John Lord
Beacon Lights of History, Volume 12: American Leaders
Immediately after this battle Mr. Calhoun tried to have it announced as the policy of the government to recognize the independence of Texas. When Tyler became President, by the death of Harrison, although elected by Whig votes he entered heart and soul into the schemes of Calhoun, who, to forward them, left the Senate, and became Secretary of State, as successor to Mr. Upshur. In 1843 it became apparent that Texas would be annexed to the United States. In that same year Iowa and Florida–one free, the other slave–were admitted to the Union.
The Liberty party beheld the proposed annexation of Texas with alarm, and sturdily opposed it as far as they could through their friends in Congress, predicting that it would be tantamount to a war with Mexico. The Mexican minister declared the same result. But "Texas or Disunion!" became the rallying cry of the South. The election of Polk, the annexationist Democrat, in 1844, was seized upon as a "popular mandate" for annexation, although had not the Liberty Party, who like the Whigs were anti-annexationists, divided the vote in New York State, Clay would have been elected. The matter was hurried through Congress; the Northern Democrats made no serious opposition, since they saw in this annexation a vast accession of territory around the Gulf of Mexico, of indefinite extent. Thus, Texas, on March 1, 1845, was offered annexation by a Joint Resolution of the Senate and House of Representatives, in the face of protests from the wisest men of the country, and in spite of certain hostilities with Mexico. On the following fourth of July Texas, accepting annexation, was admitted to the Union as a slave State, to the dismay of Channing, of Garrison, of Phillips, of Sumner, of Adams, and of the whole antislavery party, now aroused to the necessity of more united effort, in view of this great victory to the South; for it was provided that at any time, by the consent of its own citizens, Texas might be divided into four States, whenever its population should be large enough; its territory was four times as large as France.
The Democratic President Polk took office in March, 1845; the Mexican War, beginning in May, 1846, was fought to a successful close in a year and five months, ending September, 1847; the fertile territory of Oregon, purchased from Spain, had been peaceably occupied by rapid immigration and by settlement of disputed boundaries with Great Britain; California–a Mexican province–had been secured to the American settlers of its lovely hills and valleys by the prompt daring of Capt. John C. Frémont; and the result of the war was the formal cession to the United States by Mexico of the territories of California and New Mexico, and recognition of the annexation and statehood of Texas.
Both the North and the South had thus gained large possibilities, and at the North the spirit of enterprise and the clear perception of the economic value of free labor as against slave labor were working mightily to help men see the moral arguments of the antislavery people. The division of interest was becoming plain; the forces of good sense and the principles of liberty were consolidating the North against farther extension of the slave-power. The perils foreseen by Calhoun, which he had striven to avoid by repression of all political discussion of slavery, were nigh at hand. The politicians of the North, too, scented the change, and began to range themselves with their section; and, while there was a long struggle yet ahead before the issues would be made up, to the eye of faith the end was already in sight, and the "Free-Soilers" now redoubled their efforts both in discussion and in political action.
Thus far, most of the political victories had been with the slave-power, and the South became correspondently arrogant and defiant. The war of ideas against Southern interests now raged with ominous and increasing force in all the Northern States. Public opinion became more and more inflamed. Passions became excited in cities and towns and villages which had been dormant since the Constitution had been adopted. The decree of the North went forth that there should be no more accession of slave territory; and, more than this, the population spread with unexampled rapidity toward the Pacific Ocean in consequence of the discovery of gold in California, in 1848, and attracted by the fertile soil of Oregon. Immigrants from all nations came to seek their fortunes in territories north of 36°30'.
What Calhoun had anticipated in 1836, when he cast his eyes on Texas, did not take place. Slave territory indeed was increased, but free territory increased still more rapidly. The North was becoming richer and richer, and the South scarcely held its own. The balance which he thought would be in favor of the South, he now saw inclining to the North. Northern States became more numerous than Southern ones, and more populous, more wealthy, and more intelligent. The political power of the Union, when Mr. Polk closed his inglorious administration, was perceptibly with the North, and not political power only, but moral power. The great West was the soil of freemen.
