golden payment with the hand of peace.
Abraham Lincoln was not an ordinary man. He was, in truth, in the language of the poet Lowell, a "new birth of our new soil." His greatness did not consist in growing up on the frontier. ”

“ What, I pray you, is popularity?"
In July Prussia joined the nations at war, threatening dire vengeance if Paris harmed even a hair of the king or queen. The mob clamorously paraded the streets, led by five hundred men from Marseilles, singing a new and strangely exciting song whose music and whose words, "To arms! To arms! Strike down the tyrant!" were alike incendiary. In spite of his recent rebuff, Lafayette made one more attempt to rescue the king, not for love of Louis or of monarchy, but because he believed that Louis now stood for sane government, having signed the Constitution. ”

“ The soldiers in their shrunken companies thought of the brave comrades who had fallen by the way; and through the whole vast army there was passionate unavailing regret for their wise, gentle and powerful friend Abraham Lincoln, gone forever from the big white house by the Avenue—who had called the great host into being, directed the course of the nation during the four years that they had been battling for its life, and to whom, more than to any other, this crowning peaceful pageant would have been full of deep and happy meaning. ”

“ The conversation of the Duke of Gloucester seemed to bring America from a great distance to within actual reach of Lafayette's hand. He hung upon every word. The prince may not have been altogether prudent in his remarks. It was an after-dinner conversation and in that day the English drank hard. Even so, the duke's indiscretions made the talk more interesting and, to Lafayette, more convincing. Every word spoken strengthened the belief that these American Colonists were brave men, well within their rights, fighting for a principle which would make the world better and happier. ”

“ The Almighty has his own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offenses! For it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? ”

“ But discontent had been only partly appeased, and during the melancholy ride to the city Marie Antoinette gave the mob its watchword. Seeing a man in the dress of the very poor riding on the step of her coach she had remarked disdainfully that never before had a sans-culotte—a man without knee-breeches—occupied so honorable a position. The speech was overheard and taken up and shouted through the crowd until "sans-culotte" became a symbol of the Revolution.
The events of that day proved that Lafayette had not the quality of a great leader of men. ”

“ Every eye was eager, every ear strained, to get some hint of the thoughts and purposes of the man who was to be the guide and head of the nation in the crisis that every one now knew to be upon the country, but the course and end of which the wisest could not foresee. In spite of all the cheers and the enthusiasm, there was also an under-current of anxiety for his personal safety, for the South had openly boasted that Lincoln would never live to be inaugurated President. ”

“ Thoughtful people were beginning to believe that a change was only a matter of time; but that it would come slowly and stretch over many years.
Meanwhile the months passed and the glittering outer shell of the old order of things continued to glitter. Lafayette divided his time between Paris, the court, and Chavaniac. He made at least one journey in the brilliant retinue of the king. He dined and gave dinners. He did everything in his power to increase commerce with the United States. He took part in every public movement for reform, and instituted small private ones of his own. ”

“ What but a lifetime's schooling in disappointment, what but the pioneer's self-reliance and freedom from prejudice, what but the clear mind, quick to see natural right and unswerving in its purpose to follow it; what but the steady self-control, the unwarped sympathy, the unbounded charity of this man with spirit so humble and soul so great, could have carried him through the labors he wrought to the victory he attained? ”

“ The real encounter of the serio-comic affair took place between the most gaudily dressed bands of fighters in the whole Revolution, Lafayette's Iroquois in their war regalia and Clinton's advance-guard of Hessian cavalry. As the latter advanced, the Indians rose from their hiding-places uttering their piercing war-whoops. The horses of the troopers were terrified by the brilliant, shrieking creatures, and bolted. But terror was not all upon one side. The Indians had never seen men like these Hessians, with their huge bearskin shakos and fierce dyed mustaches. ”

“ In time the Motiers de Lafayette divided into two branches, the elder keeping the estate and name and most of the glory; the younger, known as the Motiers of Champetières, enjoying only local renown. The women of the family also made a place for themselves in history. One, who had beauty, had also courage and wit to oppose the great Cardinal Richelieu himself. Another, less known in politics than in literature, though she tried her hand at both, became famous as a novelist. ”

“ Lincoln watched political developments very closely, not merely to note the progress of his own chances, but with an anxious view to the future in case he should be elected. Beyond the ever-changing circle of friendly faces near him he saw the growing unrest and anger of the South, and doubtless felt the uncertainty of many good people in the North, who questioned the power of this untried Western man to guide the country through the coming perils.
Never over-confident of his own powers, his mind must at times have been full of misgivings ”

