Sangamon County, Illinois - City of Springfield 563, 1881 (part 19 of 25)

Mr. Lincoln was always active in public affairs, and was always an acknowledged leader. As he remarked in uis letter, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused him, and he united with others in the forn?ation of the Republican party, becoming its acknowledged leaiJer. In 1858, he was a candidate for United States Senator, to succeed Stephen A. Douglas, whose term was drawing to a close. Contrary to the usual custom with candidates for that office, instead of aiming to influence the members of the legislature, by whose votes the choice is made, the contest was brought directly before the people, in order to influence their action in choosing mem bers of the legislature, who were to choose a United States Senator. That led to seven joint debates between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas, in different parts of the State of Illinois. Mr. Douglas was elected as his own successor, but Mr. Lincoln's speeches in that campaign gave him a National reputation, and proved that his understanding of the slavery question was more clear and comprehensive than that of any other man in the Nation. This led to his being chosen by the Republican National Convention, which assembled in Chicago in June, 1860, as the candidate of that party for the office of President of the United States. After an exciting campaign, he was triumphantly elected, in November of that year, and inaugurated at Washington, March 4, 1861. It is unnecessary to follow his career during the long and bloody war that followed. In that struggle, he placed his reliance upon the Almighty God, as is clearly shown in the following letter, written in September, 1864, to a member of the Society of Fi'iends: " Executive Ma:nsion, \

"My Esteemed Friend - I have not forgotten - probably never shall forget - the very impressive occasion when yo uself and friends visited me, on a Sabbath forenoon, two years ago; nor has your kind letter, v\ ritten nearly a year later, ever been forgotten. In all, it has been your purpose to strengthen my reliance on God. I am much indebted to the good Christian people of this country for their constant prayers and consolations; and to no one of them more than yourself. The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must prevail, although we erring mortals may fail to accurately perceive them in advance. We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible war long before this; but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise. We shall yet acknowledge His wisdom and our error therein. Meanwhile, we must work earnestly in the best light He gives us, trusting that so working still conduces to the great ends He ordains. Surely, He intends some great good to follow this mighty convulsion, which no mortal could make, and no mortal could stay.

"Your people, the Friends, have had, and are having, a very great trial. On principle and faith, opposed to both war and oppression, they can only practically oppose oppression by war. In this hard dilemma, some have chosen one horn, and some the other. For those appealing to me on conscientious grounds, I have done, and shall do, the best I could and can, in my own conscience, under my oath to the law. That you believe this, I doubt not; and, believing it, I shall still receive, for our country and myself, your earnest prayers to our Father in Heaven. Your sincere friend,

No man ever discharged his duties more honestly, more faithfully, than did Abraham Lincoln. With a heart full of tender mercy, he loved all mankind, and knowingly would wrong no man. The South never had a more trusty friend, and in his death they lost one who could and would have done them more good than possible for any other man. On the evening of April 14 1865, while in attendance on a performance at Ford's Theater, in Washington, he was shot down by the hands of a cowardly assassin, and breathed his last on the morning of the 15th. An account of the deep grief, the respect paid his memory, the great funeral cortege reaching from the Capital of the Nation to his late home in Springfield, Avill be found elsewhere in this work. His remains now lay in a beautiful tomb, erected by a grateful people, in Oak Ridge Cemetery, and is annually visited by thousands of people.

The following tribute to his memory is embodied in an address by Isaac N. Arnold, a lifelong friend of Lincoln, before the Royal Historical Society, of London, England, and is worthy of its author and the subject treated:

"The noblest inheritance we Americans, derive from our British ancestors is the memory and example of the great and good men who adorn your history. They are as much appreciated and honored on our side of the Atlantic as on this. In giving to the English-speaking world, \Vashington and Lincoln we think we repay, in large part, our obligation. Their pre-eminence in American history is recognized, and the republic, which the one founded and the other preserved, has, already, crowned them as models for her children.

" In the annals of almost every great Nation some names appear standing out clear and prominent, names of those who have influenced, or controlled, the great events which make up history. Such were Wallace and Bruce, in Scotland, Alfred and the Edwards, William the Conqueror, Cromwell, Pitt, Nelson and Wellington, in England, and such in a still greater degree were Washington and Lincoln.

" I am here, from near his home, with the hope that I may, to some extent, aid you in forming a just and true estimate of Abraham Lincoln. I knew him, somewhat intimately, in private and public life for more than twenty years. We practiced law at the same bar, and, during his administration, I was a member of Congress, seeing him and conferring with him often, and therefore, I may hope without vanity, I trust that I shall be able to contribute something of value in enabling you to judge of him. We in America, as well as you in the old world, believe that "blood will tell;" that it is a great blessing to have had an honorable and worthy ancestry. We believe that moral principle, physical and intellectual vigor in the forefathers are qualities likely to be manifested in the descendants. Fools are not the fathers or mothers of great men, I claim for Lincoln, humble as was the station to which he was born, and rude and rough as were his early surroundings, that he had such ancestors. I mean that his father and mother, his grandfather and grandmother, and still further back, however humble and rugged their condition, were physically and mentally strong, vigorous men and women; hardy and successful pioneers on the frontier of American civilization. They were among the early settlers in Virginia, Kentucky and Illinois, and knew how to take care of themselves in the midst of difficulties and perils; how to live and succeed when the weak would perish. These ancestors of Lincoln, for several generations, kept on the very crest of the wave of Western settlements - on the frontier, where the struggle for life was hard and the strong alone survived.

"About I'ZSl, while his father was still a lad, his grandfather's family emigrated to Kentucky, and was a contemporary with Daniel Boone, the celebrated Indian fighter and early hero of that State. This, a then wild and wooded territory, was the scene of those tierce and desperate conflicts between the settlers and the Indians which gave it the name of ' The dark aud bloody ground.'

"When Thomas Lincoln, the father of the President, was six vearsold, his father (Abraham, the grandfather oi the President,) was shot and instantly killed by an Indian. The boy and his father were at work in the corn-tield, near their log-cabin home. Mordecai, the elder brother of the lad, at work not far away, witnessed the attack. He saw his father fall, and ran to the cabin, seized his ready-loaded rifle and springing to the loop-hole cut through the logs, he saw the Indian, who had seized the boy, carrying him away. Raising his rifle and aiming at a silver medal, conspicuous on the breast of the Indian, he instantly fired. The Indian fell, and the lad, springing to his feet, ran to the open arms of his mother, at the cabin door. Amid such scenes, the Lincoln family naturally produced rude, rough, hardy, and fearless men, familiar with wood-craft; men who could meet the extremes of exposure and fatigue, who knew how to find food and shelter in the forest; men of great powers of endurance - brave and self-reliant, true and faithful to their friends and dangerous to their enemies. Men with minds to conceive and hands to execute bold enterprises.

" It is a curious fact that the grand-father, Abraham Lincoln, is noted on the surveys of Daniel Boone as having purchased, of the government, five hundred acres of land. Thomas Lincoln, the father, was also the purchaser of government land, and President Lincoln left, as a part of his estate, a quarter-section (one hundred and sixty acres), which he had received from the United States, for services rendered in early life as a volunteer soldier in the Black Hawk Indian war. Thus for three generations the Lincoln family were land owners directly from the government.

" It will aid you in picturing to yourself this young man and his surroundings, to know that from boyhood to the age of twenty-one, in winter, his head was protected from the cold by a cap made of the skin of the coon, fox, or prairie wolf, and that he often wore the buckskin breeches and hunt ng-shiit of the pioneer.

'- He grew up to be a man of majestic stature and Herculean strength. Had he appeared in England or Normandy, some centuries ago, he would have been the founder of some great Baronial family, possibly of a Royal dynasty. He could have wielded, with ease, the twohanded sword of Guy, the great Earl of Warwick, or the battle-axe of Rk;hard of the Lionheart.

His Education And Training

"The world is naturally interested in knowing what was the education and training which fitted Lincoln for the great work which he accomplished. On the extreme frontier, the means of book-learning was very limited. The common free schools, which now closely follow the heels of the pioneer and organized civil government, and prevail all over the United States, had not then reached the Far West. An itinerant schoolteacher wandered occasionally into a settlement, opened a private school for a few months, and, at such, Lincoln attended at different times in all about twelve months. His mother, who was a woman of practical good sense, of strong physical organization, of deep religious feeling, gentle and self-reliant, taught him to read and write.

Although she died when he was only nine years old, she had already laid deep the foundations of his excellence. Perfect truthfulness and integrity, love of justice, self-control, reverence for God, these constituted the solid basis of his character. These were all implanted and carefully cultivated by his mother, and he always spoke of her with the deepest respect and the most tender affection. 'All that I am, or hope to be,' said he, when President, 'I owe to my sainted mother.'

"He early, manifested the most eager desire to learn, but there were no libraries and few books in the back settlements in which he lived. Among the stray volumes, which he found in the possession of the illiterate- families by which he was surrounded, were ^sop's Fables, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, a life of Washington, the poems of Burns, and the Bible. To these his reading was confined, and he read them over and over again, until they became as familiar almost as the alphabet. His memory was marvelous, and I never yet met the man more familiar with the Bible than Abraham Lincoln. This was apparent in after-life, both from his conversation and writings, scarcely a speech or State paper of his in which illustrations and allusions from the Bible cannot be found.

