The Backwoods Boy

I hope my young readers will not skip this statement, but read it carefully, because it will show them the secret of the young lawyer’s success. He inspired confidence! He was not constantly trying to gain the advantage by fair means if possible, but at any rate to gain it. He wanted justice to triumph, however it affected his own interests. I wish there were more such lawyers. The law would then lose much of the odium which unprincipled practitioners bring upon it.

Let us look in upon Mr. Lincoln as he sits in his plain office, some morning. He is writing busily, when a timid knock is heard at his door.

“Come in!” he says, his pen still moving rapidly over the paper before him.

The door opens slowly, and an old woman, bending under the burden of seventy-five years, enters, and stands irresolutely at the entrance.

“Mr. Lincoln!” she says in a quivering voice.

As these accents reach him, Mr. Lincoln woke up hastily, and seeing the old lady hastily undoubles himself, and draws forward a chair.

“Sit down, my good lady!” he says. “Do you wish to see me on business?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell me what I can do for you?” and he fixes his eyes on the frail old woman, showing a respect and consideration for her, poor as she evidently is, which a rich client might not so readily receive.

Encouraged by the kindness of her reception she told her story. She was entitled to a pension, as it appeared, on account of her husband, who had fought in the Revolutionary war. This pension she had secured through the agency of a certain pension agent, but he had charged her the exorbitant sum of two hundred dollars for collecting her claim. This was a heavy tax upon the poor old woman with her limited means, and she was likely to be little better off for her pension if she should be compelled to pay this money.

“Two hundred dollars! That is shameful!” said the sympathetic lawyer. “Who is this agent?”

She told him.

“Do you live in Springfield?”

“No sir.”

“Are you in need of money?” he inquired delicately.

“Yes, sir, The agent has kept back what he has collected, and – ”

“I see. We will try to bring him to terms.”

“Oh, sir if you can help me – ” said the old lady, hopefully.

“I will do my best. Here is some money for your immediate wants. Now I will ask you a few questions, and we will see what we can do for you.”

Mr. Lincoln immediately commenced suit against the agent to recover a portion of the money which he had withheld. In his address to the jury he did not omit to allude to the patriotism of the dead husband, and the poverty of his widow, and no doubt castigated in fitting terms the unfeeling rapacity of the claim agent. He gained the suit, and compelled the fellow to disgorge one hundred dollars, which he had the pleasure of paying over to his aged client.

Meanwhile he was pleasantly situated. His income would now allow him to live in comfortable style. He established himself in a pleasant two-story house, built after a fashion quite common in New England, with a room on each side of the front door, and an extension in the rear. It was situated at the corner of two streets, and though neither costly nor sumptuous, might be considered a palace when contrasted with the rude cabins in which his earlier years were passed.

Four children were born to him, and their childish ways were a source of constant enjoyment, when he returned to his home, weary or perplexed. One of these, Willie, died after his father became President; the youngest, best known as Tad, who was the pet of the White House, is also dead, and only the eldest, Robert Todd, now Secretary of War, survives. It is said that he was a most indulgent father, and governed by Love alone. His own father had often been stern and rough, but Abraham Lincoln’s nature was full of a deep tenderness for all things weak, small, or in distress, and he could not find it in his heart to be harsh or stern at home.

On pleasant summer mornings the young lawyer, with his tall figure, might have been seen drawing one of his children to and fro along the sidewalk in a child’s wagon. “Without hat or coat, and wearing a pair of rough shoes, his hands behind him holding to the tongue of the wagon, and his tall form bent forward to accommodate himself to the service, he paced up and down the walk, forgetful of everything around him, and intent only on some subject that absorbed his mind.” A young man, who as a boy used to see him thus occupied, admits that he used to wonder “how so rough and plain a man could live in so respectable a house.”

I once asked a lady who for a considerable time lived opposite Mr. Lincoln, at Springfield, whether he was really as plain as his pictures all represented him.

“I never saw one of his pictures that did not flatter him,” she answered.

“My oldest son was a companion and playfellow of Mr. Lincoln’s younger boys,” she continued, “and was in and out of his house a dozen times a day. He was a very quiet man. He used to stay at home in the evening, and read or meditate, but Mrs. Lincoln was of a gayer temperament, and cared more for company.”

Mr. Lincoln was always a thoughtful man, and though amid social surroundings he could tell a droll story with a humorous twinkle of the eye, his features in repose were grave and even melancholy. As he walked along the street, he often seemed abstracted, and would pass his best friends without recognizing them. Even at the table he was often self-absorbed, and ate his food mechanically, but there was nothing in his silence to dull or make uncomfortable those around him. After a time he would arise from his silence, and make himself companionable as he was always able to do, and lead conversation into some channel in which members of his family could take part.