“ Abraham Lincoln had grown to manhood while the question was gaining in importance. As a youth, during his flatboat voyages to New Orleans he had seen negroes chained and beaten, and the injustice of slavery had been stamped upon his soul. The uprightness of his mind abhorred a system that kept men in bondage merely because they happened to be black. The intensity of his feeling on the subject had made him a Whig when, as a friendless boy, he lived in a town where Whig ideas were much in disfavor. ”

“ There is not one of you who would owe fortune to conduct contrary to my conscience. Come to me in England. Let us establish ourselves in America, where we shall find a liberty which no longer exists in France, and there my tenderness will endeavor to make up to you the joys you have lost. ”

“ It was by way of the Sangamon River that he entered politics. That uncertain watercourse had already twice befriended him. He had floated on it in flood-time from his father's cabin into Springfield. A few weeks later its rapidly falling waters landed him on the dam at Rutledge's mill, introducing him effectively if unceremoniously to the inhabitants of New Salem. Now it was again to play a part in his life, starting him on a political career that ended only in the White House. Surely no insignificant stream has had a greater influence on the history of a famous man. ”

“ During the long, dark night of Lafayette's imprisonment he had dreamed of America as the land of dawn and hope, and planned to make a new home there, but when release came this had not seemed best. Madame Lafayette's health had been too frail, and La Grange, with its neglected acres, was too obviously awaiting a master. "Besides, we lack the first dollar to buy a farm. That, in addition to many other considerations, should prevent your tormenting yourself about it," he told Adrienne. ”

“ Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. ”

“ In the cities the great power of the theater was directed to the same violent ends. In vain the more conservative patriots started clubs of their own; the others had too great headway. The Feuillants, that Lafayette and Bailly were instrumental in founding, was called contemptuously the club of the monarchists. All these changes were gradual, but little by little, as time passed, the aims of the revolutionists altered. What had been at first a cry for justice became an appeal for liberty, then a demand for equality, and finally a mad howl for revenge. ”

“ By this time the Lincoln homestead was no longer on the frontier. During the years that passed while Abraham was growing from a child, scarcely able to wield the ax placed in his hands, into a tall, capable youth, the line of frontier settlements had been gradually but steadily pushing on beyond Gentryville toward the Mississippi River. Every summer canvas-covered moving wagons wound their slow way over new roads into still newer country; while the older settlers, left behind, watched their progress with longing eyes. ”

“ My presence is more necessary to the American cause at this moment than you may imagine. Many foreigners who have failed to obtain commissions, or whose ambitious schemes after having obtained them could not be countenanced, have entered into powerful conspiracies; they have used every artifice to turn me against this Revolution and against him who is its leader; and they have taken every opportunity to spread the report that I am about to leave the continent. The British have openly declared this to be so. I cannot with good conscience play into the hands of these people. ”

“ On this immense battle-ground was fought one of the most costly wars of modern times, with soldiers numbering a million men on each side; in which, counting battles and skirmishes small and great, an average of two engagements a day were fought for four long years, two millions of money were used up every twenty-four hours, and during which the unholy prize of slavery, for which the Confederate States did battle, was completely swept away.
Though the tide of battle ebbed and flowed, defeat and victory may be said to have been nearly evenly divided. ”

“ Lincoln was direct, forceful, logical, and filled with a purpose as lofty as his sense of right and justice was strong. He cared much for the senatorship, but he cared far more to right the wrong of slavery, and to warn people of the peril that menaced the land. Already in June he had made a speech that greatly impressed his hearers. "A house divided against itself cannot stand," he told them. "I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. ”

“ Charles X was a Bourbon to the bone, and Lafayette had come back from America with renewed health, replenished means, and all the revolutionary impetuosity of youth. He had not one atom of that willingness to put up with "things as they are" which grows upon many reformers as their hair turns gray. John Quincy Adams divined this and advised Lafayette to have nothing more to do with revolutions. "He is sixty-eight years old, but there is fire beneath the cinders," the President of the United States confided to his diary in August, 1825. ”

“ By the end of July General Butler had on his hands 900 "contrabands," men, women and children of all ages, and he wrote to inquire what was their real condition. Were they slaves or free? Could they be considered fugitive slaves when their masters had run away and left them? How should they be disposed of? It was a knotty problem, and upon its solution might depend the loyalty or secession of the border slave States of Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, which, up to that time, had not decided whether to remain in the Union or to cast their fortunes with the South. ”

“ From our solitary retreat in the Danish territory of Holstein, where we shall endeavor to re-establish [Pg 252] the health you have saved to us, our patriotic prayers for the Republic will go out united with the most lively interest in the illustrious general to whom we are even more indebted for the services he has rendered liberty and our country than for the special obligation it is our glory to owe him, and which the deepest gratitude has engraved forever upon our hearts. ”