"While a young man, he made for himself, of coarse paper, a scrap-book, into which he copied everything which particularly pleased him. He found an old English grammar, which he studied by himself; and he formed, from his constant study of the Bible, that simple, plain, clear Anglo-Saxon style, so effective with the people. He illustrated the maxim that it is better to know thoroughly a few good books than to skim over many. When fifteen years old, he began (with a view of improving himself) to write on various subjects and to practice in making political and other speeches. These he made so amusing and attractive that his father had to forbid bis making them in working hours, for, said he, 'when Abe begins to speak, all the hands flock to hear him.' His memory was so retentive that he could repeat, verbatim, the sermons and political speeches which he heard.

"While his days were spent in hard, manual labor, and his evenings in study, he grew up strong in body, healthful in mind, with no bad habits; no stain of intemperance, profanity or vice of any kind. He used neither tobacco nor intoxicating drinks, and, thus living, he grew to be six feet four inches high, and a giant in strength. In all athletic sports he had no equal. I have heard an old comrade say, ' he could strike the hardest blow with the woodman's axe, and the maul of the rail-splitter, jump higher, run faster than any of his fellows, and there were none, far or near, who could lay him on his back.' Kind and cordial, he early developed so much wit and humor, such a capacity for narrative and story-telling, that he was everywhere a most welcome guest.

A Land Surveyor

"Like Washington, he became, in early life, a good practical surveyor, and I have, in my librai-y, the identical book from which, at eighteen years of age, he studied the art of surveying. By his skill and accuracy, and by the neatness of his work, he was sought after by the settlers, to survey and fix the boundaries of their farms, and in this way, in part, he earned a sup-

"It is difficult for me to describe, and, perhaps, more difficult for you to conceive the contrast when Lincoln began to practice law, between the forms of the administration of justice in Westminster Hall, and in the rude log courthouse of Illinois. I recall to-day what was said a few years ago by an Illinois friend, when we visited, for the first time, Westminster Abbey, and as we passed into Westminster Hall. 'This,' he exclaimed, 'this is the grandest forum in the world. Here Fox, Burke, and Sheridan hurled their denunciations against Warren Hastings. Here Brougham defeated Queen Caroline. And this,' he went on to repeat, in the words of Macauley, (words as familiar in America as here) ' This is the great hall of William Rufus, the hall which has resounded with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty kings, and which has witnessed the trials of Bacon and Somers and Stafford and Charles the First.' ' And yet,' I replied, 'I have seen justice administered on the prairies of Illinois without pomp or ceremony, everything simple to rudeness, and yet, when Lincoln and Douglas led at that bar, I have seen justice administered by judges as pure, aided by advocates as eloquent, if not as learned, as any who ever presided, or plead, in Westminster Hall.'

" The common law of England (said to be the perfection of human wisdom) was administered in both forums, and the decision of each tribunal were cited as authority in the other; both illustrating that reverence for, and obedience to, law, which is the glory of the Englishspeaking race.

"Lincoln was a great lawyer. He sought to convince rather by the application of principle than by the citation of authorities. On the whole, he was stronger with the jury than with the court. I do not know that there has ever been, in America, a greater or more successful advocate before a jury, on the right side, than Abraham Lincoln. He had a marvelous power of conciliating and impressing everyone in his favor. A stranger entering the court, ignorant of the case, and listening a few moments to Lincoln, would find himself involuntarily on his side and wishing him success. He was a quick and accurate reader of character, and seemed to comprehend, almost intuitively, the peculiarities of those with whom he came in contact. His manner was so candid, his methods so direct, s5 fair, he seemed so anxious that truth and justice should prevail, that everyone wished him success. He excelled in the statement of his case. However complicated, he would disentangle it, and present the important and turning point in a way so clear that all could understand. Indeed, his statement often alone won his cause, rendering argument unnecessary. The judges would often stop him by saying, 'If that is the case. Brother Lincoln, we M'ill hear the other side.'

" His ability in examining a Avitness, in bringing out clearly the important facts, was only surpassed by his skillful cross-examinations. He could often compel a witness to tell the truth where he meant to lie. He could make a jury laugh, and generally weep, at his pleasure. On the right side, and when fraud or injustice were to be exposed, or innocence vindicated, he rose to the highest range of eloquence, and was irresistable. But he must have faith in his cause to bring out his full strength. His wit and humor, his quaint and homely illustrations, his inexhaustible stores of anecdote, always to the point, added greatly to his power as a jury advocate.

"He remained in active j^ractice until his nomination, in May, 1860, for the Presidency. He was employed in the leading cases in both the Federal and State Courts, and had a large clientage, not only in Illinois, but was frequently called, on special retainers, to other States.

An Illinois Politician

"By his eloquence and popularity he became, early in life, the leader of the old Whig party, in Illinois. He served as member of the State Legislature, was the candidate of his party for speaker, presidential elector, and United States Senator, and was a member of the lower house of Congress.

Slavery

"When the independence of the American Republic was established, African slavery was tolerated as a local and temporary institution. It was in conflict with the moral sense, the religious convictions of the people, and the political principles on which the government was founded.

"But having been tolerated, it soon became an organized, aggressive power, and, later, it became the master of the government. Cor.scious of its inherent weakness, it demanded and obtained additional territory for its expansion. First, the great Louisiana territory was purchased, then Florida, and then Texas.

"By tbe repeal, in 1854, of the prohibition of slavery north of the line of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes of latitude (known in America as the 'Missouri Compromise'), the slavery question became the leading one i i American politics, and the absorbing and exciting topic of discussion. It shattered into fragments the old conservative Whig party, with which Mr. Lincoln had, theretofore, acted. It divided the Democratic party, and new parties were organized upon issues growing directly out of the question of slavery.

"The leader of that portion of the Democratic party which continued, for a time, to act with the slavery party, was Stephen Arnold Douglas, then representing Illinois in the United States Senate. He was a bold, ambitious, able man, and had, thus far, been uniformaly successful. He had introduced and carried through Congress, against the most vehemeat opposition, the repeal of the law, prohibiting slavery, called the Missouri Compromise.

In The Territories

"The issue having been now distinctly made between freedom and the extention of slavery into the territories, Lincoln and Douglas, the leaders of the Free-soil and Democratic parties, V»ecame more than ever antagonized. The conflict between freedom and slavery now became earnest, fierce and violent, beyond all previous political controversies, and from this time on, Lincoln plead the cause of liberty with an energy, ability and eloquence, which rapidly gained for him a national reputation. From this time on, through the tremendous struggle, it was he who grasped the helm and led his party to victory. Conscious ol a great cause, inspired by a generous love of liberty, and animated by the moral sublimit}'^ of his great theme, he proclaimed his determination, ever thereafter, ' to speak for freedom, and against slavery, until everywhere the sun shall shine, the rain shall fall, and the wind blow upon no man who goes forth to unrequited to I.'

The Lincoln And Douglas Debate

The great debate between Lincoln and Douglas, in 1858, was, unquestionably, both with reference to the ability of the speakers and its influence upon opinion and events, the most important in American history. I do not think I do injustice to others, nor over-estimate their importance, when I say that the speeches of Lincoln published, circulated and read throughout the Free States, did more than any other agency in creating the public o])inion, which prepared the way for the overthrow of slavery. The speeches of John Quincy Adams, and those of Senator Sumner, were more learned and scholarly, and those of Lovejoy and Wendel Phillips were more vehement and impassioned; Senators Seward, Chase and Hale spoke from a more conspicuous forum, but Lincoln's speeches were as philosophic, as able, as earnest as any, and his manner has a simplicity and directness, a clearness of illustration, and his language a plainness, a vigor, an Anglo-Saxon strength, better adapted than any other, to reach and influence the understanding and sentiment of the common people.

the time of this memorable discussion, both Lincoln and Douglas were in the full ma turity of their powers. Douglas being forty-five and Lincoln forty-nine years old. Douglas had had a long training and experience as a popular speaker. On the hustings (stump, as we say in America) and in Congress, and especially in the United States Senate, he had been accustomed to meet the ablest debaters of his State and of the Nation.

" His friends insisted that never, either in conflict with a single opponent, or when repelling the assaults of a Avhole party, had he been discomfited. His manner was bold, vigorous, and aggressive. He was ready, fertile in resources, familiar with political history, strong and severe in denunciation, and he handled, with skill, all the weapons of the dialectician. His iron will, tireless energy, united with physical and moral courage, and gi'eat personal magnetism, made him a natural leader, and gave him personal popularity.