But the haughty and defiant spirit of Calhoun was not broken. He prophesied woes. He became sad and dejected, but more and more uncompromising, more and more dictatorial. He would not yield. "If we yield an inch," said he, "we are lost." The slightest concession, in his eyes, would be fatal. When he declared his nullification doctrines it was because he thought that State rights were invaded by hostile tariffs. But after the Mexican War slavery was to him a matter of life and death. He made many excellent and powerful speeches, which tasked the intellect of Webster to refute; but, whatever the subject, it was seen only through his Southern spectacles, and argued from partisan grounds and with partisan zeal. Everything he uttered was with a view of consolidating the South, and preparing it for disunion and secession, as the only way to preserve the beloved institution. In his eyes, slavery and the Union could not co-exist. This he saw plainly, but if either must perish it should be the Union; and this doctrine he so constantly reiterated that he won over to it nearly the entire South. But in consolidating the South, he also consolidated the North. He forced on the issue, believing that even yet the South, united with Northern allies, was the stronger, and that it could establish its independence on a slavery basis. The Union was no union at all, and its Constitution was a worthless parchment. "He proposed a convention of the Southern States which should agree that, until full justice was rendered to the South, all the Southern ports should be closed to the sea-going vessels of the North." He arrogantly would deprive the North even of its constitutional rights in reference to the exclusion of slavery from the Territories. In no way should the North meddle with the slavery question, on penalty of secession; and the sooner this was understood the better. "We are," said he, "relatively stronger than we shall be hereafter, politically and morally."
The great fight arose in 1849. The people in the Northwestern territories had been encouraged to form governments, and had already tasted the delights of self-rule. President Polk had recommended the extension of the old Missouri Compromise line of 36° 30' westward to the Pacific, leaving the territory south of that open to slavery. This would divide California, and was opposed by all parties. Calhoun now went so far as to claim the constitutional right to take slaves into any Territory, while Webster argued the power of Congress to rule the Territories until they should become States. So excited was the discussion that a convention of Southern States was held to frame a separate government for the "United States South." The threat of secession was ever their most potent argument. The contest in Congress centred upon the admission of California as a State and the condition of slavery in the Territories of Utah and New Mexico.
A great crisis had now arrived. Clay, "the great pacificator," once more stepped into the arena with a new compromise. To provide for concessions on either side, he proposed the admission of California (whose new constitution prohibited slavery); the organization of Utah and New Mexico as Territories without mention of slavery (leaving it to the people); the arrangement of the boundary of Texas; the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; and the enactment of a more stringent fugitive-slave law, commanding the assistance of people in the free States to capture runaways, when summoned by the authorities.
The general excitement over the discussion of this bill will never be forgotten by those who witnessed it. The South raged, and the North blazed with indignation,–especially over the Fugitive-Slave Bill.
Meanwhile Calhoun was dying. His figure was bent, his voice was feeble, his face was haggard, but his superb intellect still retained its vigor to the last. Among the multitude of ringing appeals to the reason and moral sense of the North was a newspaper article from The Independent of New York, by a young Congregational minister, Henry Ward Beecher. It was entitled "Shall we Compromise?" and made clear and plain the issue before the people: "Slavery is right; Slavery is wrong: Slavery shall live; Slavery shall die: are these conflicts to be settled by any mode of parcelling out certain Territories?" This article was read to Calhoun upon his dying bed. "Who wrote that?" he asked. The name was given him. "That man understands the thing. He has gone to the bottom of it. He will be heard from again." It was what the great Southerner had foreseen and foretold from the first.
The compromise bill at last became a law. It averted the final outbreak for ten years longer, but contained elements that were to be potent factors in insuring the final crisis.
