Abraham Lincoln
Watterson, Henry, 1840-1921. [from old catalog]
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It was first delivered as an oration be- fore the Lincoln Union, of Chicago, February 12, 1895, the occasion being the Union's annual celebration of the birthday of the martyred President. The great Auditorium of that city was crowded to its utmost capacity — the surviving son of Mr. Lincoln, and his family, occupying one of the boxes — and was received by this concourse with sustained enthusiasm. In re- sponse to invitations, which soon became general, Mr. Watterson consented to repeat it as a lecture ; and in that character it has been heard by admiring multi- tudes in every part of the country, but nowhere with livelier demonstrations of approval than in the cities of the Southern States, from Richmond and Charleston to New Orleans and Galveston. The matter is here given as originally spoken by Mr. Watterson ; with the single v/- exception of the passage relating to the affair at Hamp- ton Roads. Finding his statement questioned, touch- ing what had actually passed between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stephens at the famous Conference, Mr. Watterson, in his subsequent delivery of the lecture, gave the proof of his assertion, at the same time disclaiming any pur- pose other than an illustration of the wise magnanimity and Christ-like sense of justice of Abraham Lincoln. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. The statesmen in knee-breeches and powdered wigs who signed the Declaration of Independ- ence and framed the Constitution — the soldiers in blue-and-buff, top-boots and epaulets who led the armies of the Revolution — were what we are wont to describe as gentlemen. They were Eng- lish gentlemen. They were not all, nor even generally, scions of the British aristocracy; but they came, for the most part, of good Anglo- Saxon and Scotch-Irish stock. The shoe buckle and the ruffled shirt worked a spell peculiarly their own. They carried with them an air of polish and authority. Hamilton, though of obscure birth and small stature, is rep- resented by those who knew him to have been dignity and grace personified ; and old Ben Frank- lin, even in woolen hose, and none too courtier- like, was the delight of the great nobles and fine ladies, in whose company he made himself as much at home as though he had been born a Marquis. When we revert to that epoch the beauty of the scene which history unfolds is marred by lit- tle that is uncouth, by nothing that is grotesque. The long procession passes, and we see in each group, in every figure, something of heroic pro- portion. John Adams and John Hancock, Sam- uel Warren and Samuel Adams, the Livingstons in New York, the Carrolls in Maryland, the Ma- sons, the Randolphs and the Pendletons in Vir- ginia, the Rutledges in South Carolina — what pride of Caste, what elegance of manner, what dignity and dominancy of character ! And the soldiers! Israel Putnam and Nathanael Greene, Ethan Allen and John Stark, Mad Anthony Wayne and Light Horse Harry Lee, and Morgan and Marion and Sumter, gathered about the immortal Washington — Puritan and Cavalier so mixed and blended as to be indistinguishable the one from the other — where shall we go to seek a more resplendent galaxy of field marshals? Surely not to Blenheim, drinking beakers to Marlborough after the famous victory; nor yet to the silken marquet of the great Conde on the Rhine, be- dizened with gold lace and radiant with the flower of the nobility of France! Ah, me! there were gentlemen in those days; and they made their influence felt upon life and thought long after the echoes of Hunker Hill and Yorktovvn had faded away, long after the bell over Independ- ence Hall had ceased to ringf. The first half of the Republic's first half cen- tury of existence the public men of America, dis- tinguished for many things, were chiefly and almost universally distinguished for repose of bearing and sobriety of behavior. It was not until the institution of African slavery had got into politics as a vital force that Congress be- came a bear-garden, and that our law-makers, lay- ing aside their manners with their small-clothes, fell into the loose-fitting habiliments of modern fashion and the slovenly jargon of partisan con- troversy. The gentlemen who signed the Dec- laration and framed the Constitution were suc- ceeded by gentlemen — much like themselves — but these were succeeded by a race of party leaders much less decorous and much more self- confident; rugged, puissant; deeply moved in all that they said and did, and sometimes turbulent; so that finally, when the volcano burst forth flames that reached the heavens, great human bowlders appeared amid the glare on every side; none of them much to speak of according to rules reg- nant at St. James and Versailles; but vigorous, able men, full of their mission and of themselves, and pulling for dear life in opposite directions. There were Seward and Sumner and Chase, Corwin and Ben Wade, Trumbull and Fessen- den, Hale and Collamer and Grimes, and Wen- dell Phillips, and Horace Greeley, our latter-day Franklin. There were Toombs and Hammond, and Slidell and Wigfall, and the two little giants, Douglas and Stephens, and Yancey and Mason, and Jefferson Davis. With them soft words but- tered no parsnips, and they cared