" Lincoln was also now a thoroughly trained speaker. He had contended successfully at the bar, in the legislature, and before the people, with the ablest men of the West, including Douglas, Avith whom he always rather sought than avoided a discussion. But he was a courteous and generous opponent, as is illustrated by the following beautiful allusion to his rival, made in 1856, in one of their joint debates. ' Twenty years ago. Judge Douglas and I flrst became acquainted; we were both young then; he a trifle younger than I. Even then, we were both ambitious, I, perhaps, quite as much as he. With me, the race of ambition has been a flat failure. With him, it has been a splendid success. His name fills the Nation, and is not unknown in foi'eign lands. I affect no contempt for the high eminence he has reached; so reached, that the oppressed of my species might have shared with me in the elevation. I would

"We know, and the world knows, that Lincoln did reach that high, nay, far higher eminence, and that he did reach it in such a way that the ' oppressed' did share with him in the elevation.

"Such were the champions who, in 1858, were to discuss, before the voters of Illinois, and with the whole Nation as spectators, the political questions then pending, and especially the vital questions relating to slavery. It was not a single combat, but extended through a whole campaign.

"On the return of Douglas from Washington, to Illinois, in July, 1858, Lincoln and Douglas being candidates for the Senate, the former challenged his rival to a series of joint debates, to be held at the principal towns in the State. The challenge was accepted, and it was agreed that each discussion should occupy three hours, that the speakers should alternate in the opening and the close - the opening speech to occupy one hour, the reply one hour and a half, and the close half an hour. The meetings were held in the open air, for no hall could hold the vast crowds which attended.

"In addition to the immense mass of hearei's, re}t )rters, from all the principal newspapers in the country, attended, so that the morning after eac'i debate, the speeches were published, and eagerly read by a large part, perhaps a majority of all the voters of the United States.

'-The attention of the American people was thus arrested, and they watched with intense interest, and devoured every argument of the champions.

" Each of these great men, I- doubt not, at that time, sincerely believed he was right. Douglas' ardor, while in such a conflict, would make him think, for the time being, he was right, and I know that Lincoln argued for freedom against the extension of slavery with the most profound conviction that on the result hung the fate of his country. Lincoln had two advantages over Douglas; he had the best side of the question, and the best temper. He was always good humored, always had an apt story for illustration, while Douglas sometimes, when hard pressed, was irritable.

" Douglas carried away the most popular applause, but Lincoln made the deeper and more lasting impression. Douglas did not disdain an immediate ad caiytanduni triumph, while Lincoln aimed at permanent conviction. Sometimes, 57 - when Lincoln's friends urged him to raise a storm of applause (which he could always do by his happy illustrations and amusing stories), he refused, saying the occasion was too serious, the issue too grave. 'I do not seek applause,' said he, 'nor to amuse the people, I want to convince them.'

"It was often observed, during this canvass, that while Douglas was sometimes greeted with the loudest cheers, when Lincoln closed, the people seemed solemn and serious, and could be heard, all through the crowd, gravely and anxiously discussing the topics on which he had been speaking.

Douglas secured the immediate object of the struggle, but the manly bearing, the vigorous logic, the honesty and sincerity, the great intellectual powers, exhibited by Mr. Lincoln, prepared the way, and, two years later, secured his nomination and election to the Presidency. It is a touching incident, illustrating the patriotism of both these statesmen, that, widely as they differed, and keen as had been their rivalry, just as soon as the life of the Republic was menaced, by treason, they joined hands to shield and save the country they loved.

"The echo and prophecy of this great debate was heard, and inspired hope in the far-off cotton and rice-fields of the South. The toiling blacks, to use the words of Whittier, began hopefully to pray:

The Coopek-Institute Speech

" In February, 1860, Mr. Lincoln was called to address the people of New York, and, speaking to a vast audience, at the Cooper Institute (the Exeter Hall of the United States), the poet Bryant presiding, he made, perhaps, the most learned, logical, and exhaustive speech to be found in American anti-slavery literature. The question was, the power of the National Government to exclude slavery from the Territories. The orator from the prairies, the morning after this speech, awoke to find himself famous.

" He closed with these words, ' Let us have faith that right makes inight, and in that faith let us, to the end, do our duty as we understand it.'

*' This address was the carefully finished product of, not an orator and statesman only, but also of an accurate student of American history. It confirmed and elevated the reputation he had already acquired in the Douglas debates, and caused his nomination and election to the Presidency.

"If time permitted, I would like to follow Mr. Lincoln, step by step, to enumerate his measures one after another, until by prudence and courage, and matchless statesmanship, he led the loyal people of the Republic to the final and complete overthrow of slavery and the restoration of the Union.

" From the time he left his humble home in Illinois, to assume the responsibilities of power, the political horizon black with treason and rebellion, the teriftic thunder clouds, - the tempest which had been gathering and growing more black and threatening for years, now ready to explode, - on and on, through long years of bloody war, down to his final triumph and death - what a drama! His eventful life terminated by his tragic death, has it not the dramatic unities, and the awful ending, of the Old Greek tragedy ?

His Farewell To His Neighbors

"I know of nothing in history, more pathetic than the scene when he bade good-bye to his old friends and neighbors. Conscious of the difiiculties and dangers before him, difiiculties which seemed almost insurmountable, with a sadness as though a presentment that he should return no more was pressing upon him, but with a deep religious trust which was characteristic, on the platform of the rail-carriage, which was to bear him away to the Capital, he paused and said, 'No one can realize the sadness I feel at this parting. Here I have lived more than a quarter of a century. Here my children were born, and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. I go to assume a task more difticult than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have succeeded but for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which, at all times, he relied. * * * I hope you, my dear friends, will all pray that I may receive that Divine assistance, without which I cannot succeed, but with which, success is certain.'

"And as he waved his hand in farewell to the old home, to which he was never to return, he heard the response from many old friends, ' God bless and keep you.' ' God protect you from all traitors.' His neighbors ' sorrowing most of all,'

His Inaugural And Appeal For Peace

" In his inaugural address, spoken in the open air, and from the eastern portico of the capitol, and heard by thrice ten thousand people, on the very verge of civil war, he made a most earnest appeal for peace. He gave the most solemn assurance, that ' the property, peace, and security of no portion of the Republic should be endangered by his administration.' But he declared, with firmness, that the Union of the States must be 'perpetual,' and that he should 'execute the laws faithfully in every State.' ' In doing this,' said he, ' there need be no blood shed nor violence, nor shall there be, unless forced upon the National Authority.' In regard to the difiiculties which thus divided the people, he appealed to all to abstain from precipitate action, assuring them that intelligence, patriotism, and a firm reliance on Plim, who had never yet forsaken the Republic, ' were competent to adjust, in the best way, all existing troubles.'

" His closing appeal, against civil war, was most touching, ' In your hands,' said he, and his voice, for the first time faltered, ' In your hands, and not in mine, are the momentous issues of civil war.' * * 'You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.' * * 'I am,' continued he, ' loth to close, we are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies, though passion may strain - it must not break the bonds of aifection.'

" The answer to these appeals was the attack upon Fort Sumter, and immediately broke loose all the maddening passions which riot in blood and carnage and civil war.

" I know not how I can better picture and illustrate the condition of affairs, and of public feeling, at that time, than by narrating two or three incidents.

Douglas' Prophecy, January 1, 1861

"In January, 1861, Senator Douglas, then lately a candidate for the Presidency, with Mrs. Douglas, one of the most beautiful and fascinating women in America, a relative of Mrs. Madison, occupied, at Washington, one of the most magnificent block of dwellings, called the ' Minnesota Block.' On New Year's day, 1861, General Charles Stewart, of New York, from whose lips I write an account of the incident, says: divide the Union?' We were,' said Stewart, * sitting on the sofa together, when I asked the question. Douglas rose, walked rapidly up and down the room for a moment, and then pausing, he exclaimed, with deep feeling and excitement:

"'The Cotton States are making an effort to draw in the Border Slates, to their schemes of Secession, and I am but too fearful they Avill succeed. If they do, there will be the most fearful civil war the world has ever seen, lasting for years.'

" Pausing a moment, he looked like one inspired, while he proceeded: 'Virginia, over yonder, across the Potomac,' pointing toward Arlington, 'will become a charnel-house - but in the end the Union will triumph. They will try.' he continued, 'to get possession of this Capital, to give them prestige abroad, but in that effort they will never succeed; the North will rise en masse to defend it. But Washington will become a city of hospitals, the churches will be used for the sick and wounded. This house,' he continued, ' the Minnesota Block will be devoted to that purpose before the end of the war.'

" Every word he said was literally fulfilled - all the churches nearly were used for the wounded, and the Minnesota Block, and the very room in which this declaration was made, became the 'Douglas Hospital.'

" ' I will go as far as the Constitution will permit to maintain their just rights. But,' said he, rising upon his feet and raising his arm, 'if the Southern States attempt to secede, I am in favor of their having just so many slaves, and just so much slave territory, as they can hold at the point of the bayonet, and no more.'

'- Benjamin F. Butler, who as a delegate from Massachusetts, to the Charleston Convention, had voted many times for Breckenridge, the extreme Southern candidate for President, came to Washington in the winter of 1860-1, to inquire of his old associates what they meant by their threats.

'" We mean,' replied they, ' we mean Separation - a Southern Confederacy. We will have our independence, a Southern government - with no discordant elements.