CHAPTER XIII

THE RAIL-SPLITTER ENTERS CONGRESS

Abraham Lincoln’s professional success did not fill the measure of his ambition. It certainly was a great step upward from the raw-boned, ragged, barefooted lad to the prosperous lawyer, and our hero, if I may so call him, doubtless felt complacent when he considered the change in his position and surroundings. I may take occasion to say here that Abe – to return to the name which he did not wholly lay aside when he emerged from boyhood and youth – never put on airs because of his elevation, nor looked down upon the humble relatives whom he had left behind. Whenever in his journeyings he found himself near the residence of any of his poorer relations, he took special pains to visit them, and, if possible, to stay with them. Often he pressed upon them money when they appeared to need it – not with the air of a liberal patron, but with straight-forward friendliness and cordiality. Once when he was urged to remain at the hotel with his professional friends, instead of making a call upon an aged aunt, he said:

“Why, aunt’s heart would be broken if I should leave town without calling upon her.”

Let me add that this call required something more than ordinary good-natured consideration, for the aunt in question lived several miles away, and her nephew had no horse at his command, but walked all the way. I am very glad to call the attention of all my young friends to this admirable trait in the character of President Lincoln. I wish it were more common. I am sure we all admire the boy or girl who is always thoughtful of the feelings and happiness of older relatives.

But to return from this digression, let me repeat that Mr. Lincoln had other aspirations than to succeed as a lawyer. It has been said that nine out of ten American boys cherish a vague ambition to become President. This is plainly an exaggeration, but it is certain that a large number entertain the hope of some day entering public life, either as legislator or Congressman, or at any rate as a salaried officer. That is one reason why there is such a horde of office-seekers swarming to our National or State capitals, ambitious to earn a living at the expense of the Government. Some throw up good mercantile positions and spend months in the attempt to secure a position as department clerk, foreign consul, or poorly-paid postmaster.

Abraham Lincoln’s ambition was of a more elevated character. He had a pardonable ambition to take part in the government of his country, not for the sake of the position so much, as because he felt within himself the capacity to shape legislation to worthy ends. He was not alone in this idea. His fellow-citizens had gauged him and felt that he was fit to represent them. I have already spoken of his service in the State Legislature; but he was only preparing himself there for a wider arena. In 1846 he received the nomination for Congress from the Sangamon district. Now it was not the fashion in those days for a candidate to remain quietly at home pursuing his business as usual while waiting for the popular verdict. It is perhaps the more dignified course to pursue, but it would not have elected Mr. Lincoln. He understood at once that he would have to “stump” the district. I need hardly explain to my young readers what this means. He must visit the principal towns and villages, and address public meetings of the people on political subjects of present interest, explaining clearly how he stood, and how he proposed to vote if elected.

For this service Lincoln was very well fitted. He had a vigorous Saxon style, and he knew how to make things clear even to the humblest intellect. Then, again, he possessed a fund of homely, but pertinent stories, which often produced more effect than a protracted argument. However, he was not limited to such means of influencing his audiences. He had a logical mind and a happy faculty of stating things clearly and precisely, so as to convince the reason as well as to persuade the judgment.

There was no lack of topics on which to speak. The country was in an excited state. Texas had been admitted to the Union, war with Mexico had succeeded, and opinions were divided as to the wisdom of entering upon it. The Whig party, of which Mr. Lincoln was a member, considered it unnecessary and unjustifiable. So also did the Anti-Slavery party, then coming into existence. Many of my young readers have doubtless read the “Biglow Papers,” by our eminent poet and diplomatist, James Russell Lowell, and have enjoyed the quaint and pungent sarcasm with which he assails those who were instrumental in bringing on this ill-advised war. I speak of it as ill-advised, for, though some of the results, notably the acquisition of California, have proved beneficial, the object for which the war was commenced and waged was far from commendable. The tariff also had been recently repealed, and the result was a disturbance of the business interests of the country. Clearly, Congress and the country had plenty to talk about and plenty to legislate about.

Mr. Lincoln’s speeches in this “stumping” tour have not been preserved, but we have every reason to believe that he did himself credit, and maintained the reputation he had already acquired as a strong and forcible speaker. The best evidence we can adduce is his triumphant election by much more than the usual party vote. Even Mr. Clay, with all his popularity as a Presidential candidate in 1844, received a majority less by about six hundred than were given to Abraham Lincoln in his contest for a seat in Congress.

