A Man for the Ages Part 57

Lincoln scratched his head thoughtfully and asked:

"Billy, hadn't we better withdraw that plea? You know it's a sham and generally that's another name for a lie. Don't let it go on record. The cursed thing may come staring us in the face long after this suit has been forgotten."

On the whole he was not so communicative as he had been in his young manhood. He suffered days of depression when he said little. Often, in good company, be seemed to be thinking of things in no way connected with the talk. Many called him a rather "shut-mouthed man."

Herndon used to say that the only thing he had against Lincoln was his habit of coming in mornings and sprawling on the lounge and reading aloud from the newspaper.

The people of the town loved him. One day as we were walking along the street together we came upon a girl dressed up and crying in front of her father's door.

"What's the matter?" Lincoln asked.

"I want to take the train and the wagon hasn't come for my trunk," said she.

Lincoln went in and got the trunk and carried it to the station on his back, with people laughing and throwing jokes at him as he strode along.

When I think of him his chivalry and kindness come first to mind.

He read much, but his days of book study were nearly ended. His learning was now got mostly in the school of experience. Herndon says, and I think it is true, that he never read to the end of a law book those days. The study of authorities was left to the junior partner. His reading was mostly outside the law. His knowledge of science was derived from Chambers's _Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation_.

He was still afraid of the Abolition Movement in 1852 and left town to avoid a convention of its adherents. He thought the effort to resist by force the laws of Kansas was criminal and would hurt the cause of freedom. "Let us have peace and revolutionize through the ballot-box,"

he urged.

In 1854 a little quarrel in New York began to weave the thread of destiny. Seward, Weed and Greeley had wielded decisive power in the party councils of that state. Seward was a high headed, popular idol. His plans and his triumphant progress absorbed his thought. Weed was dazzled by the splendor of this great star. Neither gave a thought to their able colleague--a poor man struggling to build up a great newspaper. An office, with fair pay, would have been a help to him those days. But he got no recognition of his needs and talents and services. Suddenly he wrote a letter to Weed in which he said:

"The firm of Seward, Weed and Greeley is hereby dissolved by the resignation of its junior member."

When Greeley had grown in power and wisdom until his name was known and honored from ocean to ocean, they tried to make peace with him, but in vain.

Then suddenly a new party and a new Lincoln were born on the same day in 1856 at a great meeting in Bloomington, Illinois. There his soul was to come into its stateliest mansion out of its lower vaulted past. For him the fulness of time had arrived. He was prepared for it. His intellect had also reached the fulness of its power. Now his great right hand was ready for the thunderbolts which his spirit had been slowly forging. G.o.d called him in the voices of the crowd. He was quick to answer. He went up the steps to the platform. I saw, as he came forward, that he had taken the cross upon him. Oh, it was a memorable thing to see the smothered flame of his spirit leaping into his face. His hands were on his hips. He seemed to grow taller as he advanced. The look of him reminds me now of what the famous bronze founder in Paris said of the death-mask, that it was the most beautiful head and face he had ever seen. What shall I say of his words save that it seemed to me that the voice of G.o.d was in them?

I never saw an audience so taken up and swept away. The reporters forgot to report. It is a lost speech. There is no record of it. I suppose it was scribbled with a pencil on sc.r.a.ps of paper and on the backs of envelopes at sundry times, agreeably with his habit, and committed to memory. So this great speech, called by some the n.o.blest effort of his life, was never printed. I remember one sentence relating to the Nebraska bill:

"Let us use ballots, not bullets, against the weapons of violence, which are those of kingcraft. Their fruits are the dying bed of the fearless Sumner, the ruins of the Free State Hotel, the smoking timbers of the Herald of Freedom, the Governor of Kansas chained to a stake like a horse-thief."

In June, 1858, he took the longest step of all. The Republican State Convention had endorsed him for the United States Senate. It was then that he wrote on envelopes and sc.r.a.ps of paper at odd moments, when his mind was off duty, the speech beginning:

"A house divided against itself must fall. Our Government can not long endure part slave and part free."

I was among the dozen friends to whom he read that speech in the State House library. One said of those first sentences: "It is a fool utterance." Another: "It is ahead of its time." Another declared that it would drive away the Democrats who had lately joined the party. Herndon and I were the only ones who approved it.

Lincoln had come to another fork in the road. For a moment I wondered which way he would go.

Immediately he rose and said with an emphasis that silenced opposition:

"Friends, this thing has been held back long enough. The time has come when these sentiments should be uttered, and if it is decreed that I shall go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the truth."

His conscience had prevailed. The speech was delivered. Douglas, the Democratic candidate, came on from Was.h.i.+ngton to answer it. That led to Lincoln's challenge to a joint debate. I was with him through that long campaign. Douglas was the more finished orator. Lincoln spoke as he split rails. His conscience was his beetle. It drove his arguments deep into the souls of his hearers. The great thing about him was his conscience.

Unless his theme were big enough to give it play in n.o.ble words he could be as commonplace as any one. He was built for a tool of G.o.d in tremendous moral issues. He was awkward and diffident in beginning a speech. Often his hands were locked behind him. He gesticulated more with his head than his hands. He stood square-toed always. He never walked about on the platform. He scored his points with the long, bony, index finger of his right hand. Sometimes he would hang a hand on the lapel of his coat as if to rest it. Perspiration dripped from his face. His voice, high pitched at first, mellowed into a pleasant sound.