'"You have friends,' responded Butler, 'in the North who will stand by you so long as you fight your battles in the Union, but the moment you tire on the flag, the North will be a unit againt you.' 'And,' Butler continued, 'you may be assured if war comes, slavery ends.'

The Special Session Of Congeess, July, 1861

"On the brink of this civil war, the President summoned Congress to meet on the 4th of July, 1861, the anniversary of our Independence. Seven States had already seceded, were in open revolt, and the chairs of their representatives, in both Houses of Congress, were vacant. It needed but a glance at these so numerous vacant seats to realize the extent of the defection, the gravity of the situation, and the magnitude of the impending struggle. The old pro-slavery leaders were absent. Some in the rebel government set up at Richmond, and others marshalling troops in the field. Hostile armies were gathering, and from the dome of the Capital, across the Potomac, and on towards Fairfax, in Virginia, could be seen the Confederate flag.

Breckenridge, late the Southern candidate for President, now Senator from Kentucky, and soon to lead a rebel army, still lingered in the Senate. Like Cataline among the Roman Senators, he was regarded^with aversion and distrust. Gloomy and perhaps sorrowful, he said, 'I can only look with sadness on the melancholy drama that is being enacted."

" Senator Baker, of Oregon, w^as making a brilliant and impassioned reply to a speech of Breckenridge, in which he denounced the Kentucky Senator for giving aid and encouragement to the enemy by his speeches. At length he paused, and, turning toward Breckenridge, and fixing his eye upon him, he asked, 'What would have been thought if, after the battle of Canna?, a Roman Senator had risen, amidst the conscript Fathers, and denounced the war, and opposed all measures for its success?'

" Baker paused, and every eye in the Senate, and in the crowded galleries was fixed upon the almost solitary Senator from Kentucky. Fessenden broke the painful silence by exclaiming, in low deep tones, which gave expression to the thrill of indignation, which ran through the hall, 'Pie would have been hurled from the Tarpeian Rock.'

" Congress manifested its sense of the gravity of the situation by authorizing a loan of two hundred and fifty millions of dollars, and empowering the President to call into the field five hundred thousand men, and as many more as he might deem necessary.

Surrender Of Mason And 8Lidell

" No act of the British Govei'nment, since the 'stamp act' of the Revolution, has ever excited such intense feeling of hostility toward Great Britain, as her haughty demand for the surrender of Mason and Slidell. It required nerve, in the President, to stem the storm of pojjular feeling, and yield to that demand, and it was, for a time, the most unpopular act of his administration. But Avhen the excitement of the day had passed, it was approved by the sober judgment of the Nation.

"Prince Albert is kindly and gratefully remembered in America, where it is believed that his action, in modifying the terms of that demand, probably saved the United States and Great Britain from the horrors of war.

Lincoln And The Abolition Of Slavery

"When, in June, 1858, at his home, in Springfield, Mr. Lincoln startled the people with the declaration, 'This government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free,' and when, at the close of his speech, to those who were laboring for the ultimate extinction of slavery, he exclaimed, with the voice of a prophet, 'We shall not fail; if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise councils may accelerate, or mistakes delay, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come;' he anticipated success, through years of discussion, and final triumph, through peaceful and constitutional means, by the ballot. He did not foresee, nor even dream (unless in those dim, mysterious shadows, which sometimes startle, by half revealing the future), his own elevation to the Presidency. He did not then suspect that he had been appointed by God, and should be chosen by the people, to proclaim the emancipation of a race, and to save his country. He did not foresee that slavery was so soon to be destroyed, amidst the flames of war which itself kindled.

His Moderation

"He entered upon his administration with the single purpose of maintaining National unity, and many reproached and denounced him for the slowness of his anti-slavery measures. The first of the series was the abolition of slavery at the National Capital. This act gave freedom to three thousand slaves, with compensation to their loyal masters. Contemporaneous with this, was an act conferring freedom upon all colored soldiers who should serve in the Union armies, and upon their families. The next 'vas an act, which I had the honor to introduce, prohibiting slavery in all the Territories, and wherever the National Government had jurisdiction. But the great, the decisive, act of his administration, was the 'Emancipation Proclamation.'

Emancipation Proclamation

" The President had urged, with the utmost earnestness, on the loyal slaveholders, of the Border States, gradual and compensated emancipation, but in vain. He clearly saw, all saw, that the slaves, as used by the Confederates, were a vast power, contributing immensely to their ability to carry on the war, and, that by declaring their freedom, he would convert millions of freedmen into active friends and allies of the Union. The people knew that he was deliberating upon the question of issuing this Emancipation Proclamation. At this crisis, the Union men of the Border States made an appeal to him to withhohi the edict, and suffer slavery to survive.

"They selected John J. Crittenden, a venerable and eloquent man, and their ablest statesman, to make, on the floor of Congress, a public appeal to the President to withhold the proclamation. Mr. Crittenden had been Governor of Kentucky, her Senator in Congress, Attorney- General of the United States, and now, in his old age, covered with honors, he accepted, like John Quincy Adams, a seat in Congress, that in this crisis he might help to save his country.

"He was a sincere Union man, but believed it unwise to disturb slavery. In his speech, he made a most eloquent and touching appeal, from a Kentuckian to a Kentuckian. He said, among other things, 'There is a niche, near to that of Washington, to him who shall save his country. If Mr. Lincoln will step into that niche, the founder and the preserver of the Republic shall stand side by side. * * Owen Lovejoy, the brother of Elijah P. Lovejoy, who had been mobbed and murdered, because he would not surrender the liberty of the press replied to Crittenden. After his brother's murder, kneeling upon the green sod which covered that brothers grave, he had taken a solemn vow of eternal war upon slavery. Ever after, like Peter the Hermit, with a heart of fire and a tongue of lightning, he had gone forth, preaching his crusade against slavery. At length, in his reply, turning to Crittenden, he said, 'The gentleman, from Kentucky, says he has a niche for Abraham Lincoln, where is it'?'

''Lovejoy continuing said, ' He points upward, But, sir! if the President follows the counsel of that gentleman, and becomes the perpetuator of slavery, he should point downward, to some dungeon in the temple of Moloch, who feeds on human blood, and where are forged chains for human limbs; in the recesses of whose temple woman is scourged and man tortured, and outside the walls are lying dogs, gorged with human flesh, as Byron describes them, lying around the walls of Stambool.' ' That,' said Lovejoy, ' is a suitable place for the statue of him who would perpetuate slavery.'

" ' I, too,' said he, ' have a temple for Abraham Lincoln, but it is in freedom's holy fane, * * not surrounded by slave fetters and chains, but with the symbols of freedom - not dark with bondage, but radiant with the light of liberty. In that niche he shall stand proudly, nobly, gloriously, with broken chains and slaves whips beneath his feet. * * That is a fame worth living for, aye, more, it is a fame worth dying for, though that death led through Gethsemene and the agony of the accursed tree.' *

" ' It is said,' continued he, ' that Wilberforce went up to the judgment seat with the broken chains of eight hundred thousand slaves! Let Lincoln make himself the Liberator, and his name shall be enrolled, not only in this earthly temple, but it shall be traced on the living stones of that temple which is reared amid the thrones of Heaven.'

" Lovejoy's prophecy has been fulfilled - in this world - you see the statues to Lincoln, with broken chains at his feet, rising all over the world, and - in that other world - few will doubt that the prophecy has been realized.

" In September, 1862, after the Confederates, by their defeat at the great battle of Antietam, had been driven back from Maryland and Pennsylvania, Lincoln issued the Proclamation. It is a fact, illustrating his character, and showing that there was in him what many would call a tinge of superstition, that he declared, to Secretary Chase, that he had made a solemn vow to God, saying, ' If General Lee is driven back from Pennsylvania, I will crown the result with the declaration of freedom to the slave.' The final Proclamation was issued on the first of January, I8H3. In obedience to an American custom, he had been receiving calls on that New-Year's-day, and, for hours, shaking hands. As the paper was brought to him by the Secretary of State, to be signed, he said, 'Mr. Seward, I have been shaking hands all day, and my right hand is almost paralyzed. If my name ever gets into history, it will be for this act, and my w hole soul is in it. If my hand trembles when I sign the proclamation, those who examine the document hereafter will say, 'he hesitated.'

"Then, resting his arm a moment, he turned to the table, took up the pen, and slowly and firmly wrote Abraham Lincoln. He smiled as, handing the paper to Mr. Seward, he said, ' that will do.'

"From this day, to its final triumph, the tide of victory seemed to set more and more in favor of the Union cause. The capture of Vicksburg, the victory of Gettysburg, Chattanooga, Chicamauga. Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Sheridan's brilliant campaign in the Valley of the Shenandoah; Thomas' decisive victory at Nashville; Sherman's march, through the Confederacy, to the sea; the capture of Fort ]\IcAllister; the sinking of the Alabama; the taking of Mobile, by Farragut; the occupation of Columbus, Charleston, Savannah; the evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond; the surrender of Lee to Grant; the taking of Jefferson Davis a prisoner; the triumph everywhere of the National Arms; such were the events which followed (though with delays and bloodshed) the ' Proclamation of Emancipation.

