Читать книгу The Life and Legacy of Abraham Lincoln - John Torrey Morse - Страница 8

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Collaterally with law and politics, Lincoln was at this time engaged with that almost grotesque courtship which led to his marriage. The story is a long and strange one; in its best gloss it is not agreeable, and in its worst version it is exceedingly disagreeable. In any form it is inexplicable, save so far as the apparent fact that his mind was somewhat disordered can be taken as an explanation. In 1839 Miss Mary Todd, who had been born in Lexington, Kentucky, December 13, 1818, came to Springfield to stay with her sister, Mrs. Ninian W. Edwards. The Western biographers describe her as "gifted with rare talents," as "high-bred, proud, brilliant, witty," as "aristocratic" and "accomplished," and as coming from a "long and distinguished ancestral line." Later in her career critics with more exacting standards gave other descriptions. There is, however, no doubt that in point of social position and acquirements she stood at this time much above Lincoln.

Upon Lincoln's part it was a peculiar wooing, a series of morbid misgivings as to the force of his affection, of alternate ardor and coldness, advances and withdrawals, and every variety of strange language and freakish behavior. In the course of it, oddly enough, his omnipresent competitor, Douglas, crossed his path, his rival in love as well as in politics, and ultimately outstripped by him in each alike. After many months of this queer, uncertain zigzag progress, it was arranged that the marriage should take place on January 1, 1841. At the appointed hour the company gathered, the supper was set out, and the bride, "bedecked in veil and silken gown, and nervously toying with the flowers in her hair," according to the graphic description of Mr. Herndon, sat in her sister's house awaiting the coming of her lover. She waited, but he came not, and soon his friends were searching the town for him. Towards morning they found him. Some said that he was insane; if he was not, he was at least suffering from such a terrible access of his constitutional gloom that for some time to come it was considered necessary to watch him closely. His friend Speed took him away upon a long visit to Kentucky, from which he returned in a much improved mental condition, but soon again came under the influence of Miss Todd's attractions.

The memory of the absurd result of the recent effort at marriage naturally led to the avoidance of publicity concerning the second undertaking. So nothing was said till the last moment; then the license was procured, a few friends were hastily notified, and the ceremony was performed, all within a few hours, on November 4, 1842. A courtship marked by so many singularities was inevitably prolific of gossip; and by all this tittle-tattle, in which it is absolutely impossible to separate probably a little truth from much fiction, the bride suffered more than the groom. Among other things it was asserted that Lincoln at last came to the altar most reluctantly. One says that he was "pale and trembling, as if being driven to slaughter;" another relates that the little son of a friend, noticing that his toilet had been more carefully made than usual, asked him where he was going, and that he gloomily responded: "To hell, I suppose." Probably enough, however, these anecdotes are apocryphal; for why the proud and high-tempered Miss Todd should have held so fast to an unwilling lover, who had behaved so strangely and seemed to offer her so little, is a conundrum which has been answered by no better explanation than the very lame one, that she foresaw his future distinction. It was her misfortune that she failed to make herself popular, so that no one has cared in how disagreeable or foolish a position any story places her. She was charged with having a sharp tongue, a sarcastic wit, and a shrewish temper, over which perilous traits she had no control. It is related that her sister, Mrs. Edwards, opposed the match, from a belief that the two were utterly uncongenial, and later on this came to be the accepted belief of the people at large. That Mrs. Lincoln often severely harassed her husband always has been and always will be believed. One would gladly leave the whole topic veiled in that privacy which ought always to be accorded to domestic relations which are supposed to be only imperfectly happy; but his countrymen have not shown any such respect to Mr. Lincoln, and it no longer is possible wholly to omit mention of a matter about which so much has been said and written. Moreover, it has usually been supposed that the influence of Mrs. Lincoln upon her husband was unceasing and powerful, and that her moods and her words constituted a very important element in his life.^[48]