little how many pitchers might be broken by rude ones. The issue between them did not require a diagram to explain it. It was so simple a child might under- stand. It read, human slavery against human freedom, slave labor against free labor, and in- volved a conflict as inevitable as it was irrepres- sible. Long before the guns of Beauregard opened fire upon Fort Sumter, and, fulfilling the pro- gramme of extremism, " blood was sprinkled in the faces of the people," the hustings in America had become a battle-ground, and every rood of debatable territory a ring for controversial mills, always tumultuous, and sometimes sanguinary. No sooner had the camp-fires of the Revolution — which warmed so many noble hearts and lighted so many patriotic lamps — no sooner had the camp- fires of the Revolution died out, than there began to burn, at first fitfully, then to blaze alarmingly in every direction, a succession of forest fires, baf- fling the energies and resources of the good and brave men who sought to put them out. Mr. Web- ster, at once a learned jurist and a prose poet, might thunder expositions of the written law, to quiet the fears of the slave-owner and to lull the waves ol agitation. Mr. Clay, by his resistless eloquence and overmastering personality, might compromise first one and then another of the irreconcilable conditions that obstructed the path- way of conservative statesmanship. To no pur- pose, except to delay the fatal hour. There were moving to the foreground moral forces which would down at no man's bidding. The still, small voice of emancipation, stifled for a moment by self-interest playing upon the fears of the timid, recovered its breath and broke into a cry for abolition. The cry for abolition rose in volume to a roar. Slowly, step by step, the forces of freedom advanced to meet the forces of slavery. Gradually, these mighty, discordant elements approached the pre- destined line of battle ; the gains for a while seeming to be in doubt, but in reality all on one side. There was less and less of middle ground. The middle men who ventured to get in the way were either struck down or absorbed by the one party or the other. The Senate had its Gettysburg; and many and many a Shiloh was fought on the floor of the House. Actual war raged in Kansas. The mysterious descent upon Harper's Ferry, like a fire-bell in the night, might have warned all men of the coming conflagra- tion ; might have revealed to all men a prophecy in the lines that, quoted to describe the scene, foretold the event — "The rock-ribbed ledges drip with a silent horror of blood, And Echo there, whatever is asked her, answers: 'Death.' " Greek was meeting Greek at last ; and the field of politics became almost as sulphurous and murky as an actual field of battle. Amid the noise and confusion, the clashing of intellects like sabers bright, and the booming of the big oratorical guns of the North and the South, now definitely arrayed, there came one day into the Northern camp one of the oddest figures imaginable; the figure of a man who, in spite of an appearance somewhat at outs with Hogarth's line of beauty, wore a serious aspect, if not an air of command, and, pausing to utter a single sentence that might be heard above the din, 10 passed on and for a moment disappeared. The sentence was pregnant with meaning. The man bore a commission from God on high! He said: " A house divided against itself can not stand. I believe this Government can not endure perma- nently half free and half slave. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved ; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided." He was Abraham Lincoln. How shall I describe him to you? Shall I do so as he appeared to me, when I first saw him immediately on his arrival in the national capital, the chosen President of the United States, his appearance quite as strange as the story of his life, which was then but half known and half told, or shall I use the words of another and a more graphic word-painter? In January. 1861, Col. A. K. McClure, of Penn- sylvania, journeyed to Springfield, Illinois, to meet and confer with the man he had done so much to elect, but whom he had never personally known. " I went directly from the depot to Lincoln's house," says Col. McClure, "and rang the bell, which was answered by Lincoln, himself, opening the door. I doubt whether I wholly concealed my disappointment at meeting him. Tall, gaunt, ungainly, ill clad, with a homeliness of manner that was unique in itself, I confess that my heart sank within me as I remembered that this was the man chosen by a great nation to become its ruler in the gravest period of its history. I re- member his dress as if it were but yesterday — 11 snuff-colored and slouchy pantaloons; open black vest, held by a few brass buttons ; straight or evening dress-coat, with tightly fitting sleeves to exaggerate his long, bony arms, all supplemented by an awkwardness that was uncommon among men of intelligence. Such was the picture I met in the person of Abraham Lincoln. We sat down in his plainly furnished parlor and were uninter- rupted during the nearly four hours I remained with him, and little by little, as his earnestness, sincerity and candor were developed in conversa- tion, I forgot all the grotesque qualities which so confounded me when I first greeted him. Before half an