The Amendment To The Constitution

" Meanwhile Lincoln had been triumphantly re-elected, Congress had, as before stated, abolished slavery at the Capital, prohibited it in all the Territories, declared all negro soldiers in the Union armies, and their families free, and had repealed all laws which sanctioned or recognized slavery, and the President had crowned and consummated all, by the Proclamation of Emancipation. One thing alone remained to perfect, confirm, and make everlastingly permanent these measures, and this was to embody in the Constitution itself, the prohibition of slavery everywhere within the Republic.

"The President, in his annual message and in personal interviews with members of Congress, urged the passage of such resolution. To test the strength of the measure, in the House of Representatives, I had the honor, in February, 1864, to introduce the following resolution:

Besolved, That the Constitution should be 80 amended as to abolish slavery in the United States wherever it nov^ exists, and to prohibit its existence in every part thereof forever.' (Cong. Globe, vol 50, p. 659). This was adopted by a decided vote, and was the first resolution ever passed by Congress in favor of the entire abolition of slavery. But although it received a majority, it did not receive a majority of twothirds.

"The debates on the Constitutional Amendment (perhaps the greatest in our Congressional history, certainly the most important since the adoption of the Constitution) ran through two sessions of Congress. Charles Sumner, the learned Senator from Massachusetts, brought to the discussion in the Senate, his ample stores of historical il'ustration, quoting largely in its favor frem the historians, poets and statesmen of the past.

"In the lower House, at the first session, it failed to obtain a two-thirds vote, and, on a motion to reconsider, went over to the next session. "Mr. Lincoln again earnestly urged its adoption, and, in a letter to Illinois friends, he said, ' The signs look better. * * * Peace does not look so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay, and so come as to be worth keeping in all future time.'

-"I hope, Mr. President, one year from to-day I may have the pleasure of congratulating you on the occurrence of three events which now seem probable.'

that clear good sense and practical judgment for which he is distinguished, condensed into a single sentence the political argument in favor of the Constitutional Amendment, 'The North and South,' said he, 'can never live at peace with each other except as one Nation and that without slavery.'

" I would be glad to quote from this great debate, but must confine myself to a brief extract from a speech of the present President, then a member of the House. He began by saying, 'Mr. Speaker, we shall never know why slavery dies so hard in this Republic, and in this Hall, until we know why sin outlives disaster and Satan is immortal.' * * ' How well do I remember,' he continued, 'the history of that distinguished predecessor of mine, Joshua R. Giddings, lately gone to his rest, who, with his forlorn hope of faithful men, took his life in his hands and, in the name of justice, protested against the great crime, and who stood bravely in his place until his white locks, like the plume of Henry of Navarre, marked where the battle of freedom raged fiercest.' * * ' In its mad arrogance, slavery lifted its hand against the Union, and since that fatal day it has been a fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth.'

" Up to the last roll-call, on the question of the passage of the resolution, we were uncertain and anxious about the result. We needed Democratic votes. We knew we should get some, but whether enough to carry the measure, none could surely tell.

"As the clerk called the names of members, so perfect was the silence that the sound of a hundred pencils keeping tally could be heard through the Hall.

"Finally, when the call was completed, and the Speaker announced that the resolution was adopted, the result was received by an uncontrollable burst of enthusiasm. Members and spectators ( especially the galleries, which Avere crowded with convalescent soldiers) shouted and cheered, and before the Speaker could obtain quiet, the roar of artillery on Capitol Hill proclaimed to the City of Washington, the passage of the resolution. Congress adjourned, and we hastened to the White House to congratulate the President on the event.

"He made one of his happiest speeches. In his own peculiar words, he said, 'The great job is finished.' 'I cannot but congratulate,' said he, 'all present, myself, the country, and the whole world on this great moral victory.'

Personal Characteristics

" This great Hercules of a man had a heart as kind and tender as a woman. Sterner men thought it a weakness. It saddened him to see others sufi^er, and he shrunk from inflicting pain. Let me illustrate his kindness and tenderness by one or two incidents. One summer's day, walking along the shaded path leading irom the Executive Mansion to the War Oflice, I saw the tall, awkward form of the President, seated on the grass under a tree. A wounded soldier, seeking back pay and a pension, had met the President, and, having recognized him, asked his counsel. Lincoln sat down, examined the papers of the soldier, and told him what to do, sent him to the proper bureau with a note, which secured prompt attention.

"After the terribly destructive battles between Grant and Lee, in the Wilderness of Virginia, after days of dreadful slaughter, the lines of ambulances, conveying the wounded from the steamers on the Potomac to the great field hospitals on the heights around W^ashiugton, would be continuous - one unbroken line from the wharf to the hospital. At such a time, I have seen the President, in his carriage, driving slowly along the line, and he looked like one who had lost the dearest members of his own family. On one such occasion, meeting me, he stopped and said: ' I cannot bear this; this suffering, this loss of life - is dreadful.'

" I recalled to him a line from a letter he had years before written to a friend, whose great sorrow he had sought to console. Reminding him of the incident, I asked him: 'Do you remember writing to your suffering friend these words:

"In all his State papers and speeches, during these years of strife and passion, there can be found no words of bitterness, no denunciation. When others railed, he railed not again. He was always dignified, magnanimous, patient, considerate, manly, and true. His duty was ever performed, 'with malice toward none, with charity for all,' and with ' firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right.'

Never A Demagogue

humble life and manual labor, in a way to obtain votes. None knew better than he, that splitting rails did not qualify a man for public duties. He realized painfully the defects of his education, and labored diligently and successfully to supply his deficiencies.

His Conversation

"He had no equal as a talker in social life. His conversation was fascinating and attractive. He was full of wit, humor and anecdote, and, at the same time, original, suggestive and instructive. There was in his character a singular mingling of mirthfulnessand melancholy. VVhile his sense of the ludicrous was keen, and his fun and mirth were exuberant, and sometimes almost irrepressible; his conversation sparkling with jest, story and anecdote and in droll description, he would pass suddenly to another mood and become sad and pathetic - a melancholy expression of his homely face would show that be was ' a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

His Stories

"He always had a story ready, and, if not, he could improvise one, just fitted for the occasion. The following may, I think, be said to have been adapted:

"An Atlantic port, in one of the British provinces, was, during the war, a great resort and refuge for blockade-runners, and a large contraband trade was said to have been carried on from that port with the Confederates. Late in the summer of 1864, while the election of President was pending, Lincoln being a candidate, the Governor-General of that province, with some of the principal officers, visited Washington, and called to pay their respects to the executive. Mr. Lincoln had been very much annoyed by the failure of these oflicials to enforce, very strictly, the rules of neutrality, but he treated his guests with great courtesy. After a pleasant interview, the Governor, alluding to the approaching presidential election, said, jokingly, but with a grain of sarcasm, 'I understand, Mr. President, everybody votes in this country. If we remain until November can we vote?'

" 'You remind me,' replied the President, 'of a countryman of yours, a green emigrant from Ireland. Pat arrived in New York on election day, and was, perhaps, as eager as Your Excellency to vote, and to vote early and late and often. So, upon his landing at Castle Garden, he hastened to the nearest voting place, and, as he approached, the judge, who received the ballots, inquired, 'who do you want to vote for? on which side are you':" Poor Pat was embarrassed, he did not know who were the candidates. He stopped, scratched his head, then, with the readiness of his countrymen, he said:

" 'I am foment the government, anyhow. Tell me, if your Honor plases, which is the rebellion side, and I'll tell you how I want to vote. In old Ireland I was always on the rebellion side, and, by Saint Patrick, I'll stick to that same in America.'

The Books He Read

" The two books he read most were the Bible and Shakspeare. With them he was familiar, reaiiing and quoting from them constantly. Next to Shakspeare, among the poets was Burns, with whom he had a hearty sympathy, and upon whose poetry he wrote a lecture. He was extremely fond of ballads, and of simple, sad and plaintive music.

" I called one day at the White House, to introduce two officers of the Union army, both Swedes. Immediately he began and repeated from memory, to the delight of his visitors, a long ballad, descriptive of Norwegian scenery, a Norse legend, and the adventures of an old Viking among the fiords of the North.

" On the last Sunday of his life, as he was sailing up the Potomac, returning to Washington from his visit to Richmond, he read aloud many extracts from Macbeth, and, among others, the following, and with a tone and accent so impressive that, after his death, it was vividly recalled by those who heard him:

" ' Duncan is in his grave; After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well ; Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, Can touch him furtherY'

" ' This Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet- tongued against The deep damnation of his taking oft'.'

His Religion

" It is Strange that any reader of Lincoln's speeches and writings should have had the hardihood to charge him with infidelity, but the charge, having been repeatedly made, I reply, in the light of facts accessible to all, that no more reverent Christian (not excepting Washington) ever filled the chair of President. Declarations of his trust in God, his faith in the efficacy of prayer, pervade his speeches and writings. From the time he left Springfield, to his death, he not only himself continuedly prayed for Divine assistance, but never failed to ask the prayers of others for himself and his country.