Another disagreeable incident of this period was the quarrel with James A. Shields. In the summer of 1842 sundry coarse assaults upon Shields, attributed in great part, or wholly, to the so-called trenchant and witty pen of Miss Todd, appeared in the Springfield "Journal." Lincoln accepted the responsibility for them, received and reluctantly accepted a challenge, and selected broadswords as the weapons! "Friends," however, brought about an "explanation," and the conflict was avoided. But ink flowed in place of blood, and the newspapers were filled with a mass of silly, grandiloquent, blustering, insolent, and altogether pitiable stuff. All the parties concerned were placed in a most humiliating light, and it is gratifying to hear that Lincoln had at least the good feeling to be heartily ashamed of the affair, so that he "always seemed willing to forget" it. But every veil which he ever sought to throw over anything concerning himself has had the effect of an irresistible provocation to drag the subject into the strongest glare of publicity.^[49]

All the while, amid so many distractions, Lincoln was seeking a livelihood at the bar. On April 14, 1841, a good step was taken by dissolving the partnership with Stuart and the establishment of a new partnership with Stephen T. Logan, lately judge of the Circuit Court of the United States, and whom Arnold calls "the head of the bar at the capital." This gentleman, though not averse to politics, was a close student, assiduous in his attention to business, and very accurate and methodical in his ways. Thus he furnished a shining example of precisely the qualities which Lincoln had most need to cultivate, and his influence upon Lincoln was marked and beneficial. They continued together until September 20, 1843, when they separated, and on the same day Lincoln, heretofore a junior, became the senior in a new partnership with William H. Herndon. This firm was never formally dissolved up to the day of Lincoln's death.

When Lincoln was admitted to the bar the practice of the law was in a very crude condition in Illinois. General principles gathered from a few text-books formed the simple basis upon which lawyers tried cases and framed arguments in improvised court-rooms. But the advance was rapid and carried Lincoln forward with it. The raw material, if the phrase may be pardoned, was excellent; there were many men in the State who united a natural aptitude for the profession with high ability, ambition, and a progressive spirit. Lincoln was brought in contact with them all, whether they rode his circuit or not, because the federal courts were held only in Springfield. Among them were Stephen A. Douglas, Lyman Trumbull, afterward for a long while chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the national Senate, David Davis, afterward a senator, and an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; O.H. Browning, Ninian W. Edwards, Edward D. Baker, Justin Butterfield, Judge Logan, and more. Precisely what position Lincoln occupied among these men it is difficult to say with accuracy, because it is impossible to know just how much of the praise which has been bestowed upon him is the language of eulogy or of the brotherly courtesy of the bar, and how much is a discriminating valuation of his qualities. That in the foregoing list there were better and greater lawyers than he is unquestionable; that he was primarily a politician and only secondarily a lawyer is equally beyond denial. He has been described also as "a case lawyer," that is to say, a lawyer who studies each case as it comes to him simply by and for itself, a method which makes the practitioner rather than the jurist. That Lincoln was ever learned in the science is hardly pretended. In fact it was not possible that the divided allegiance which he gave to his profession for a score of years could have achieved such a result.^[50] But it is said, and the well-known manner of his mental operations makes it easy to believe, that his arguments had a marvelous simplicity and clearness, alike in thought and in expression. To these traits they owed their great force; and a legal argument can have no higher traits; fine-drawn subtlety is undeniably an inferior quality. Noteworthy above all else was his extraordinary capacity for statement; all agree that his statement of his case and his presentation of the facts and the evidence were so plain and fair as to be far more convincing than the argument which was built upon them. Again it may be said that the power to state in this manner is as high in the order of intellectual achievement as anything within forensic possibilities.