hour had passed I learned not only to re- spect, but, indeed, to reverence the man." A graphic portrait, truly, and not unlike. I recall him, two months later, a little less uncouth, a little better dressed, but in singularity and in angularity much the same. All the world now takes an interest in every detail that concerned him, or that relates to the weird tragedy of his life and death. ^ And who was this peculiar being, destined in his mother's arms — for cradle he had none so profoundly to affect the future of human-kind? He has told us, himself, in words so simple and unaffected, so idiomatic and direct, that we can neither misread them, nor improve upon them. Writing, in 1859, to one who had asked him for some biographic particulars, Abraham Lincoln said : 12 "I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin county, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families — second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks. . . . My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham county, Va. , to Kentucky about 1781 or 1782, where, a year or two later, he was killed by the Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was labor- ing to open a farm in the forest. . .. "My father (Thomas Lincoln) at the death of his father was but six years of age. By the early death of his father, and the very narrow circumstances of his mother, he was, even in childhood, a wandering, labor- ing boy, and grew up literally without education. He never did more in the way of writing than bunglinglv to write his own name. . . . He removed from Ken- tucky to what is now Spencer county, Indiana, in my eighth year. ... It was a wild region, with many bears and other animals still in the woods. There were some schools, so-called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond 'readin', writiu'. and cipherin' to the rule of three.' If a straggler sup- posed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood he was looked upon as a wizard. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write and cipher to the rule of three. But that was all. . . . The little advance I now have upon this store of education I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity. " I was raised to farm work . . . till I was twenty- two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, Macon county. Then I got to New Salem, . . . where I remained a year as a sort of clerk in a store. Then came the Black Hawk war; and I was elected captain of a volunteer company, a success that gave me more pleasure than any I have had since. I went the campaign, was elated, ran for the Legislature the same year (1832), and was beaten 13 — the only time I ever have been beaten by the people. The next, and three succeeding biennial elections, I was elected to the Legislature. I was not a candidate after- ward. During the legislative period I had studied law and removed to Springfield to practice it. In 1846 I was elected to the lower house of Congress. Was not a candidate for re-election. From 1849 to 1854, inclusive, practiced law more assiduously than ever before. Always a Whig in politics, and generally on the Whig electoral tickets, making active canvasses. I was losing interest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. "If any personal description of me is thought desir- able, it may be said that I am in height six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes. No other marks or brands recollected." There is the whole story, told by himself, and brought down to the point where he became a figure of national importance. His political philosophy was expounded in four elaborate speeches; one delivered at Peoria, 111., the 16th of October, 1854; one at Springfield, 111., the 1 6th of June, 1858; one at Columbus, Ohio, the 16th of September, 1859, and one the 27th of February, i860, at Cooper Institute, in the city of New York. Of course Mr. Lincoln made many speeches and very good speeches. But these four, progressive in character, contain the sum total of his creed touching the organic character of the Government and at the same time his party view of contemporary issues. They show him to have been an old-line Whig of the school 14 of Henry Clay, with strong emancipation lean- ings; a thorough anti-slavery man, but never an extremist or an abolitionist. To the last he hewed to the line thus laid down. Two or three years ago I referred to Abraham Lincoln — in a casual way — as one "inspired of God." 1 was taken to task for this and thrown upon my defense. Knowing less then than I know now of Mr. Lincoln, I confined myself to the superficial aspects of the case ; to the career of a man who seemed to have lacked the oppor- tunity to prepare himself for the great estate to which he had come, plucked as it were from obscurity by a caprice of fortune. Accepting the doctrine of inspiration as a law of the universe, 1 still stand to this belief; but I must qualify it as far as it conveys the idea that Mr. Lincoln was not as well equipped in actual knowledge of men and affairs as any of his con- temporaries. Mr. Webster once said that he had been preparing to make his reply to Hayne for thirty years. Mr. Lincoln had been in uncon- scious training for the Presidency for thirty- years. His maiden address as a candidate for the Legislature, issued at the ripe old age of