March, at midnight, the term of James Buchanan expired. His administration commenced with a prosperous country, a full treasury, and a triumphant party. He went out with the latter beaten, the treasury empty, the nation in debt, and the country tossing in the agony of disruption. He sacrificed Mr. Douglas and was in turn sacrificed by his Southern allies. It, perhaps, remains to be seen whether his closing months of power gave the country an administration controlled by fear of the solemn responsibilities of the crisis or something worse. Be this as it may, the nation thanked God and took courage at twelve o'clock on the night of March 3, 1861. .

CHAPTER 11.

THE ILLINOIS PRESIDENT.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN-EARLY HISTORY-REMOVALS-TASTE OF WAR-CANDIDACY—A SURVEYOR-MEMBER OF ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE-INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT- -PRIVATE LIFE IN CONGRESS-WILMOT PROVISO-NEBRASKA BILL-HIS OPPOSITION-MISSOURI COMPROMISE-PEORIA SPEECH-PROPHETIC WORDS-RIGHT AND WRONG-BILL OF EXCEPTIONS TO SLAVERY-THE FATHERS-SENATORIAL ELECTION-CONTEST OF 1858-THE DIVIDED HOUSE SPEECH-THE WAY OF PROVIDENCE-LEADERS FOR CRISES HIS CHARACTERISTICS-NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONVENTION-WIGWAM-SEWARD AND LINCOLN-NOMINATION-LEAVING SPRINGFIELD-INVOCATION OF PRAYERHIS FAREWELL-THE JOURNEY-SPEECHES-AT INDIANAPOLIS-CINCINNATI-NEW YORK-TRENTON-PHILADELPHIA-IN WASHINGTON INAUGURATION-THE InauguRAL ADDRESS CABINET-SUMTER-SURRENDER-A LOWERED FLAG-ONLY A MOMENT.

HE eyes of the Nation had been, from November, turned

TH

President elect. Illinois had given the Republic the first Northern President who was destined to a re-election. Of necessity our history must make some mention of him who, the nation's chief magistrate and commander-in-chief of its army and navy, is yet of Illinois, whom she received when a young man; who developed into mature strength on her prairies-ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

He was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, February 12, 1809. In 1816 his father removed to what is now Spencer County, Indiana, and cleared his farm from the dense timber of that part of the State. Here the future statesman underwent the discipline of sturdy toil and patient labor. In 1830 his father removed to Illinois, and "located" on new land about ten miles northwest of Decatur on the north bank of the Sangamon, where timber and prairie are blended. His boyhood had few privileges of school or culture in books, and he was emphatically "self-made." In 1832 he volunteered in the noted Black-Hawk war and was captain of a company. He served three months, but was in no engagement with the enemy. Return

ing home, he became a candidate for a seat in the Legislature only ten days before election, but being an Adams man, he was defeated, though in his own precinct he received more votes than both rival candidates for Congress. He was sometime engaged in surveying, and in 1834 was elected to the Legislature, to which he was subsequently thrice chosen, and devoted himself to the practical work of the people's representative.

Says one of his biographers:

"The period embraced by the eight years in which Lincoln represented Sangamon County, was one of the greatest material activity in Illinois. So early as 1820, the young State was seized with the 'generous rage' for public internal improvements then prevalent in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and in its sessions for a score of succeeding years, the Legislature was occupied by the discussion of various schemes for enhancing the prosperity of the State. The large canal uniting the waters of Lake Michigan and the Illinois River was completed at a cost of more than eight millions. By a Board of Commissioners of Public Works, specially created, provisions were made for expensive improvements of the Wabash, Illinois, Rock, Kaskaskia and the Little Wabash, and the great Western mail route from Vincennes to St. Louis. Under the charge of the same Board, six railroads, connecting principal points, were projected, and appropriations made for their completion at an immense outlay.

"One effect of a policy so wild and extravagant was to sink the State in debt. Another was to attract vast immigration, and fill up her broad prairies with settlers. Individuals were ruined; the corporate State became embarrassed; but benefits have resulted in a far greater degree than could have been hoped when the crash first came. It is not yet time to estimate the ultimate good to be derived from these improvements, though the immediate evil has been tangible enough.

"The name of Abraham Lincoln is not found recorded in favor of the more visionary of these schemes, but he has always favored public improvements, and his voice was for whatever project seemed feasible and practical. During his first term of service, he was a member of the Committee on Public Accounts and Expenditures. He voted for a bill to incorporate agricultural societies; for the improvement of public roads; for the incorporation of various institutions of learning; for the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal; he always fostered the interests of public education, and favored low salaries for public officials. In whatever pertained to the local benefit of his own County, he was active and careful; but his record on this subject is of little interest to the general reader.

