Jr. John T. Morse

“ Therefore, from beginning to end, Lincoln talked about slavery. By so doing he did what he could to give 160 to the war a character far higher even than a war of patriotism, for he extended its meaning far beyond the age and the country of its occurrence, and made of it, not a war for the United States alone, but a war for humanity, a war for ages and peoples yet to come. In like manner, he himself also gained the right to be regarded as much more than a great party leader, even more than a great patriot; for he became a champion of mankind and the defender of the chief right of man. ”

“ To the triumphant South he graciously admitted the finality of a decision which sustained the most extreme Southern doctrine. To the perturbed and indignant North he said cheeringly that the decision was of no practical consequence whatsoever! For every one knew that slavery could not exist in any community without the aid of friendly legislation; and if any anti-slavery community should by its anti-slavery legislature withhold this essential friendly legislation, then slavery in that State might be lawful but would be impossible. So, he said, there is still in fact "popular sovereignty." ”

“ There was no union among them, no cohesion of opinion or of purpose, no agreement of forecast; each had his own individual notion as to what could be done, what should be done, what would be the train of events. Politically speaking, society was a mere parcel of units, with topical proximity, but with no other element of aggregation. The immensity of the crisis seemed to shake men's minds; the enigma of duty involved such possibilities, in viii case of a wrong solution, that the wisest leaders, becoming dazed and overawed, uttered the grossest follies. ”

“ And what I say here will hold with still more force against the judge's doctrine of 'unfriendly legislation.' How could you, having sworn to support the Constitution, and believing it guaranteed the right to hold slaves in the Territories, assist in legislation intended to defeat that right?" "Is not Congress itself under obligation to give legislative support to any right that is established under the United States Constitution?" Upon what other principle do "many of us, who are opposed to slavery upon principle, give our acquiescence to a Fugitive Slave Law?" ”

“ But the chief educational influence was to be found in the Anglo-American passion for an argument and a speech. Hand in hand, as has so long been the custom in our country, law and politics moved among the people, who had an inborn, inherited taste for both; these stimulated and educated the settlers in a way that only Americans can appreciate. When Lincoln, as is soon to be seen, turned to them, he turned to what then and there appeared the highest callings which could tempt intellect and ambition. ”

“ From the inaugural ceremonies Lincoln drove quietly back through Pennsylvania Avenue and entered the White House, the President of the United States,—alas, united no longer. Many an anxious citizen breathed more freely when the dreaded hours had passed without disturbance. But burdens a thousand fold heavier than any which were lifted from others descended upon the new ruler. Save, however, that the thoughtful, far-away expression of sadness had of late seemed deeper and more impressive than ever before, Lincoln gave no sign of inward trouble. ”

“ If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against it are themselves wrong, and should be silenced and swept away. If it is right, we cannot object to its nationality, its universality; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its extension, its enlargement. All they ask we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. ”

“ That peculiar national trait whereby every American knows at least as much on every subject whatsoever as is known by any other living man, produced its full results during the war. Every clergyman and humanitarian, every village politician and every city wire-puller, every one who conned the maps of Virginia and imbibed the military wisdom of the newspapers, every merchant who put his name to a subscription paper, considered it his privilege and his duty to set the President right upon every question of moral principle, of politics, of strategy, and of finance. ”

“ If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. ”

“ Almost from the beginning it was highly probable that the Republicans would win, and it was substantially certain that none of their competitors could do so. The only contrary chance was that no election might be made by the people, and that it might be thrown into Congress. Douglas with his wonted spirit made a vigorous fight, traveling to and fro, speaking constantly in the North and a few times in the South, but defiant rather than conciliatory in tone. He did not show one whit the less energy because it was obvious that he waged a contest without hope. ”

“ In no speech was there fervor or enthusiasm or rhetoric; he talked to the reason and the conscience of his auditors, not to their passions. Yet the depth of his feeling may be measured by the story that once in the canvass he said to a friend: "Sometimes, in the excitement of speaking, I seem to see the end of slavery. I feel that the time is soon coming when the sun shall shine, the rain fall, on no man who shall go forth to unrequited toil. How this will come, when it will come, by whom it will come, I cannot tell,—but that time will surely come." ”

“ None who saw will ever forget the spectacle presented by these processions wherein many thousands of men, singing the campaign songs, clad in uniform capes of red or white oil-cloth, each with a flaming torch or a colored lantern, marched nightly in every city and town of the North, in apparently endless numbers and with military precision, making the streets a brilliant river of variously tinted flame. Torchlight parades have become mere conventional affairs since those days, when there was a spirit in them which nothing has ever stirred more lately. ”

“ The preëminently striking feature in Lincoln's nature—not a trait of character, but a characteristic of the man—which is noteworthy in these early days, and grew more so to the very latest, was the extraordinary degree to which he always appeared to be in close and sympathetic touch with the people, that is to say, the people in the mass wherein he was imbedded, the social body amid which he dwelt, which pressed upon him on all sides, which for him formed "the public." ”

“ His assembled advisers and critics, each and all save only the fiery Herndon, protested that language so daring and advanced would work a ruin that might not be mended in years. Lincoln heard their condemnation with gravity rather than surprise. But he had worked his way to a conviction, and he was immovable; all he said was, that the statement was true, right, and just, that it was time it should be made, and that he would make it, even though he might have "to go down with it;" that he would "rather be defeated with this expression in the speech ... than to be victorious without it." ”