twenty- three, closes with these words, " But if the good people in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with disappointment to be very much chagrined." The man who wrote that sentence, thirty years later wrote this sentence: "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field 15 and patriot-grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the angels of our bet- ter nature." Between those two sentences, joined by a kindred, somber thought, flowed a life-cur- rent— "Strong, without rage, without o'erflowing, fall," pausing never for an instant; deepening whilst it ran, but nowise changing its course or its tones; always the same ; calm ; patient ; affectionate ; like one born to a destiny, and, as in a dream, feeling its resistless force. It is needful to a complete understanding of Mr. Lincoln's relation to the time and to his place in the political history of the country, that the student peruse closely the four speeches to which I have called attention ; they underlie all that passed in the famous debate with Douglas ; all that their author said and did after he succeeded to the presidency. They stand to-day as mas- terpieces of popular oratory. But for our pres- ent purpose the debate with Douglas will suffice — the most extraordinary intellectual spectacular the annals of our party warfare afford. Lin- coln entered the canvass unknown outside the State of Illinois. He closed it renowned from one end of the land to the other. Judge Douglas was himself unsurpassed as a stump-speaker and ready debater. But in that campaign, from first to last, Judge Douglas was at 16 a serious disadvantage. His bark rode upon an ebbing time; Lincoln's bark rode upon a flow- ing tide. African slavery was the issue now ; and the whole trend of modern thought was set against slavery. The Democrats seemed hope- lessly divided. The Little Giant had to face a triangular opposition embracing the Republicans, the Administration, or Buchanan Democrats, and a little remnant of the old Whigs, who fancied that their party was still alive and thought to hold some kind of balance of power. Judge Douglas called the combination the "allied army," and declared that he would deal with it -'just as the Russians dealt with the allies at Sebastopol — that is, the Russians did not stop to inquire, when they fired a broadside, whether it hit an English- man, a Frenchman or a Turk." It was some- thing more than a witticism when Mr. Lincoln rejoined, " In that case, I beg he will indulge us whilst we suggest to him that those allies took Sebastopol." He followed this center-shot with volley after volley of exposition so clear, of reasoning so close, of illustration so pointed, and, at times, of humor so incisive, that, though he lost his election — though the allies did not then take Sebastopol — his defeat counted for more than Douglas' vic- tory, for it made him the logical and successful candidate for President of the United States two years later. What could be more captivating to an out-door audience than Lincoln's description ''of the two 17 persons who stand before the people of the State as candidates for the Senate," to quote his pref- atory words ? " Judge Douglas," he said, " is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party . . . have been looking upon him as certainly. . . to be President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land-offices, marshalships, and cabi- net appointments, chargeships and foreign mis- sions, bursting and spreading out in wonderful ex- uberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they can not, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charming hope ; but with greedier anxiety they rush about him! sustain him and give him marches, triumphal entries and receptions, beyond what in the days of his highest prosperity they could have brought about in his favor. On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting." As the debate advanced, these cheery tones deepened into harsher notes; crimination and recrimination followed ; the two gladiators were strung to their utmost tension. They became dreadfully in earnest. Personal collision was narrowly avoided. I have recently gone over the entire debate, and with a feeling I can only de- scribe as most contemplative, most melancholy. I knew Judge Douglas well ; I admired, re- 18 spected, loved him. I shall never forget the day he quitted Washington to go to his home in Illi- nois to return no more. Tears were in his eyes and his voice trembled like a woman's. He was then a dying man. He had burned the candle at both ends from his boyhood ; an eager, ardent, hard-working, pleasure-loving man ; and though not yet fifty, the candle was burned out. His infirmities were no greater than those of Mr. Clay; not to be mentioned with those of Mr. Webster. Hut he lived in more exacting times. The old-style party organ, with its mock heroics and its dull respectability, its beggarly array of empty news columns and cheap advertising, had been succeeded by that unsparing, tell-tale scan- dal-monger, Modern Journalism, with its myriad of hands and eyes, its vast retinue of detectives, and its quick transit over flashing wires, annihi- lating time and space. Too fierce a light beat upon the private life of public men, and Douglas suffered from this as Clay and Webster, Silas Wright and Franklin