So we chronicle one more step in the upward progress of the young rail-splitter. On the 6th of December, 1847, he took his seat in the Thirtieth Congress, as a Representative from his adopted State of Illinois. At the same time his future rival, Stephen A. Douglas, took his seat in the United States Senate, representing the same State. Lincoln was the tallest man among the nearly three hundred who sat in the House. Douglas was the shortest man in the Senate. Both were to achieve high distinction, and to fill a remarkable place in the history of their country. To Lincoln distinction came with slower steps, but he was destined to mount higher and achieve a more enduring fame. Of the two, Douglas was more of a politician, and he was more ready to sacrifice principle in the interest of personal ambition. Years later they were to stump the State as competitors for Senatorial honors in a memorable canvass, and still later to be rival candidates for the Presidency. In the first, Douglas secured the election; in the second, Lincoln. It is to the credit of Douglas that when the last contest was decided, and his competitor, who had secured the prize for which he had labored earnestly for years, was about to take his seat, at a time when the first faint rumblings of the Civil War were being heard, and well-grounded fears were entertained for the safety of the President-elect, he laid aside all the bitterness of personal feelings and disappointed ambition, and rode with his old rival to the capital on Inauguration Day, content to share any personal risk in which he might be placed.

The closing period of the life of Douglas does him great credit. It shows him in the character of patriot, rather than as politician. In former years he had been willing to make concessions to the slave power, in order to further his own chances of the Presidential succession. Now, when civil war was imminent and the integrity of the Government was menaced, he forgot the politician and stood side by side with Lincoln for the preservation of the Government which he had so long served. It was a source of sincere regret to Abraham Lincoln that Douglas should have been removed by death so early in the Civil War. It removed from him a staunch friend and supporter, whose influence was all the greater because he was perhaps the most prominent member of the opposition.

I have a personal remembrance of Mr. Douglas, to whom I was introduced on the occasion of a visit to Massachusetts. Short as he was, he had a dignified and impressive presence, and his massive figure well entitled him to the name by which he was so commonly known, “The Little Giant.” He was not destined to achieve the object of his ambition, but he will long be remembered as an influential actor in our political history.

CHAPTER XIV

THE FIRST SPEECH IN CONGRESS

The backwoods-boy is now in Congress. He is one of the law-makers of the nation, and is an equal associate of eminent statesmen gathered from all parts of the country.

Let us look about us as we enter the old Hall of Representatives, and see into what company the backwoods-boy has come.

In the Speaker’s chair sits a dignified-looking man, an accomplished parliamentarian, whom friends and opponents alike concede to be amply competent to discharge the duties of his high place – this is Robert C. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, living still in a dignified and honored old age. Among the notable members of this Congress were John Quincy Adams, who had already been President, but who was willing notwithstanding to serve his country in an humble place; George Ashmun, also representing Massachusetts; Jacob Collamer; Alexander H. Stephens, afterward Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy; Robert Toombs; Andrew Johnson, afterward associated with Mr. Lincoln as Vice-President, and upon whose shoulders fell the mantle of his lamented chief; Marsh, Truman Smith, Wilmot, Rhett, Giddings, and others, whose names were already conspicuous. This will give some idea of the personnel of the House; while in the Senate chamber, at the other end of the Capitol, Webster, Calhoun, Dix, Dickinson, Hale, Crittenden, and Corwin lent weight and dignity to that co-ordinate legislative branch of the Government.

Such were the men with whom the young Western member was to share the labors of legislation. Time has given to some of them a fame which they did not then possess. Their successors of our day may, after the lapse of a generation, bear names as weighty; but I am afraid we shall look in vain for successors of Webster, Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, A. H. Stephens, and Crittenden.

The question will occur to my young readers, What part did Abraham Lincoln take in the national councils? Was he a cipher, an obscure member, simply filling his seat and drawing his pay, or did he take an active part in the business of the session? I will say in answer, that he was by no means a cipher. Though he did not aspire to be a leader – for in a new member that would have been in bad taste – he was always ready to take part when he felt called upon to do so, and his vote and words were such as he would not in after years have felt it necessary to recall or apologize for.

It is interesting to know that he arrayed himself with Mr. Giddings in favor of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia. Mr. Giddings little suspected that the plain member from Illinois, whose co-operation he had secured, was to be the instrument under Providence of abolishing slavery, not only in the District of Columbia, but throughout the land.

But slavery was not at that time the leading political question of the day. Parties were divided upon the subject of the Mexican war. While opposed to the war, Mr. Lincoln was in favor of voting for the necessary supplies and appropriations, and he took care, in an elaborate speech, to explain his position. He felt that it was his duty as a citizen and a patriot to see that the army which had been sent to Mexico should be properly sustained; but he did not for a moment concede that the war was just or necessary. As President Polk saw fit to construe such a vote as a formal approval of his action and of the war, Mr. Lincoln made an elaborate speech in arraignment of his interpretation. As this was Mr. Lincoln’s first speech in Congress, I shall make considerable quotations from it, partly to show where he stood on this important question, and partly to prove to my readers that he was no novice, but well qualified for the high position to which he had been elected by the suffrages of his fellow-citizens. I am quite aware that many of my young readers will skip this portion as uninteresting; but I hope that if in after years they are led to read this biography once more, they will count it worth while to read it.