"His reply to the negroes of Baltimore, who in 1864, presented him with a beautiful Bible, as an expression of their love and gratitude, ought to have silenced all who have made such charges. After thanking them, he said: 'This great book is the best gift God has given to man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated through this book.'

" When a member of Congress, knowing his religious character, asked him ' why he did not join some church'?' Mr. Lincoln replied: 'Because I found difficulty, without mental reservation, in giving my assent to their long and complicated confessions of faith. When any chui'ch will inscribe over its altar the Savior's condensed statement of law and gospel, ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself,' that church will I join with all my heart.'

What He Accomplished

" When he assumed the duties of the executive, he found an empty treasury, the National credit was gone, the little nucleus oP an army and navy scattered and disarmed, the officers, who had not deserted to the rebels, strangers; the party which elected him in a minority (he having been elected only because his opponents were divided between Douglas, Breckenridge and Everett), the old Democratic party, which had ruled most of the time for half a century, hostile, and even that part of it in the North, from long association, in sympathy with the insurgents; his own party made up of discordant elements, and neither he nor his party had acquired prest'ge and the confidence of the people. It is the exact truth to say that when he entered the White House he was the object of personal prejudice to a majority of the American people, and of contempt to a powerful minority. He entered upon his task of restoring the integrity of a broken Union, without sympathy from any of the great powers of

Western Europe. Those which were not hostile manifested a cold neutrality, exhibiting toward hira and his government no cordial good-will, nor extending any moral aid. Yet, in spite of all, he crushed the most stupendous rebellion, supported by armies more vast, by resources greater, and an organization more perfect, than ever before undertook the dismemberment of a Nation. He united and held together, against contending factions, his own party, and strengthened it by securing the confidence and winning the support of the best part of all parties. He composed the quarrels of rival generals; and at length won the respect and confidence and sympathy of all Nati ns and peoples. He was re-elected almost by acclamation, and after a series of brilliant victories, he annihilated all armed opposition. He led the people, step by step, to emancipation, and saw his woik crowned by an amendment of the Constitution, eradicating and prohibiting slavery forever throughout the Republic.

" Such is a brief and imperfect summary of his achievements during the last five years of his life. And this good man, when the hour of victory came, made it not the hour of vengeance, but of forgiveness and reconciliation.

" These five years of incessant labor and fearful responsibility told even upon his strength and vigor. He left Illinois for the Capital with a frame of iron and nerves of steel. His old friends who had known him as a man who did not know what illness was; who had seen him on the }>rairies before the Illinois Courts, full of life, genial, and sparkling with fun; now saw the wrinkles on his forehead deepened into furrows - the laugh of the old days lost its heartiness; anxiety, responsibility, care, and hard work wore upon him, and his nerves of steel, at times, became irritable. He had had no respite, had taken no holidays. When others fled away from the dust and heat of the Capital, he stayed. He would not leave the helm until all danger was past, and the good ship of state had made her port.

"' I will not dwell upon the unutterable sorrow of the American people, at his shocking death. But I desire to express here, in this great City of this grand Empire, the sensibility M'ith which the people of the United States received, at his death, the sympathy of the English-speaking race.

"That sympathy was most eloquently expressed by all. It came from Windsor Castle to the White House; from England's Widowed Queen to the stricken and distracted widow at

Washington. From Parliament to Congress, from the people of all this magnificent Empire, as it stretches round the world, from England to India, from Canada to Australia, came words of deep feeling, and they were received by the American people, in their sore bereavement, as the expression of a kindred race.

"I cannot forbear referring in particular to the words spoken in Parliament on that occasien, by Lords Russell and Derby, and especially, by that great and picturesque leader, so lately passed away, Lord Beaconsfield. After a discriminating eulogy upon the late President, and the expression of profound sympathy, he said:

" ' Nor is it possible for the people of England, at such a moment, to forget that he sprang from the same fatherland and spake the same mother tongue.'

"God grant that, in all the unknown future, nothing may ever disturb the friendly feeling and respect which each Nation entertains for the other. May there never be another quarrel in the family."

Stephen A. Douglas

Stephen Arnold Douglas was born April 23, 1813, at Brandon, Vermont, "a good State to emigrate from," as he said. His father, who died when Stephen was an infant of three months, was a physician of considerable emimence, and a native of New York. His grandfather was a Pennsylvanian and a soldier in the Revolution, being with Washington at Valley Forge and at Yorktown. His great grandfather was also native born, but the remoteancestry was from Scotland, and it has been said, traceab'e to the blood of the Douglas'. In youth, Stephen received the ordinary school education of his native State, and was an apt and diligent pupil. At the age of fifteen, unable to gratify an ardent desire to prepare for college, owing to his mother's straightened circumstances, he apprenticed himself to the cabinet trade. In eighteen months afterwards, finding it too hard for his constitution, he abandoned it and entered the academy at Brandon. The following year, his mother having married a Mr. Granger, whose son had previously married his eldest sister, the family removed to Canadagua, New York, Here Stephen resumed his academical course, and also commenced to read law. At the age of twenty he started West to seek an eligible location. At Cleveland he was long detained by sickness. Recovering, he went to Cincinnati, and thence by river to St. Louis, finding his way, late in the fall of 1833, to the village of Winchester, Scott county, Illinois, whither he walked from Jacksonville, in quest of a school to teach, his exchequer being reduced to thirty-seven and a half cents. His first work was clerking at a. vendue, which yielded him six dollars, but he obtained, shortly after, a school of forty pupils at three dollars a quarter. He kept Up his law studies meanwhile, and the following March was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court sitting at Vandalia. He now partook himself to the practice of the law, and speedily won distinction in his profession. Within a year of his admission to the bar he was twenty-two years old, he was chosen by the legislature, Attorney- General of the State. In lSa6 he was elected to the legislature from Morgan county, being the youngest member in that body. At this session the Internal Improvement folly of the State was entered upon. In 1837 he was appointed by Van Buren, Register of the Land Office at Springfield. The same year he was nominated for Congress, and at the election of August, 1838, came within five votes of an election out of thirty-six thousand cast, his opponent being the Hon. John T. Stuart, Whig. He now devoted himself assiduoiisly t his new profession, and proved himself an able lawyer and successful advocate. His tact and skill in the examination of witnesses was unrivalled. In 1840 he entered with great ardor into the exciting Presidential campaign, canvassing the State thoroughly by addressing two hundred and seven meetings in favor of Van Buren. Upon the meeting of the legislature in December of that year he was appointed Secretary of State by Governor Carlin, who was unable to withstand the pressure in his favor. During the session, from partisan motives, the Supreme Court was re-organized, in which Douglas took an active part through lobby addresses, etc., and was also elected to a seat upon the bench, rendering the court Democratic. The Supreme Judges had to perform circuit duty, Douglas being assigned to tbe Quincy District. In the fourth volume of the "Law Reporter," Boston, 1842, may be found a letter fiom a lawyer, who had emigrated to Illinois, giving the following description of him on the bench: "The Judge of our circuit is S. A. Douglas, a youth of twenty-eight, who was the Democratic candidate for Congress in 1838, in opposition to J. T. Stuart, the late member. He is a Verraonter, a man of considerable talent, and in the way of dispatching business, is a perfect ' steam engine in breeches.' This dispatch is the only benefit our circuit will derive from the change. He is the most democratic Judge I everiinew. While a case is going on he leaves the bench and goes among the people and members of the bar, takes a cigar and has a social smoke with them, or often setting in their laps, being in person five feet nothing, or thereabouts, and probably weighing about one hundred pounds. I have often thought we should cut a queer figure if one of our Suffolk bar should accidentally drop in."

But Douglas' manners upon the bench were unexceptional. He w^as studious, clear, comprehensive and expeditious, and it may be said that a more popular judge never wore the ermine in this State, notwithstanding his youth and slight figure.

In 1834, he was first elected to Congress by a majority of about four hundred. He was twice re-elected, his majority being increased each time - the last time to three thousand. In tbe loW'Cr house he is said to have been cautious and sparing of debate, studious and closely observant, and when he did arise for a speech, it was apt, forcible and to the purpose. His early education was not so thorough and scholaristic as it might have been, as he well knew, but this fact could never have been gathered from his speeches. Ashamed to be either uninformed or misinformed, he was a studious toiler throughout his busy and boisterous political life, amidst all its engrossing cares and unceasing occupation, and a wide and varied reader of history and its kindred of politics and law. Contact with public affairs gave scope to his understanding and depth to his judgment, and his knowledge became vast, complete and accurate. One of his first masterly efforts in Congress to attract National attention was his speech on the bill to refund to General Jackson, the fine imposed upon him for placing New Orleans under martial law at the time of the battle in its defence on the 8th of January, 1812. The venerable hero of that glorious event subsequently thanked Douglas for this able vindication, saying, " I know when I proclaimed and enforced martial law^ that I was doing right; but never until I read your speech, could I express the reasons which actuated my conduct." In 1847, Douglas entered the Senate, which was the arena of his hurculean labors. His name, young as he was, became speedily associated with the great National issues which affected the destiny of this people. He moulded and gave them direction in public affairs. Between the aggressions of the South and the resistance of the North over the angry subject of slavery in our Territories, it has been said that there is no escape from the conclusion that the genius of Douglas offered the only peaceable solution of a comtuon National ground upon which all could meet in the theory of Territorial sovereignity. To it, through his labors, the Democratic party was committed in 1856, gained a triumph at the polls and there, was basely betrayed by Buchanan and the South. But Douglas was true and faithful to the last and defended it whenever and wherever assailed. And while he was personally pursued by bitter, implacable, open political opponents, his darling idea which was empire or ruin with him, was more grossly betrayed by perfidious friends who rode into power upon it.