With the burden of the whole South upon his shoulders Calhoun tottered to the grave a most unhappy man, for though he saw the "irrepressible conflict" as clearly as Seward had done, he also saw that the South, even if successful, as he hoped, must go through a sea of tribulation. When he was no longer able to address the Senate in person he still waged the battle. His last great speech was read to the Senate by Mr. Mason of Virginia, on the 4th of March, 1850. It was not bitter, nor acrimonious; it was a doleful lament that the Southern States could not long remain in the Union with any dignity, now that the equilibrium was destroyed. He felt that he had failed, but also that he had done his duty; and this was his only consolation in view of approaching disasters. On the last day of March he died, leaving behind him his principles, so full of danger and sophistries, but at the same time an unsullied name, and the memory of earlier public services and of private virtues which had secured to him the respect of all who knew him.
In reviewing the career of Mr. Calhoun it would seem that the great error and mistake of his life was his disloyalty to the Union. When he advocated State rights as paramount over those of the general government he merely took the ground which was discussed over and over again at the formation of the Constitution, and which resulted in a compromise that, with control over matters of interest common to all States, the central government should have no power over the institution of slavery, which was a domestic affair in the Southern States. Only these States, it was settled, had supreme control over their own "peculiar institution." As a politician, representing Southern interests, he cannot be severely condemned for his fear and anger over the discussion of the slavery question, which, politically considered, was out of the range of Congressional legislation or popular agitation. But when he advocated or threatened the secession of the Southern States from the Union, unless the slavery question was let alone entirely both by Congress and the Northern States, he was unpatriotic, false in his allegiance, and unconstitutional in his utterances. A State has a right to enter the Union or not, remaining of course, in either case, United States territory, over which Congress has legislative power. But when once it has entered into the Union, it must remain there as a part of the whole. Otherwise the States would be a mere league, as in the Revolutionary times.
Mr. Calhoun had a right to bring the whole pressure of the slave States on a congressional vote on any question. He could say, as the Irish members of Parliament say, "Unless you do this or that we will obstruct the wheels of government, and thus compel the consideration of our grievances, so long as we hold the balance of power between contending parties." But it is quite another thing for the Irish legislators to say, "Unless you do this or that, we will secede from the Union," which Ireland could not do without war and revolution. Mr. Calhoun, in his onesidedness, entirely overlooked the fact that the discontented States could not secede without a terrible war; for if there is one sentiment dear to the American people, it is the preservation of the Union, and for it they will make any sacrifice.
And the same may be said in reference to Calhoun's nullification doctrines. He would, if he could, have taken his State out of the Union, because he and the South did not like the tariff. He had the right, as a Senator in Congress, to bring all the influence he could command to compel Congress to modify the tariff, or abolish it altogether. And with this he ought to have been contented. With a solid South and a divided North, he could have compelled a favorable compromise, or prevented any legislation at all. It is legitimate legislation for members of Congress to maintain their local and sectional interest at any cost, short of disunion; only, it may be neither wise nor patriotic, since men who are supposed to be statesmen would by so doing acknowledge themselves to be mere politicians, bound hand and foot in subjection to selfish constituents, and indifferent to the general good.
Mr. Calhoun became blind to general interests in his zeal to perpetuate slavery, or advance whatever would be desirable to the South, indifferent to the rest of the country; and thus he was a mere partisan, narrow and local. What made him so powerful and popular at the South equally made him to be feared and distrusted at the North. He was a firebrand, infinitely more dangerous and incendiary than any Abolitionist whom he denounced. Calhoun's congressional career was the opposite of that of Henry Clay, who was more patriotic and more of a statesman, for he always professed allegiance to the whole Union, and did all he could to maintain it. His whole soul was devoted to tariffs and internal improvements, but he would yield important points to produce harmony and ward off dangers. Calhoun, with his State-sovereignty doctrines, his partisanship, and his unscrupulous defiance of the Constitution, forfeited his place among great statesmen, and lost the esteem and confidence of a majority of his countrymen, except so far as his abilities and his unsullied private life entitled him to admiration.