As an advocate Lincoln seems to have ranked better than he did in the discussion of pure points of law. When he warmed to his work his power over the emotions of a jury was very great. A less dignified but not less valuable capacity lay in his humor and his store of illustrative anecdotes. But the one trait, which all agree in attributing to him and which above all others will redound to his honor, at least in the mind of the layman, is that he was only efficient when his client was in the right, and that he made but indifferent work in a wrong cause. He was preëminently the honest lawyer, the counsel fitted to serve the litigant who was justly entitled to win. His power of lucid statement was of little service when the real facts were against him; and his eloquence seemed paralyzed when he did not believe thoroughly that his client had a just cause. He generally refused to take cases unless he could see that as matter of genuine right he ought to win them. People who consulted him were at times bluntly advised to withdraw from an unjust or a hard-hearted contention, or were bidden to seek other counsel. He could even go the length of leaving a case, while actually conducting it, if he became satisfied of unfairness on the part of his client; and when a coadjutor won a case from which he had withdrawn in transitu, so to speak, he refused to accept any portion of the fee. Such habits may not meet with the same measure of commendation from professional men^[51] which they will command on the part of others; but those who are not members of this ingenious profession, contemning the fine logic which they fail to overcome, stubbornly insist upon admiring the lawyer who refuses to subordinate right to law. In this respect Lincoln accepted the ideals of laymen rather than the doctrines of his profession.^[52]

In the presidential campaign of 1844, in which Henry Clay was the candidate of the Whig party, Lincoln was nominated upon the Whig electoral ticket. He was an ardent admirer of Clay and he threw himself into this contest with great zeal. Oblivious of courts and clients, he devoted himself to "stumping" Illinois and a part of Indiana. When Illinois sent nine Democratic electors to vote for James K. Polk, his disappointment was bitter. All the members of the defeated party had a peculiar sense of personal chagrin upon this occasion, and Lincoln felt it even more than others. It is said that two years later a visit to Ashland resulted in a disillusionment, and that his idol then came down from its pedestal, or at least the pedestal was made much lower.^[53]

In March, 1843, Lincoln had hopes that the Whigs would nominate him as their candidate for the national House of Representatives. In the canvass he developed some strength, but not quite enough, and the result was somewhat ludicrous, for Sangamon County made him a delegate to the nominating convention with instructions to vote for one of his own competitors, Colonel Edward D. Baker, the gallant gentleman and brilliant orator who fell at Ball's Bluff. The prize was finally carried off by Colonel John J. Hardin, who afterward died at Buena Vista. By a change of election periods the next convention was held in 1844, and this time Lincoln publicly declined to make a contest for the nomination against Colonel Baker, who accordingly received it and was elected. It has been said that an agreement was made between Hardin, Baker, Lincoln, and Judge Logan, whereby each should be allowed one term in Congress, without competition on the part of any of the others; but the story does not seem altogether trustworthy, nor wholly corroborated by the facts. Possibly there may have been a courteous understanding between them. It has, however, been spoken of as a very reprehensible bargain, and Lincoln has been zealously defended against the reproach of having entered into it. Why, if indeed it ever was made, it had this objectionable complexion is a point in the inscrutable moralities of politics which is not plain to those uninitiated in these ethical mysteries.

In the year 1846 Lincoln again renewed his pursuit of the coveted honor, as Holland very properly puts it. Nothing is more absurd than statements to the purport that he was "induced to accept" the nomination, statements which he himself would have heard with honest laughter. Only three years ago^[54] he had frankly written to a friend: "Now, if you should hear any one say that Lincoln don't want to go to Congress, I wish you, as a personal friend of mine, would tell him you have reason to believe he is mistaken. The truth is I would [should] like to go very much." Now, the opportunity being at hand, he spared no pains to compass it. In spite of the alleged agreement Hardin made reconnoissances in the district, which Lincoln met with counter-manifestations so vigorous that on February 26 Hardin withdrew, and on May 1 Lincoln was nominated. Against him the Democrats set Peter Cartwright, the famous itinerant preacher of the Methodists, whose strenuous and popular eloquence had rung in the ears of every Western settler. Stalwart, aggressive, possessing all the qualities adapted to win the good-will of such a constituency, the Apostle of the West was a dangerous antagonist. But Lincoln had political capacity in a rare degree. Foresight and insight, activity and the power to organize and to direct, were his. In this campaign his eye was upon every one; individuals, newspaper editors, political clubs, got their inspiration and their guidance from him.^[55] Such thoroughness deserved and achieved an extraordinary success; and at the polls, in August, the district gave him a majority of 1,511. In the latest presidential campaign it had given Clay a majority of 914; and two years later it gave Taylor a majority of 1,501. Sangamon County gave Lincoln a majority of 690, the largest given to any candidate from 1836 to 1850, inclusive. Moreover, Lincoln was the only Whig who secured a place in the Illinois delegation.