“ It was an army of citizens on their way home after a long and terrible war. Their clothes were worn, and pierced with bullets, their banners had been torn with shot and shell, and lashed in the winds of many battles. The very drums and fifes had called out the troops to night alarms, and sounded the onset on historic fields. The whole country claimed these heroes as part of themselves. They were not soldiers by profession or from love of fighting; they had become soldiers only to save their country's life. ”

“ Washington faced his men about, and, in order to cheer Philadelphians and give his soldiers a realization of what they were defending, marched the army through the city "down Front Street to Chestnut, and up Chestnut to Elm," riding, himself, at the head of his troops, a very handsome figure on his white horse, Lafayette conspicuous among the staff-officers, and the privates wearing sprigs of green in their hats as they marched to a lively air. They were joined as they went along by Pennsylvania militia and by other volunteers who hastened forward, American fashion, at prospect of a battle. ”

“ A child born to an inheritance of want; a boy growing into a narrow world of ignorance; a youth taking up the burden of coarse and heavy labor; a man entering on the doubtful struggle of a local backwoods career—these were the beginnings of Abraham Lincoln if we look at them only in the hard practical spirit which takes for its motto that "Nothing succeeds but success." ”

“ The poor in cities actually were very hungry; almost all the nobles were deeply in debt. In short, the forces for good and ill which had already honeycombed the kingdom when Lafayette was a boy had continued their work, gnawing upward and downward and through the social fabric until only a very thin and brittle shell remained. And, as the Maréchal de Richelieu pointedly reminded his weak king, people were no longer afraid to talk aloud about these things.
The success of the Revolution in America had done much to remove the ban of silence. Loans made by France had added to the scarcity of money ”

“ The ceremonies in the East Room were simple and brief, while all the pomp and circumstance that the government could command were employed to give a fitting escort from the Executive Mansion to the Capitol, where the body of the President lay in state. The procession moved to the booming of minute guns, and the tolling of all the bells in Washington, Georgetown and Alexandria; while, to associate the pomp of the day with the greatest work of Lincoln's life, a detachment of colored troops marched at the head of the line. ”

“ No man ever honored women more truly than did Abraham Lincoln; while all the qualities that caused men to like him—his strength, his ambition, his kindliness—served equally to make him a favorite with them. In the years of his young manhood three women greatly occupied his thoughts. The first was the slender, fair-haired Ann Rutledge, whom he very likely saw for the first time as she stood with the group of mocking people on the river-bank, near her father's mill, the day Lincoln's flatboat stuck on the dam at New Salem. ”

“ An ordinary man would have found on the frontier exactly what he would have found elsewhere—a commonplace life, varying only with the changing ideas and customs of time and place. But for the man with extraordinary powers of mind and body—for one gifted by Nature as Abraham Lincoln was gifted, the pioneer life with its severe training in self-denial, patience and industry, developed his character, and fitted him for the great duties of his after life as no other training could have done. ”

“ A President is elected by popular vote early in November, but he is not inaugurated until the following fourth of March. Until the day of his inauguration, when he takes the oath of office and begins to discharge his duties, he is not only not President—he has no more power in the affairs of the Government than the humblest private citizen. It is easy to imagine the anxieties and misgivings that beset Mr. Lincoln during the four long months that lay between his election and his inauguration. ”

“ 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 God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ”

“ It is seldom that heartier, truer friendships come to a man than came to Lincoln in the course of his life. On the other hand, no one ever deserved better of his fellow-men than he did; and it is pleasant to know that such brotherly aid as Butler and Speed were able to give him, offered in all sincerity and accepted in a spirit that left no sense of galling obligation on either side, helped the young lawyer over present difficulties and made it possible for him to keep on in the career he had marked out for himself. ”

“ Two points served to make the repeal of the Missouri Compromise of special interest to Lincoln. The first was personal, in that the man who championed the measure, and whose influence in Congress alone made it possible, was Senator Stephen A. Douglas, who had been his neighbor in Illinois for many years.
The second was deeper. He realized that the struggle meant much more than the freedom or bondage of a few million black men: that it was in reality a struggle for the central idea of our American republic—the statement in our Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal." ”

“ It is one thing to be elected President of the United States,—that means triumph, honor, power: it is quite another thing to perform the duties of President,—for that means labor, disappointment, difficulty, even danger. Many a man envied Abraham Lincoln when, in the stately pomp of inauguration and with the plaudits of the spectators ringing about him, he took the oath of office which for four years transforms an American citizen into the ruler of these United States. ”