"Lincoln's voice was ever for measures that relieved the struggling poor man from pecuniary or political difficulties—he had himself experienced these difficulties—he therefore supported resolutions for the removal of the property qualification in franchise, and for the granting of pre-emption rights to settlers on the public lands. He was the author of a measure permitting Revolutionary pensioners to loan their pen

LINCOLN'S PEORIA SPEECH.

55

sion money without taxation. He advocated a bill exempting from execution Bibles, school-books, and mechanics' tools.

"His first recorded vote against Stephen A. Douglas, was on the election of that politician to the Attorney Generalship by the Legislature.

"He twice voted for the Whig candidates for the United States Senate. Otherwise than in the election of Senators, State Legislatures were not then occupied with national affairs, and it is difficult to find anything in Mr. Lincoln's legislative history which is of great national interest. There were no exciting questions, and Mr. Lincoln's speeches were few and brief.* He was twice the candidate (in 1838 and 1840) of the Whig minority for Speaker of the House."+

For six years he remained in private life, devoting himself to the practice of law, which he had studied. In 1844 he canvassed his State in behalf of the Whig candidate for the Presidency. In 1847 he took his seat in Congress, the only Whig Representative from Illinois, which then had seven members in the House of Representatives. He was a staunch advocate of the Wilmot Proviso, showing, in 1847, the same care to secure the Territories to freedom which he manifested in the Kansas struggle and in 1860. He declined candidacy for re-election. In 1849 he received the vote of his party in the Legislature for the U. S. Senate.

In 1854 the celebrated Nebraska Bill was passed, rallying anew and into permanent organization the opposition to slavery. In his celebrated "Peoria speech" he went fully into the principles involved in the proposed repeal of the Missouri Compromise. He was replying to Senator Douglas and showing the results of the repeal. The following words there spoken on that 16th of October, 1854, sound now, that ten years have gone, like history written "before the fact."

"In this state of affairs the Genius of Discord himself could scarcely have invented a way of again setting us by the ears, but by turning back and destroying the peace measures of the past. The counsels of that Genius seem to have prevailed; the Missouri Compromise was repealed; and here we are, in the midst of a new slavery agitation, such, I think, as we have never seen before. Who is responsible for this? Is it those who resist the measure? or those who, causelessly, brought it forward, and pressed it through, having reason to know, and, in fact, knowing, it must and would

*A protest from Mr. Lincoln appears on the journal of the House, in regard to some resolutions which had passed. In this protest he pronounces distinctly against slavery, and takes the first public step toward what is now Republican doctrine. +Howell's Life of Lincoln.

be so resisted? It could not but be expected by its author, that it would be looked upon as a measure for the extension of slavery, aggravated by a gross breach of faith.

"Argue as you will, and long as you will, this is the naked front and aspect of the measure. And, in this aspect, it could but produce agitation. Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature-opposition to it, in his love of justice. These principles are in eternal antagonism; and, when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks, and throes, and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. Repeal the Missouri Compromise-repeal all compromises-repeal the Declaration of Independence-repeal all past history-you still cannot repeal human nature. It still will be the abundance of man's heart that slavery extension is wrong, and, out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.

“And, really, what is the result of this? Each party WITHIN having numerous and determined backers WITHOUT, is it not probable that the contest will come to blows and bloodshed? Could there be a more apt invention to bring about collision and violence, on the slavery question, than this Nebraska project is? I do not charge or believe that such was intended by Congress; but if they had literally formed a ring, and placed champions within it to fight out the controversy, the fight could be no more likely to come off than it is. And if this fight should begin, is it likely to take a very peaceful, Union-saving turn? Will not the first drop of blood, so shed, be the real knell of the Union?

"The Missouri Compromise ought to be restored. For the sake of the Union, it ought to be restored. We ought to elect a House of Representatives which will vote its restoration. If, by any means, we omit to do this, what follows? Slavery may or may not be established in Nebraska. But whether it be or not, we shall have repudiated discarded from the councils of the nation-the SPIRIT of COMPROMISE, for who, after this, will ever trust in a national compromise? The spirit of mutual concession that spirit which first gave us the Constitution, and which has thrice saved the Union—we shall have strangled and cast from us forever. And what shall we have in lieu of it? The South, flushed with triumph and tempted to excesses; the North, betrayed, as they believe, brooding on wrong and burning for revenge. One side will provoke, the other resent. The one will taunt, the other defy; one aggresses, the other retaliates. Already a few in the North defy all Constitutional restrais (~, resist the execution of the Fugitive Slave law, and even menace the institution o slavery in the States where it exists. Already a few in the South claim the Constitutional right to take to and hold slaves in the Free States; demand the revival of the slave-trade; and demand a treaty with Great Britain, by which fugitive slaves may be reclaimed from Canada. As yet they are but few on either side. It is a grave question for the lovers of the Union, whether the final destruction of the Missouri Compromise, and with it the spirit of all compromise, will or will not embolden and embitter each of these, and fatally increase the number of both."

In the extract which follows we find, blended with a conservatism