Pierce had not suffered. The presidential bee was in his bonnet, cer- tainly; but its buzzing there was not noisier than in the bonnets of other great Americans, who have been dazzled by that wretched bauble. His plans and schemes came to naught. He died at the moment when the death of those plans and schemes was made more palpable and impressive by the roar of cannon proclaiming the reality of that irrepressible conflict he had refused to fore- see and had struggled to avert. His life-long 19 rival was at the head of affairs. No one has found occasion to come to the rescue of his fame. No party interest has been identified with his memory. But when the truth of history is writ- ten, it will be told that, not less than Webster and Clay, he, too, was a patriotic man, who loved his country and tried to save the Union. He tried to save the Union, even as Webster and Clay had tried to save it, by compromises and expedi- ents. It was too late. The string was played out. Where they had succeeded he failed; but, for the nobility of his intention, the amplitude of his resources, the splendor of his combat, he merits all that any leader of losing cause ever gained in the report of posterity ; and posterity will not deny him the title of statesman. In that great debate it was Titan against Titan; and, perusing it after the lapse of forty years, the philosophic and impartial critic will conclude which got the better of it, Lincoln or Douglas, much according to his sympathy with the one or the other. Douglas, as I have said, had the disadvantage of riding an ebb-tide. But Lincoln encountered a disadvantage in riding a flood-tide, which was flowing too fast for a man so conservative and so honest as he was. Thus there was not a little equivocation on both sides foreign to the nature of the two. Both wanted to be frank. Both thought they were being frank. But each was a little afraid of his own logic ; each was a little afraid of his own following ; and hence there was considerable hair-splitting, 20 involving accusations that did not accuse and de- nials that did not deny. They were politicians, these two, as well as statesmen ; they were poli- ticians, and what they did not know about polit- ical campaigning was hardly worth knowing. Reverently, 1 take oft' my hat to both of them; and I turn down the page ; I close the book and lay it on its shelf, with the inward ejaculation, "there were giants in those days." I am not undertaking to deliver an oral biogra- phy of Abraham Lincoln, and shall pass over the events which quickly led up to his nomination and election to the presidency in i860. I met the newly elected President the afternoon of the day in the early morning of which he had arrived in Washington. It was a Saturday, I think. He came to the Capitol under Mr. Seward's escort, and, among the rest, I was presented to him. His appearance did not impress me as fan- tastically as it had impressed Colonel McClure. I was more familiar with the Western type than Colonel McClure, and, whilst Mr. Lincoln was certainly not an Adonis, even after prairie ideals, there was about him a dignity that commanded respect. I met him again the forenoon of the 4th of March in his apartment at Willard's Hotel as he was preparing to start to his inauguration, and was touched by his unaffected kindness ; for I came with a matter requiring his immediate attention. He was entirely self-possessed; no trace of nerv- ousness; and very obliging. I accompanied the 21 cortege that passed from the Senate chamber to the east portico of the capitol, and, as Mr. Lin- coln removed his hat to face the vast multitude in front and below, I extended my hand to receive it, but Judge Douglas, just beside me, reached over my outstretched arm and took the hat, hold- ing it throughout the delivery of the inaugural address. I stood near enough to the speaker's elbow not to obstruct any gestures he might make, though he made but few ; and then it was that I began to comprehend something of the power of the man. He delivered that inaugural address as if he had been delivering inaugural addresses all his life. Firm, resonant, earnest, it announced the coming of a man ; of a leader of men ; and in its ringing tones and elevated style, the gentlemen he had invited to become members of his political family — each of whom thought himself a bigger man than his master — might have heard the voice and seen the hand of a man born to command. Whether they did or not, they very soon ascer- tained the fact. From the hour Abraham Lincoln crossed the threshold of the White House to the hour he went thence to his death, there was not a moment when he did not dominate the political and military situation and all his official subor- dinates. Mr. Seward was the first to fall a victim to his own temerity. One of the most extraordinary incidents that ever passed between a chief and his lieutenant came about before the first month 22 of the new administration had closed. The ist of April Mr. Seward submitted to Mr. Lincoln a memorandum, entitled "Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration." He began this by saying : " We are at the end of a month's admin- istration, and yet without a policy, either foreign or domestic." 