“ Amid all the prophesying and theorizing, and the fanciful comparisons of the respective fighting qualities of the Northern and Southern populations, a sensible remark is attributed to Lincoln: "We must not forget that the people of the seceded States, like those of the loyal States, are American citizens with essentially the same characteristics and powers. Exceptional advantages on one side are counterbalanced by exceptional advantages on the other. We must make up our minds that man for man the soldier from the South will be a match for the soldier from the North, and vice versa." ”

“ General and people confronted each other: the North would fight, at the risk of defeat; McClellan would not fight, because he was not sure to win. Any one who comprehended the conditions, the institutions of the country, the character of the nation, especially its temper concerning the present conflict, also the necessities beneath which that conflict must be waged, if it was to be waged at all, would have seen that the people must be deferred to. The question was not whether they were right or wrong. ”

“ Such facts must be considered, though they diminish the poetry which rhetoricians and sentimentalists have cast over the melancholy of Lincoln's temperament. Yet they fall far short of wholly accounting for a gloom which many have loved to attribute to the mysticism of a great destiny, as though the awful weight of his immense task was making itself felt in his strange, brooding nature long years before any human prophet could have forecast any part of that which was to come. ”

“ Lincoln, therefore, went direct to the logical heart of the contention, when he said that the real dispute was whether slavery was a right thing or a wrong thing. If slavery was a right thing, a Union conducted upon a policy which was believed to doom it to "ultimate extinction" was not a right thing. But if slavery was a wrong thing, a revolution undertaken with the purpose of making it perpetual was also a wrong thing. ”

“ Such writers may say that a rich, civilized multitude of human beings, possessors of the quarter of a continent, believing it best for their interests to set up an independent government for themselves, fell back upon the right of revolution, though they chose not to call it by that name. Now, even if it be possible to go so far as to say that every nation has always a right to preserve by force, if it can, its own integrity, certainly it cannot be stated as a further truth that no portion of a nation can ever be justified in endeavoring to obtain an independent national existence ”

“ The Southerners, upon their part, looking anxiously to see whether or not they must fight for their purpose, construed the words of the new President correctly. They heard him say: "The union of these States is perpetual." "No State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union." "I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States." He also declared his purpose "to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts." ”

“ It has been with some difficulty that any one from among them has been found whose life it was desirable to write. But Thaddeus Stevens was really a man of great power and note. Intense and earnest, he exerted a magnificent influence in the way of encouragement and inspiration. He adhered, if not altogether so closely as he ought, yet at least more closely than did many others, to the proper sphere of his duties as a civilian. Influential in oratory, skillful in political management, masterful in temperament, and of unflinching loyalty, he was long the genuine leader of the House. ”

“ His appeal for military support seemed the marvelous word of a magician, and wrought instant transformation throughout the vast loyal territory. One half of the male population began to practice the manual, to drill, and to study the text-books of military science; the remainder put at least equal energy into the preparations for equipment; every manufacturer in the land set the proverbial Yankee enterprise and ingenuity at work in the adaptation of his machinery to the production of munitions of war and all the various outfit for troops. ”

“ There is a charm in the very unreason and mysticism of such a faith, and mankind will never quite fail to fancy, if not actually to believe, that the life which Lincoln had to live in the future wrought in some inexplicable way upon the life which he was living in the present. The explanation is not more strange than the enigma. ”

“ The "all men free and equal" of the Constitution, and the talk about human brotherhood, gave the Democrats wide scope for harassing anti-slavery men with vexatious taunts and embarrassing cross-interrogatories on practical points. "I do not question," said Douglas, "Mr. Lincoln's conscientious belief that the negro was made his equal, and hence is his brother. But for my own part, I do not regard the negro as my equal, and positively deny that he is my brother, or any kin to me whatever." ”

“ The great number of worthy citizens, who had been wont to save themselves from the worry of critical thought in political matters by the simple process of uniform allegiance to a party, now found the old familiar organizations rapidly disintegrating. They were dismayed and bewildered at the scene; everywhere there were new cries, new standards, new leaders, while small bodies of recruits, displaying in strange union old comrades beside old foes, were crossing to and fro and changing relationships, to the inextricable confusion of the situation. ”

“ Yet it was true that no one would stake his money on a "football team" which should go into a game trained in a time so short as that which had been allowed for bringing into condition for the manoeuvres and battlefields of a campaign an army of thirty or forty thousand men, with staff and commissariat, and arms of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, altogether constituting an organization vast, difficult, and complex in the highest degree of human coöperation. Nevertheless "On to Richmond!" rolled up the imperious cry from every part of the North. ”

“ These sentences made up the issue directly with secession, and the South, reading them, knew that, if the North was ready to back the President, war was inevitable; none the less so because Mr. Lincoln closed with patriotic and generous words: "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."
Until after the election of Mr. Lincoln in November, 1860, the sole issue between the North and the South, between Republicans on the one hand and Democrats and Compromisers on the other, had related to slavery. ”

“ Besides this, his denunciations were always against slavery, and never against slaveholders. The emphasis of condemnation, the intensity of feeling, were never expended against persons. By this course, unusual among the Abolitionists, he not only lost nothing in force and impressiveness, but, on the contrary, his attack seemed to gain in effectiveness by being directed against no personal object, but exclusively against a practice. His war was against slavery, not against the men and women of the South who owned slaves. ”

“ Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right,—a right which, we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. ”

“ They found in it a stimulus which, in fact, was not needed; for already were present all the elements of the fiercest struggle,—the best man and the best fighter in each party at the front, and not unevenly matched; a canvass most close and doubtful; and a question which stirred the souls of men with the passions of crusading days. Douglas added experience and distinction to gallantry in attack, adroitness in defense, readiness in personalities, and natural aptitude for popular oratory. Lincoln frankly admitted his formidable qualifications. ”