Though elected in the summer of 1846, it was not until December 6, 1847, that the Thirtieth Congress began its first session. Robert C. Winthrop was chosen speaker of the House, by 110 votes out of 218. The change in the political condition was marked; in the previous House the Democrats had numbered 142 and the Whigs only 75; in this House the Whigs were 116, the Democrats 108. Among the members were John Quincy Adams, Andrew Johnson, Alexander H. Stephens, Howell Cobb, David Wilmot, Jacob Collamer, Robert Toombs, with many more scarcely less familiar names. The Mexican war was drawing towards its close,^[56] and most of the talking in Congress had relation to it. The whole Whig party denounced it at the time, and the nation has been more than half ashamed of it ever since. By adroit manoeuvres Polk had forced the fight upon a weak and reluctant nation, and had made to his own people false statements as to both the facts and the merits of the quarrel. The rebuke which they had now administered, by changing the large Democratic majority into a minority, "deserves," says von Holst, "to be counted among the most meritorious proofs of the sound and honorable feeling of the American nation."^[57] But while the administration had thus smirched the inception and the whole character of the war with meanness and dishonor, the generals and the army were winning abundant glory for the national arms. Good strategy achieved a series of brilliant victories, and fortunately for the Whigs General Taylor and General Scott, together with a large proportion of the most distinguished regimental officers, were of their party. This aided them essentially in their policy, which was, to denounce the entering into the war but to vote all necessary supplies for its vigorous prosecution.

Into this scheme of his party Lincoln entered with hearty concurrence. A week after the House met he closed a letter to his partner with the remark: "As you are all so anxious for me to distinguish myself, I have concluded to do so before long," and what he said humorously he probably meant seriously. Accordingly he soon afterward^[58] introduced a series of resolutions, which, under the nickname of "The Spot Resolutions," attracted some attention. Quoting in his preamble sundry paragraphs of the President's message of May 11, 1846, to the purport that Mexico had "invaded our territory" and had "shed the blood of our citizens on our own soil" he then requested the President to state "the spot" where these and other alleged occurrences had taken place. His first "little speech" was on "a post-office question of no general interest;" and he found himself "about as badly scared and no worse" than when he spoke in court. So a little later, January 12, 1848, he ventured to call up his resolutions and to make an elaborate speech upon them.^[59] It was not a very great or remarkable speech, but it was a good one, and not conceived in the fervid and florid style which defaced his youthful efforts; he spoke sensibly, clearly, and with precision of thought; he sought his strength in the facts, and went in straight pursuit of the truth; his best intellectual qualities were plainly visible. The resolutions were not acted upon, and doubtless their actual passage had never been expected; but they were a good shot well placed; and they were sufficiently noteworthy to save Lincoln from being left among the herd of the nobodies of the House.

In view of his future career, but for no other reason, a brief paragraph is worth quoting. He says:—

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right—a right which, we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit." This doctrine, so comfortably applied to Texas in 1848, seemed unsuitable for the Confederate States in 1861. But possibly the point lay in the words, "having the power," and "can," for the Texans "had the power" and "could," and the South had it not and could not; and so Lincoln's practical proviso saved his theoretical consistency; though he must still have explained how either Texas or the South could know whether they "had the power," and "could," except by trial.