After reviewing and controverting the reasons assigned by the President for the statement that Mexico had invaded our soil, and that therefore “by the act of the Republic of Mexico a state of war exists between that Government and the United States,” Mr. Lincoln proceeds:

“I am now through the whole of the President’s evidence; and it is a singular fact, that if any one should declare the President sent the army into the midst of a settlement of Mexican people who had never submitted, by consent or by force, to the authority of Texas or of the United States, and that there and thereby the first blood of the war was shed, there is not one word in all the President has said which would either admit or deny the declaration. In this strange omission chiefly consists the deception of the President’s evidence – an omission which it does seem to me could scarcely have occurred but by design. My way of living leads me to be about the courts of justice; and there I have sometimes seen a good lawyer struggling for his client’s neck, in a desperate case, employing every artifice to work round, befog, and cover up with many words some position pressed upon him by the prosecution, which he dared not admit and yet could not deny. Party bias may help to make it appear so; but, with all the allowance I can make for such bias, it still does appear to me that just such, and from such necessity, are the President’s struggles in this case.

“Some time after my colleague (Mr. Richardson) introduced the resolutions I have mentioned, I introduced a preamble, resolution, and interrogatories, intended to draw the President out, if possible, on this hitherto untrodden ground. To show their relevancy, I propose to state my understanding of the true rule for ascertaining the boundary between Texas and Mexico. It is that wherever Texas was exercising jurisdiction was hers; and wherever Mexico was exercising jurisdiction was hers; and that whatever separated the actual exercise of jurisdiction of the one from that of the other, was the true boundary between them. If, as is probably true, Texas was exercising jurisdiction along the western bank of the Nueces, and Mexico was exercising it along the eastern bank of the Rio Grande; then neither river was the boundary, but the uninhabited country between the two was. The extent of our territory in that region depended not on any treaty-fixed boundary (for no treaty had attempted it), but on revolution. 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. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled, or near about them, who may oppose their movements. Such minority was precisely the case of the Tories of our own Revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws, but to break up both and make new ones. As to the country now in question, we bought it of France in 1803 and sold it to Spain in 1819, according to the President’s statement. After this, all Mexico, including Texas, revolutionized against Spain; and still later, Texas revolutionized against Mexico. In my view, just so far as she carried her revolution by obtaining the actual, willing or unwilling, submission of the people, so far the country was hers and no further.

“Now, sir, for the purpose of obtaining the very best evidence as to whether Texas had actually carried her revolution to the place where the hostilities of the present war commenced, let the President answer the interrogatories I proposed, as before mentioned, or some other similar ones. Let him answer fully, fairly, and candidly; let him answer with facts, and not with arguments. Let him remember he sits where Washington sat; and, so remembering, let him answer as Washington would answer. As a nation should not, and the Almighty will not be evaded, so let him attempt no evasion, no equivocation; and if, so answering, he can show that the soil was ours where the first blood of the war was shed – that it was not within an inhabited country, or, if within such, that the inhabitants had submitted themselves to the civil authority of Texas or of the United States, and that the same is true of the site of Fort Brown – then I am with him for his justification. In that case, I shall be most happy to reverse the vote I gave the other day. I have a selfish notion for desiring that the President may do this; I expect to give some votes in connection with the war, which, without his so doing, will be of doubtful propriety, in my own judgment, but which will be free from the doubt, if he does so.

“But if he can not or will not do this – if on any pretense, or no pretense, he shall refuse or omit it – then I shall be fully convinced of what I more than suspect already, that he is deeply conscious of being in the wrong; that he feels the blood of this war, like the blood of Abel, is crying to heaven against him; that he ordered General Taylor into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement, purposely to bring on war; that originally having some strong motive – what I will not stop now to give my opinion concerning – to involve the two countries in a war, and trusting to escape scrutiny by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory – that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood – that serpent’s eye that charms to destroy – he plunged into it, and has swept on and on, till, disappointed in his calculation of the ease with which Mexico might be subdued, he now finds himself he knows not where. How like the half-insane mumbling of a fever dream is the whole war part of the last message! At one time telling us that Mexico has nothing whatever that we can get but territory; at another showing us how we can support the war by levying contributions on Mexico; at one time urging the national honor, the security of the future, the prevention of foreign interference, and even the good of Mexico herself, as among the objects of the war; at another, telling us that ‘to reject indemnity by refusing to accept a cession of territory would be to abandon all our just demands, and to wage the war, bearing all its expenses, without a purpose or definite object.’