The most striking peculiarity in the physique of Mr. Douglas was his stature, which was greatly below the medium height - not above five feet. His trunk was ample, compact and erect, with full chest and square, well defined, though not broad shoulders; but his extremities were disproportionately short. In the latter years of his life he grew stout, though not obese. His figure would have been fatal to the divinity of the Appollo Belvidere. While his diminutive stature would arrest attention, his facile and natural dignity of manner, not to say grace, with an air, as if borne to command, would cause idle curiosity in the contemplation of his person to pass into speedy forgetfulness by the respect and attention which he inspired. His splendid head, covered with a heavy suit of dark hair, nicely poised upon his shoulders, and connected by a short neck, was massive in its brain development, conveying, under animation, the impression of almost infinite power. The ample forehead was squarely bui t up over the wide arches of his heavy brows, under which rolled a pair of large, restless, deep-set, dark blue eyes, capable of shooting out glances of electric fire, when under the impulse of the powerful brain battery back of them. His nose was broad and short; flai'ing nostrils, denoting coolness and courage. At its junction with the projecting forehead it left a peculiar transverse crease. His mouth was ample, cleanly cut, with lips finely arched, and whole evincing decision, and by the depressions at the angles, conveying a mingled idea of sadness and disdain His chin, backed by a firm jaw, squared well to the general outline of his face, indicating ardor, strength and vigor. He wore no beard, but presented smoothly shaven cheeks and handsome throat, with slight double chin. The general contour of his face was regular, and its muscles wonderfully mol^il*^, giving a pleasing and winning countenance. His complexion, though somewhat dark, with his usually good health, was clear; the exuberance of his animal spirits was extraordinary. He was of the vital temperament. Such is a brief physical description of the "Little Giant."

This soubriquet originated very early in his public life. In 18.33, President Jackson added to his refusal to re-charter the United States Bank, the removal of the deposits. Great was the consternation of the people, and a general panic prevailed. Party feeling ran extremely high, the President's supporters were unsettled in their views, and thousands differed with him on these measures. Douglas had just located at Jacksonville and opened a law office in a room in the court house. The Whigs of Morgan county, from their number and standing, were arrogant and audacious in their denunciation of the Administration. Douglas mingled freely with the people, who usually crowded the county seat on Saturdays, and among them was outspoken in his approbation of the acts of the Administration. He, and the editor of the Democratic paper at Jacksonville, deeming it advisable to rally the undecided, effect an organization of the Administration party, and define its position, in opposition to the views of many friends, called a mass meeting, and prepared a set of resolutions endorsing the bank policy of the Administration. On the day of the meeting the court house was thronged with people ©f both parties. Douglas being comparatively a stranger, declined to offer resolutions, but as it soon became apparent unless he did, it would not be done, he boldly advanced and read them, following with a few brief explanatory remarks. Immediately upon his conclusion, Josiah Lamborn, a Whig of great influence and oratorical powers, attacked the resolutions and their reader in a severe and caustic manner. The blood of Douglas was up; this was his first political effort, but he met his antagonist with such arguments, so vehement and effective, that the excitement of his friends reached the highest point of endurance; they cheered, seized and bore him aloft through the crowd and around the public square, in gratitude and admiration, applying to him such complimentary titles as "high combed cock," "little giant," etc., which last, by its peculiar appropriateness, adhered to him to the last. His effort that day, in a measure, changed the political destiny of Morgan county. It was long remembered, and the old veterans of Morgan always held that Douglas never equalled this speech of March, 1834.

of his sentiments and views, swaying their will, or directing their sensibility, at pleasure. He affected no Senatorial airs, betrayed no aristocratic spirit, but naturally and easily identified himself with the democracy. He had been the genial companion of many an early pioneer, and his intimate knowledge of the people and sympathy with them enabled him on the stump to convey to their common understanding, in their own accustomed vehicles of thought, his reasonings upon the political questions of the day, often enforcing and clenching an argument to those who remembered the frontier times, by a peculiar border figure, carrying conviction to their minds, as evinced by a spontaneous outburst of applause at frequent intervals. But his most inseparable attributes were rapidity and boldness of thought, and his dexterity in debate, of which he became a consummate master, cropped out early in life, giving promise of unequaled power in his first efforts on the stump. He had the faculty of summoning all his mental resources with a promptitude which served admirably the occasion, even if required instantly, in reply to a powerful antagonist in the Senate. Therefore, while his forte lay, to a certain extent, in his matchless power upon the hustings, he swayed a no less power in the caucus or the august Senate.

His manner of treating a subject was bold and independent, always striking the hard and strong points. To halting friends, he appeared at times to be overbearing, and there was a vein of cold irony in his nature, which, with a defiant tone in his remarks, a haughty manner, and a curling lip, sunk deep into the heart of an enemy. Energy and activity, courage and fortitude, were of the essence of his nature. The assaults that would excruciate some men only excited a smile of derision on his intrepid face. Elastic in both body and mind, he was capable of performing an incredible amount of j^olitical labor in the open field. Thus, with sagacity as if inspired by genius, a mind matured by careful study, a judgment clear and decisive, a courage which shrank from no danger, amounting at times to apparent audacity, yet always tempered with discretion; a will to yield to no difficulty, and unappalled by any obstacle; appreciation of the people, and the faculty to lead them, Douglas was a statesman of the very first order.

To further illustrate Douglas' power among the people we give the following graphic sketch, by the editor of the Newburyport (Mass.) Herald, who was a fellow passenger in the cars with Mr. Douglas, through Illinois, on occasion of opening the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, and afterward: "That man with a big, round head, a brow almost as broad as Webster's, and a quick, active eye that rolls under the heavy, projecting brow, watching every other man, and not allowing a motion to escape him; with arms too short for his body, which is full and round, as though it never lacked the juices that supply life, and with small, duck legs, which, had ihey grown as thick as his back-bone (and'they would, probably, if Providence had not foreseen that he would want back-bone more than legs in his battle of life), would have made him of respectable stature - that little man is no less than the great politician of the West, who has attracted more attention in the last four years than any other man of the Nation, and done more to give direction to public affairs than even the President, with a million and a half of voters at his back, and the army, navy, and treasury of North America at his command. It is the ' Little Giant,' Stephen A. Douglas, with whom we parted company at Vincennes, and who has slowly come along, feeling the public pulse to learn the political health of the ' Suckers,' up to Springfield, the capital of the State. The means of success in Senator Douglas are very apparent. First, he is really and intellectually a great man. Eastern people, who view him only as a low politician, should disabuse their minds in relation to one who is to exercise a wide influence in the affairs of the country, and, very probably, for he is yet young, to be the head of the Republic. He is massive in his conceptions, broad and comprehensive in his views, and in a good measure is endowed with all those powers of mind that make a statesman.

"But he is greater still in energy of character. There are those that think that a defeat of him next year would be his death in politics; but the man who sprung from a cabinet-maker's shop in Vermont, and without father or friend worked his way to an honorable place upon the bench of judges, who entered Illinois with less than fifty cents in money, and not one cent in credit, and has acquired great wealth, and the highest station and influence, is not ready to be whipped out. But if he is great in mind, and greater in energy, he is greater in those winning manners for which the world calls him a demagogue. Scarcely a man, woman or child in the cars escapes his attention, or passed by unspoken to. At one moment he talks with the old, sternvisaged politician, who has been soured by a thousand defeats and disappointments; in the next to that well-formed and genial Kentuckian, who has just sought a free Stale; now he sits down with the little girl approaching her teens, and asks of her school studies; and he pats the little boy on the head, and in presence of his mother and proud father ( what father is not proud to see his boy noticed?) says a word of his mild eyes and glossy locks. Again the lady is approached with a fair word and a bland smile, and goes home pleased to tell her father how he looks, and then half a dozen are abont him, all standing together. He can talk religion with the priest as well as i)olitics with the statesman; he can congratulate the newly appointed Buchanan ofiice-holdei-, who has surplanted his friend, tell the displaced friend of the good time coming, when his wing shall be up; and at every station, more regularly than the conductor, Mr. Douglas is upon the platform with a goodbye to the leaving, and a welcome to the departing traveler - a shake of the hand with one man that stands at the depot, and a touch of the hat to another. He knows everybody; can tell the question that effects each locality; call the name of every farm owner on the way; tell all travelers something of the homes they left, that they never knew themselves, and suggest what place they deserve in Heaven. Now, such a man as that, in contact with evei'ybody, knowing everybody, and at the bottom, wrapped up with the idea of preferment, power and dominion among men is not easily to be put down; and his opponents might as well believe at once, that when they fight him they fight a strong man - a little giant indeed. He would be popular in Boston or anywhere else, and half the ' three thousand clergymen' he denounced would have their hearts stolen if he could speak to them a half hour."