Lincoln's course concerning the war and the administration did not please his constituents. With most of the Whigs he voted for Ashmun's amendment, which declared that the war had been "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President." But soon he heard that the people in Springfield were offended at a step which might weaken the administration in time of stress; and even if the President had transcended the Constitution, they preferred to deny rather than to admit the fact. When Douglas afterward charged Lincoln with lack of patriotism, Lincoln replied that he had not chosen to "skulk," and, feeling obliged to vote, he had voted for "the truth" rather than for "a lie."^[60] He remarked also that he, with the Whigs generally, always voted for the supply bills. He took and maintained his position with entire manliness and honesty, and stated his principles with perfect clearness, neither shading nor abating nor coloring by any conciliatory or politic phrase. It was a question of conscience, and he met it point-blank. Many of his critics remained dissatisfied, and it is believed that his course cost the next Whig candidate in the district votes which he could not afford to lose. It is true that another paid this penalty, yet Lincoln himself would have liked well to take his chance as the candidate. To those "who desire that I should be reflected," he wrote to Herndon, "I can say, as Mr. Clay said of the annexation of Texas, that 'personally I would not object.' … If it should so happen that nobody else wishes to be elected, I could not refuse the people the right of sending me again. But to enter myself as a competitor of others, or to authorize any one so to enter me, is what my word and honor forbid." It did so happen that Judge Logan, whose turn it seemed to be, wished the nomination and received it. He was, however, defeated, and probably paid the price of Lincoln's scrupulous honesty.

In the canvassing of the spring of 1848 Lincoln was an ardent advocate for the nomination of General Taylor as the Whig candidate for the presidency; for he appreciated how much greater was the strength of the military hero, with all that could be said against him, than was that of Mr. Clay, whose destiny was so disappointingly non-presidential. When the nomination went according to his wishes, he entered into the campaign with as much zeal as his congressional duties would permit—indeed, with somewhat an excess of zeal, for he delivered on the floor of the House an harangue in favor of the general which was little else than a stump speech, admirably adapted for a backwoods audience, but grossly out of place where it was spoken. He closed it with an assault on General Cass, as a military man, which was designed to be humorous, and has, therefore, been quoted with unfortunate frequency. So soon as Congress adjourned he was able to seek a more legitimate arena in New England, whither he went at once and delivered many speeches, none of which have been preserved.

Lincoln's position upon the slavery question in this Congress was that of moderate hostility. In the preceding Congress, the Twenty-ninth, the famous Wilmot Proviso, designed to exclude slavery from any territory which the United States should acquire from Mexico, had passed the House and had been killed in the Senate. In the Thirtieth Congress efforts to the same end were renewed in various forms, always with Lincoln's favor. He once said that he had voted for the principle of the Wilmot Proviso "about forty-two times," which, if not an accurate mathematical computation, was a vivid expression of his stanch adherence to the doctrine. At the second session Mr. Lincoln voted against a bill to prohibit the slave trade in the District of Columbia, because he did not approve its form; and then introduced another bill, which he himself had drawn. This prohibited the bringing slaves into the District, except as household servants by government officials who were citizens of slave States; it also prohibited selling them to be taken away from the District; children born of slave mothers after January 1, 1850, were to be subject to temporary apprenticeship and finally to be made free; owners of slaves might collect from the government their full cash value as the price of their freedom; fugitive slaves escaping into Washington and Georgetown were to be returned; finally the measure was to be submitted to popular vote in the District. This was by no means a measure of abolitionist coloring, although Lincoln obtained for it the support of Joshua R. Giddings, who believed it "as good a bill as we could get at this time," and was "willing to pay for slaves in order to save them from the Southern market." It recognized the right of property in slaves, which the Abolitionists denied; also it might conceivably be practicable, a characteristic which rarely marked the measures of the Abolitionists, who professed to be pure moralists rather than practical politicians. From this first move to the latest which he made in this great business, Lincoln never once broke connection with practicability. On this occasion he had actually succeeded in obtaining from Mr. Seaton, editor of the "National Intelligencer" and mayor of Washington, a promise of support, which gave him a little prospect of success. Later, however, the Southern Congressmen drew this influential gentleman to their side, and thereby rendered the passage of the bill impossible; at the close of the session it lay with the other corpses in that grave called "the table."