AUTHORITIES
I know of no abler and more candid life of Calhoun than that of Von Holst. Although deficient in incidents, it is no small contribution to American literature, apparently drawn from a careful study of the speeches of the great Nullifier. If the author had had more material to work upon, he would probably have made a more popular work, such as Carl Schurz has written of Henry Clay, and Henry Cabot Lodge of Daniel Webster and Alexander Hamilton. In connection read the biographies of Clay, Webster, and Jackson; see Wilson's History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, also Benton's Thirty Years of Congressional History, and Calhoun's Speeches.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
1809-1865
CIVIL WAR: PRESERVATION OF THE UNION
In the year 1830, or thereabouts, a traveller on the frontier settlements of Illinois (if a traveller was ever known in those dreary regions) might have seen a tall, gaunt, awkward, homely, sad-looking young man of twenty-one, clothed in a suit of brown jean dyed with walnut-bark, hard at work near a log cabin on the banks of the river Sangamon,–a small stream emptying into the Illinois River. The man was splitting rails, which he furnished to a poor woman in exchange for some homespun cloth to make a pair of trousers, at the rate of four hundred rails per yard. His father, one of the most shiftless of the poor whites of Kentucky, a carpenter by trade, had migrated to Indiana, and, after a short residence, had sought another home on a bluff near the Sangamon River, where he had cleared, with the assistance of his son, about fifteen acres of land. From this he gained a miserable and precarious living.
The young rail-splitter had also a knack of slaughtering hogs, for which he received thirty cents a day. Physically he had extraordinary strength, and no one could beat him in wrestling and other athletic exercises. Mentally, he was bright, inquiring, and not wholly illiterate. He had learned, during his various peregrinations, to read, write, and cipher. He was reliable and honest, and had in 1828 been employed, when his father lived in Indiana, by a Mr. Gentry, to accompany his son to New Orleans, with a flat-boat of produce, which he sold successfully.
It is not my object to dwell on the early life of Abraham Lincoln. It has been made familiar by every historian who has written about him, in accordance with the natural curiosity to know the beginnings of illustrious men; and the more humble, the more interesting these are to most people. It is quite enough to say that no man in the United States ever reached eminence from a more obscure origin.
Rail-splitting did not achieve the results to which the ambition of young Lincoln aspired, so he contrived to go into the grocery business; but in this he was unsuccessful, owing to an inherent deficiency in business habits and aptitude. He was, however, gifted with shrewd sense, a quick sense of humor with keen wit, and a marked steadiness of character, which gained him both friends and popularity in the miserable little community where he lived; and in 1832 he was elected captain of a military company to fight Indians in the Black Hawk War. There is no evidence that he ever saw the enemy. He probably would have fought well had he been so fortunate as to encounter the foe; for he was cool, fearless, strong, agile, and active without rashness. In 1833 he was made postmaster of a small village; but the office paid nothing, and his principal profit from it was the opportunity to read newspapers and some magazine trash. He was still very poor, and was surrounded with rough people who lived chiefly on corn bread and salt pork, who slept in cabins without windows, and who drank whiskey to excess, yet who were more intelligent than they seemed.
Such was Abraham Lincoln at the age of twenty-four,–obscure, unknown, poverty-stricken, and without a calling. Suppose at that time some supernatural being had appeared to him in a dream, and announced that he would some day be President of the United States; and not merely this, but that he would rule the nation in a great crisis, and save it from dismemberment and anarchy by force of wisdom and character, and leave behind him when he died a fame second only to that of Washington! Would he not have felt, on awaking from his dream, pretty much as did the aged patriarch whose name he bore, when the angel of the Lord assured him that he would be the father of many nations, that his seed would outnumber the sands of the sea, and that through him all humanity would be blessed from generation to generation? Would he not have felt as the stripling David, among the sheep and the goats of his father's flocks, when the prophet Samuel announced to him that he should be king over Israel, and rule with such success and splendor that the greatness and prosperity of the Jewish nation would be forever dated from his matchless reign?