Douglas' speeches contain few rhetorical flourishes. But they are models of exact language, orderly and systematic in thought, full and compi'ehensive in grasp. There is never a strained effort at mere beauty of word painting. The architecture of his sentences, as well as the ideas are solid, massive masonry, with broad foundation laid on firm rock, and the details and working plans so accurate as to be perfect in their adaptation, with nothing amiss or foreign and no surplus or waste material. So well and thoroughly are his sentences woven together that it is difficnlt to extract from his speeches any separate sentence conveying, text-like, a summary of the whole. While they are complete they yet seem parts necessarily connected with the whole. His arguments succeed each other like the weighty blows of an enormous trip-hammer, shaping the subject in hand with irresistible power, flattening the points opposed to him, and possibly the adversary under its mighty tilts.

In the circle of Washington life, Douglas, with the honors of a Senator, appeared with a natural grace and dignity rarely excelled. At the social board, or in dinner-table conversation, Colonel Forney, in his sketches of public men, says: "Douglas was almost unrivalled. His repartee was a flash, and his courtesy as knightly as if he had been born in the best society."

William H. Bissell

Though not a resident of Sangamon county until called to fill the gubernatorial chair, January, 1857, he then made choice of it as his future home, and here in the beautiful cemetery near Springfield, where lie othermen of National fame, his body lies buried, while his spirit rests in a fairer world.

William H. Bissell was born in Hirtwick, Otsego county, New York, April 25, 1811. He was self-educated, attending school in the summer and teaching in the winter. Upon reaching manhood, he studied medicine, a-^d graduated in 1834, at a medical college in Philadelphia. Subsequently he removed to Jefferson county, in this State, in 1838, but was prostrated shortly after his arrival, which used up what scanty means he had, and so far discouraged him that he was on the point of enlisting in the United States army, but was unable, on account of debility, to pass examination Crossing over from Jefferson Barracks to Monroe county, he secured a school, which he soon, however, relinquished, and commenced with success the practice of his profession, at Waterloo, In 1840, he was brought out by the Democratic party, and after an active canvass, elected a repiesentative in the legislature, redeeming Monroe county from the control of the Whigs. He at once acquired a reputation in the legislature as a ready and vigorous debator, and upon returning home he was persuaded by his friends to study the profession of the law. Upon being admitted t ) the bar, he formed a partnership with General Shields, and removed to Belleville. In 1844, he was elected State's Attorney for that circuit, and at once distinguished himself as an eloquent, successful and honorable proscutor. In 1846, upon the breaking out of the Mexican War, he enlisted as a volunteer and was elected Captain of one of the St, Clair county companies, and was subsequently chosen

Colonel of the Second Illinois regiment without opposition. His services in that war, and especially in the hard fought battle of Buena Vista, are well known to every reader of American history. In 1848, he was elected a Representative in Congress of the Eighth District, without opposition; was re-elected in 1850, without opposition; and was again re-elected in 1852. During the winter of 1851, he was taken sick with partial paralysis, which continued to afflict him till the day of his death. He was so much indisposed in the summer of 1854, when the Kansas-Nebraska bill was under discussion in Congress, that he was not able to take his seat; but he was opposed to that measure, and declared that if his vote would defeat it, he would insist on being carried to the House that he might cast it. In 1856, without any solicitation on his part, he was unanimously nominated by the Republican convention for Governor of the State, and elected over his Democratic competitor, William A. Richardson. To the duties of tliis oftice he was devoting his undivided attention at the time of his death.

Governor Bissell was twice married; first, in 1839, to a daughter of John James, of Monroe county. Two daughters were the issue of this union. He was married the second time to Elizabeth Kane, a daughter of Elisha Kent Kane, of Kaskaskia, a former United States Senator.

The life of William H. Bissell was brilliant, honorable, and full of service. In every position in which he was placed, he not only ably and nobly sustained himself, but reflected luster upon his adopted State. As a professional man, as a soldier, as a legislator, as an executive oflicer, he was faithful, capable, honest and chivalrous. He was a politician, but despised demagogism. He was a statesman of enlarged views, and vigor of mind which comprehended and was able to apply the true principles of government. The distressing disease which made him a cripple during the last ten years of his life, was the only preventative to the attainment of still higher honors. But for that he would in all probability have received the Republican nomination for the Presidency in 1856. He was a man of great elocutionary powers, and there was a vein of scathing and burning satire which occasionally run through his speeches. He was brave to a fault. As already intimated, in the battle of Buena Vista he won imperishable honors. In this battle Jeff Davis commanded a regiment of Mississippi troops. After the war, Davis, in the United States Senate, made a speech in which he attempted to claim for his regiment the glory which truly belonged to the Illinois troops, and especially to Bissell's regiment. Bissell, being a member of the House of Representatives, called the attention of that body to Davis' speech, and administered to hira a withering rebuke, and charged him with deliberate slander. Davis then sent him a challenge, which he promptly accepted, and having the choice of weapons and the distance, selected muskets loaded with buckshot, at a distance of twenty paces. The friends of both parties interfered, and the matter was amicably settled.

William H. Bissell died in Springfield, March 18, 1860, and was buried in Hutchinson's ('emetery. Subsequently his body was removed and interred in Oak Ridge Cemetery, and a beautiful monument erected over the grave, which attracts the attention of every visitor.

Governor Matteson

Joel A. Matteson was born August 8, 1808, in Jefferson county. New York, whither his father had removed from Vermont, three years before. His father was a farmer in fair circumstances, but a common English education was all that his only son received, Joel first tempted fortune as a small tradesman in Prescott, Canada, before his majority. He returned thence home, entered an academy, taught school, visited the large Eastern cities, improved a farm his father had given him, made later a tour south, worked there in building railroads, experienced a storm on the Gulf of Mexico, visited the gold diggings of Northern Georgia, whence he returned, via Nashville, to St. Louis, and through Illinois to his father's home, and married. In 1833, having sold his farm, he removed, with his wife and one child, to Illinois, and took a claim on government land near the head of Au Sable river, in the present Kendall county. At the time, there was not exceeding two neighbors within a range of ten miles, and only three or four houses between his location and Chicago. He opened a large farm. His family was boarding twelve miles away while he erected a house on his claim, sleeping, during this time, under a rude pole shed. Here his life was placed in imminent peril by a huge prairie rattlesnake sharing his bed. In 1835, he bought largely at the government land sales. During the speculative real estate mania, which broke out at Chicago in 1863, and spread all over the State, he sold his lands under the inflation of that period, and removed to Joliet. In 1838, he became a heavy contractor on the Illinois and Michigan canal.

tracts paid in State scrip; when all tlie public works, except the canal were abandoned, the State oft'ei-ed for sale seven hundred tons of railroad iron, whicli was purchased by Matteson at a great bargain. This he shipped and sold at Detroit, realizing a very handsome profit, enough to pay off his canal debts, and leave him a surplus of several thousand dollars. His enterprise next prompted him to start a woolen mill at Joliet, in which he prospered, and which, after successive enlargements, became an enormous establishment. In 1842 he was first elected a State Senator, but, by a bungling appointment, John Pearson, a senator holding over, was found to be in the same district, and decided to be entitled to represent it. Matteson's seat was declared vacant. Pearson, however, with a nobleness diflicult to appreciate in this day of greed for office, unwilling to represent his district under the circumstances, immediately resigned his unexpired term of two years. A bill was passed in a few hours ordering a new election, and in ten day's time, Matteson was returned, re-elected, and took his seat as Senator. From his well known capacity as a business man, he was made Chairmaji of the Committee on Finance, a position Avhich he held during this half and two full succeding senatorial terms, discharging its important duties with ability and faithfulness. Besides his extensive Avoolen mill interest, when work was resumed on the canal under the new loan of $1,600,P00, he again became a heavy contractor, and also subsequently operated largely in building railroads. He had shown himself a most enei'getic and thorough business man.

Matteson's forte was not on the stump; he had not cultivated the art of oily flattery, or the falculty of being all things to all men. His qualities of head took rather the direction of efficient executive ability; his turn consisted not so much in the adroit management of party, or the powerful advocacy of great governmental principles, as in those more solid and enduring operations which cause the physical development and advancement of a State - of commerce and business enterprise, into which he labored with success to lead the people. As a politician he was just and liberal in his views, and both in official and private life he stood untainted and free from blemish. As a man, in active benevolence, social virtues and all the amiable qualities of neighbor or citizen, he had few superiors. His messages present a perspicous array of facts, as to the condition of the State, and are often couched in elegant diction.