One sentence in Lincoln's speech at Ottawa thrust "The Little Giant" of Illinois out of his way forever. It was this pregnant query:

"Can the people of a United States territory in any lawful way and against the wish of any citizen of the United States exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a state const.i.tution?"

He knew that Douglas would answer yes and that, doing so, he would alienate the South and destroy his chance to be President two years later. That is exactly what came to pa.s.s. "The Little Giant's" answer was the famous "Freeport Heresy." He was elected to the Senate but was no longer possible as a candidate for the Presidency.

I come now to the last step in the career of my friend and beloved master. It was the Republican convention of 1860 in Chicago. I was a delegate. The New Yorkers came in white beaver hats enthusiastic for Seward, their favorite son. He was the man we dreaded most. Many in the great crowd were wearing his colors. The delegations were in earnest session the night before the balloting began. The hotel corridors were thronged with excited men. My father had become a man of wealth and great influence in Illinois. I was with him when he went into the meeting of the Michigan delegates and talked to them. He told how he came West in a wagon and saw the spirit of America in the water floods of Niagara and went on to the cabin village of New Salem and saw again the spirit of America in the life of the boy, Abe Lincoln, then flowing toward its manhood. When he sat down the Honorable Dennis Flanagan arose and told of meeting the Traylor party at the Falls when he was driving an ox-team, in a tall beaver hat; how he had remembered their good advice and cookies and jerked venison.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I am willing to take the word of a man whose name is hallowed by my dearest recollections. And believing what he has said of Abraham Lincoln I am for him on the second ballot."

The green Irish lad, whom I remember dimly, had become a great political chieftain and his words had much effect. There was a stir among the delegates. I turned and saw the tall form of Horace Greeley entering the door. His big, full face looked rather serious. He wore gold-bowed spectacles. He was smooth-shaven save for the silken, white, throat beard that came out from under his collar. His head was bald on top with soft, silvered locks over each ear. He was a picturesque and appealing figure.

They called on him to speak. He stepped forward and said slowly in a high-pitched drawl:

"Gentlemen, this is my speech: On your second ballot vote for Abraham Lincoln of Illinois."

He bowed and left the room and visited many delegations, and everywhere expressed his convictions in this formula. Backed by his tremendous personality and influence the simple words were impressive. I doubt not they turned scores of men from Seward to the great son of Illinois.

Then--the campaign with its crowds, its enthusiasm, its Vesuvian mutterings. There was a curious touch of humor and history in its banners. Here are three of them:

"Menard County for the Tall Sucker."

"We are for old Abe the Giant-Killer."

"Link on to Lincoln."

Then--those last days in Springfield.

He came to the office the afternoon before he left and threw himself on the lounge and talked of bygone days with Herndon.

"Billy, how long have we been together?" he asked.

"Sixteen years."

"Never a cross word."

"Never."

"Keep the old sign hanging. A little thing like the election of a President should make no change in the firm of Lincoln and Herndon. If I live I'm coming back some time and then we'll go right on with the practice of the law as if nothing had happened."

Then--that Monday morning in Springfield when at eight o'clock on the eleventh of February the train bore him toward the great task of his life. Hannah Armstrong, who had foxed his trousers in New Salem, and the venerable Doctor Allen and the Brimsteads, and Aleck Ferguson, bent with age, and Harry Needles and Bim and their four handsome children, and my father and mother, and Betsey, my maiden sister, and Eli Fredenberg were there in the crowd to bid him good-by.

A quartet sang. Mr. Lincoln asked his friends and neighbors to pray for his success. He was moved by the sight of them and could not have said much if he had tried. The bell rang. The train started. He waved his hand and was gone. Not many of us who stood trying to see through our tears were again to look upon him. The years of preparation were ended and those of sacrifice had begun.

Now, we are at the foot of the last hill. For a long time I had seen it looming in the distance. Those days it filled my heart with a great fear.

Now, how beautiful, how lonely it seems! Oh, but what a vineyard in that very fruitful hill! I speak low when I think of it. Harry Needles and I were on our way to Was.h.i.+ngton that fateful night of April 14, 1865. We reached there at an early hour in the morning. We made our way through the crowded streets to the little house opposite Ford's Theatre. An officer who knew me cleared a way for us to the door. Reporters, statesmen, citizens and their families were ma.s.sed in the street waiting with tear-stained faces for the end. Some of them were sobbing as we pa.s.sed. We were admitted without delay. A minister and the doctor sat by the bedside. The latter held an open watch in his hand. I could hear it ticking the last moments in an age of history. What a silence as the great soul of my friend was "breaking camp to go home." Friends of the family and members of the Cabinet were in the room. Through the open door of a room beyond I saw Mrs. Lincoln and the children and others. We looked at our friend lying on the bed. His kindly face was pale and haggard. He breathed faintly and at long intervals. His end was near.

"Poor Abe!" Harry whispered as be looked down at him. "He has had to die on the cross."

To most of those others Lincoln was the great statesman. To Harry he was still the beloved Abe who had shared his fare and his hards.h.i.+ps in many a long, weary way.

The doctor put his ear against the breast of the dying man. There was a moment in which we could hear the voices in the street. The doctor rose and said: "He is gone."