The obscure postmaster, without a dollar in his pocket, and carrying the mail in his hat, had indeed no intimation of his future elevation: but his career was just as mysterious as that of David, and an old-fashioned religious man would say that it was equally providential; for of all the leading men of this great nation it would seem that he turned out to be the fittest for the work assigned to him,–chosen, not because he was learned or cultivated or experienced or famous, or even interesting, but because his steps were so ordered that he fell into the paths which naturally led to his great position, although no genius could have foreseen the events which logically controlled the result. If Lincoln had not been gifted with innate greatness, though unknown to himself and all the world, to be developed as occasions should arise, no fortunate circumstances could have produced so extraordinary a career. If Lincoln had not the germs of greatness in him,–certain qualities which were necessary for the guidance of a nation in an emergency,–to be developed subsequently as the need came, then his career is utterly insoluble according to any known laws of human success; and when history cannot solve the mysteries of human success,–in other words, "justify the ways of Providence to man,"–then it loses half its charm, and more than half its moral force. It ceases to be the great teacher which all nations claim it to be.
However obscure the birth of Lincoln, and untoward as were all the circumstances which environed him, he was doubtless born ambitious, that is, with a strong and unceasing desire to "better his condition." That at the age of twenty-four he ever dreamed of reaching an exalted position is improbable. But when he saw the ascendency that his wit and character had gained for him among rude and uncultivated settlers on the borders of civilization, then, being a born leader of men, as Jackson was, it was perfectly natural that he should aspire to be a politician. Politics ever have been the passion of Western men with more than average ability, and it required but little learning and culture under the sovereignty of "squatters" to become a member of the State legislature, especially in the border States, where population was sparse, and the people mostly poor and ignorant.
Hence, "smart" young men, in rude villages, early learned to make speeches in social and political meetings. Every village had its favorite stump orator, who knew all the affairs of the nation, and a little more, and who, with windy declamation, amused and delighted his rustic hearers. Lincoln was one of these. There was never a time, even in his early career, when he could not make a speech in which there was more wit than knowledge; although as he increased in knowledge he also grew in wisdom, and his good sense, with his habit of patient thinking, gave him the power of clear and convincing statement. Moreover, at twenty-four, he was already tolerably intelligent, and had devoured all the books he could lay his hand upon. Indeed, it was to the reading of books that Lincoln, like Henry Clay, owed pretty much all his schooling. Beginning with Weems's "Life of Washington" when a mere lad, he perseveringly read, through all his fortunes, all manner of books,–not only during leisure hours by day, when tending mill or store, but for long months by the light of pine shavings from the cooper's shop at night, and in later times when traversing the country in his various callings. And his persistent reading gave him new ideas and broader views.
With his growing thoughts his aspirations grew. So, like others, he took the stump, and as early as 1832 offered himself a candidate for the State legislature. His maiden speech in an obscure village is thus reported: "Fellow citizens, I am humble Abraham Lincoln. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance. I am in favor of a National Bank, of internal improvements, and a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments. If elected, I shall be thankful; if not, it will be all the same."
Lincoln was not elected, although supported by the citizens of New Salem, where he lived, and to whom he had promised the improvement of the Sangamon River. Disappointed, he went into the grocery business once again, and again failed, partly because he had no capital, and partly because he had no business talents in that line; although from his known integrity he was able to raise what money he needed. He then set about the study of the law, as a step to political success, read books, and the occasional newspapers, told stories, and kept his soul in patience,–which was easier to him than to keep his body in decent clothes.
It was necessary for him to do something for a living while he studied law, since the grocery business had failed, and hence he became an assistant to John Calhoun, the county surveyor, who was overburdened with work. Just as he had patiently worked through an English Grammar, to enable him to speak correctly, he took up a work on surveying and prepared himself for his new employment in six weeks. He was soon enabled to live more decently, and to make valuable acquaintances, meanwhile diligently pursuing his law studies, not only during his leisure, but even as he travelled about the country to and from his work; on foot or on horseback, his companion was sure to be a law-book.