When his term of service in Congress was over Lincoln sought, but failed to obtain, the position of Commissioner of the General Lands Office. He was offered the governorship of the newly organized Territory of Oregon; but this, controlled by the sensible advice of his wife, he fortunately declined.

[48] Lamon, pp. 238–252, tells the story of Lincoln's marriage at great length, sparing nothing; he liberally sets forth the gossip and the stories; he quotes the statements of witnesses who knew both parties at the time, and he gives in full much correspondence. The spirit and the letter of his account find substantial corroboration in the narrative of Herndon, pp. 206–231. So much original material and evidence of acquaintances have been gathered by these two writers, and their own opportunities of knowing the truth were so good, that one seems not at liberty to reject the substantial correctness of their version. Messrs. Nicolay and Hay, vol. i. ch. 11, give a narrative for the most part in their own language. Their attempt throughout to mitigate all that is disagreeable is so obvious, not only in substance but in the turn of every phrase, that it is impossible to accept their chapter as a picture either free from obscurity or true in color, glad as one might be to do so. Arnold, pp. 68, 72, and Holland, p. 90, simply mention the marriage, and other biographers would have done well to imitate this forbearance; but too much has been said to leave this course now open.

[49] It is fair to say that my view of this "duel" is not that of other writers. Lamon, p. 260, says that "the scene is one of transcendent interest." Herndon, p. 260, calls it a "serio-comic affair." Holland, pp. 87–89, gives a brief, deprecatory account of what he calls "certainly a boyish affair." Arnold, pp. 69–72, treats it simply enough, but puts the whole load of the ridicule upon Shields. Nicolay and Hay, vol. i. ch. 12, deal with it gravely, and in the same way in which, in the preceding chapter, they deal with the marriage; that is to say, they eschew the production of original documents, and, by their own gloss, make a good story for Lincoln and a very bad one for Shields; they speak lightly of the "ludicrousness" of the affair. To my mind the opinion which Lincoln himself held is far more correct than that expressed by any of his biographers.

[50] Serious practice only began with him when he formed his partnership with Judge Logan in 1841; in 1860 his practice came to an end; in the interval he was for two years a member of Congress.

[51] A story is told by Lamon, p. 321, which puts Lincoln in a position absolutely indefensible by any sound reasoning.

[52] For accounts of Lincoln at the bar, as also for many illustrative and entertaining anecdotes to which the plan of this volume does not permit space to be given, see Arnold, 55–59, 66, 73, 84–91; Holland, 72, 73, 76–83, 89; Lamon, 223–225, ch. xiii. 311–332; N. and H. i. 167–171, 213–216, ch. xvii. 298–309; Herndon, 182–184, 186, 264–266, 306 n., 307–309, 312–319, 323–331, ch. xi. 332–360.

[53] Holland, 95; but per contra see Herndon, 271.

[54] March, 1843.

[55] By way of example of his methods, see letter to Herndon, June 22, 1848, Lamon, 299.

[56] The treaty of peace, subject to some amendments, was ratified by the Senate March 10, 1848, and officially promulgated on July 4.

[57] Von Holst, Const. Hist. of U.S. iii. 336. All historians are pretty well agreed upon the relation of the Polk administration to the Mexican war. But the story has never been so clearly and admirably traced by any other as by von Holst in the third volume of his history.

[58] December 22, 1847.

[59] Printed by Lamon, 282. See, also, Herndon, 277.

[60] Herndon, 281; see letters given in full by Lamon, 291, 293, 295 (at 296); N. and H. i. 274