In 1834 a new election of representatives for the State legislature took place, and Lincoln became a candidate,–this time with more success, owing to the assistance of influential friends. He went to Vandalia, the State capital, as a Whig, and a great admirer of Henry Clay. He was placed on the Committee of Public Accounts and Expenditures, but made no mark; yet that he gained respect was obvious from the fact that he was re-elected by a very large vote. He served a second term, and made himself popular by advocating schemes to "gridiron" every county with railroads, straighten out the courses of rivers, dig canals, and cut up the State into towns, cities, and house-lots. One might suppose that a man so cool and sensible as he afterwards proved himself to be must have seen the absurdity of these wild schemes, and hence only fell in with them from policy as a rising member of the legislature, to gain favor with his constituents. Yet he and his colleagues were all crude and inexperienced legislators, and it is no discredit to Lincoln that he was borne along with the rest in an enthusiasm for "developing the country." The mania for speculation was nearly universal, especially in the new Western States. Illinois alone projected 1,350 miles of railroad, without money and without credit to carry out this Bedlam legislation, and in almost every village there were "corner lots" enough to be sold to make a great city. Aside from this participation in a bubble destined to burst, and to be followed by disasters, bankruptcies, and universal distress, Lincoln was credited with steadiness, and gained great influence. He was prominent in securing the passage of a bill which removed the seat of government to Springfield, and was regarded as a good debater. In this session, too, he and Daniel Stone, the two representatives from Sangamon County, introduced a resolution declaring that the institution of slavery was "founded on both injustice and bad policy;" that the Congress had no power to interfere with slavery in the States; that it had power in the District of Columbia, but should not exercise it unless at the request of the people of the District. There were no votes for these resolutions, but it is interesting to see how early Lincoln took both moral and constitutional ground concerning national action on this vexed question.
In March, 1837, Lincoln, then twenty-eight years old, was admitted to the bar, and made choice of Springfield, the new capital, as a residence, then a thriving village of one or two thousand inhabitants, with some pretension to culture and refinement. It was certainly a political, if not a social, centre. The following year he was again elected to the legislature, and came within a few votes of being made Speaker of the House. He carried on the practice of the law with his duties as a legislator. Indeed, law and politics went hand in hand; as a lawyer he gained influence in the House of Representatives, and as a member of the legislature he increased his practice in the courts. He had for a partner a Major Stuart, who in 1841 left him, having been elected Representative in Congress, and was succeeded in the firm by Stephen T. Logan. Lincoln's law practice was far from lucrative, and he was compelled to live in the strictest economy. Litigation was very simple, and it required but little legal learning to conduct cases. The lawyers' fees were small among a people who were mostly poor. Considering, however, his defective education and other disadvantages, Lincoln's success as a lawyer was certainly respectable, if not great, in his small sphere.
In 1840, three years after his admission to the bar, Lincoln was chosen as an elector in the Harrison presidential contest, and he stumped the State, frequently encountering Stephen A. Douglas in debate, with great credit to himself, for Douglas was the most prominent political orator of the day. The heart of Lincoln, from the start, was in politics rather than the law, for which he had no especial liking. He was born to make speeches in political gatherings, and not to argue complicated legal questions in the courts. All his aspirations were political. As early as 1843 he aspired to be a member of Congress, but was defeated by Colonel Baker. In 1846, however, his political ambition was gratified by an election to the House of Representatives. His record in Congress was a fair one; but he was not distinguished, although great questions were being discussed in connection with the Mexican War. He made but three speeches during his term, in the last of which he ridiculed General Cass's aspiration for the presidency with considerable humor and wit, which was not lost on his constituents. His career in Congress terminated in 1848, he not being re-elected.