1 hen follows a series of sugges- tions hardly less remarkable for their character than for their emanation. There are quite a baker's dozen of them, for the most part flimsy and irrelevant; but two of them are so conspicu- ous for a lack of sagacity and comprehension that I shall quote them as a sample of the whole: " We must change the question before the pub- lic," says Mr. Seward, "from one upon slavery, or about slavery, to one upon Union or disunion," — as if it had not been thus changed already, — and " I would demand explanations from Spain and France, energetically, at once, . . . and if satisfactory explanations are not received from Spain and France, I would convene Congress and declare war against them. ... I would seek explanations from Great Britain and Russia, and send agents into Canada, Mexico and Cen- tral America to arouse a vigorous spirit of Con- tinental independence on this continent against European intervention." Think of it ! At the moment this advice was seriously given the head of the Government by the head of the Cabinet — supposed to be the most accomplished statesman and astute diplo- matist of his time — a Southern Confederacy had 23 been actually established, and Europe was only too eager for some pretext to put in its oar, and effectually, finally, to compel a dissolution of the Union and to compass the defeat of the Republican experiment in America. The Gov- ernment of the United States had but to make a grimace at France and Spain ; to bat its eye at England and Russia, to raise up a quadruple alliance, Monarchy against Democracy, bringing down upon itself the navies of the world, and double assuring, double confirming the Govern- ment of Jefferson Davis. In concluding these astounding counsels, Mr. Seward says: " But whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of it. " For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct it incessantly. " Either the President must do it himself and be all the while active in it, or devolve it on some member of his Cabinet. "Once adopted, all debates on it must end and all agree and abide. "It is not in my especial province; but I neither seek to evade nor assume responsibility." Before hearing- Mr. Lincoln's answer to all this, consider what it really implied. If Mr. Seward had simply said : "Mr. Lincoln, you are a failure as President, but turn over the direction of affairs exclusively to me, and all shall be well and all be forgiven," he could not have spoken more explicitly and hardly more offensively. •J I Now mark how a great man carries himself at a critical moment under extreme provocation. Here is the answer Mr. Lincoln sent Mr. Seward that very night: "Executive Mansion, April i, 1861.— Hon. W. H. Seward — My Dear Sir : Since parting with you I have been considering your paper dated this day and entitled ' some thoughts for the President's consideration.' The first proposition in it is, 'we are at the end of a mouth's administration and yet without a policy, either domestic or foreign.' "At the beginning of that month in the inaugural I said : ' The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belongiug to the Government, and to collect the duties and imports.' This had your distinct approval at the time ; and taken in connection with the order I immediately gave General Scott, directing him to employ every means in his power to strengthen and hold the forts, comprises the exact domestic policy you urge, with the single exception that it does not propose to abandon P"ort Sumter. " The news received yesterday in regard to Santo Domingo certainly brings a new item within the range of our foreign policy, but up to that time we have been preparing circulars and instructions to ministers and the like, all in perfect harmony, without even a suggestion that we had no foreign policy. " Upon your closing proposition — that ' Whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of it. " ' For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct it incessantly. " 'Either the President must do it himself, and be all the while active in it, or devolve it upon some member of his Cabinet. " 'Once adopted, debates must end, and all agree and 26 abide.' I remark that if this be done, I must do it. When a general line of policy is adopted, I apprehend there is no danger of its being changed without good reason, or continuing to be a subject of unnecessary de- bate; still, upon points arising in its progress, I wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice of all the Cabinet. Your obedient servant, A. Lincoln." I agree with Lincoln's biographers that in this letter not a word was omitted that was necessary, and not a hint or allusion is contained that could be dispensed with. It was conclusive. It ended the argument. Mr. Seward dropped into his place. Mr. Lincoln never referred to it. From that time forward the understanding between them was mutual and perfect. So much so that when, the 21st of the following May, Mr. Seward submitted to the President the draft of a letter of instruction to Charles Francis Adams, then Min- ister to England, Mr. Lincoln did not hesitate to change much of its character and purpose by his alterations of its text. The original copy of this dispatch, in Mr. Seward's handwriting, with Mr. Lincoln's interlineations, is still to be seen on file in the Department of State. It is safe to say that, if that letter had gone as Mr. Seward wrote it, a war with England would have been inevi- table. Mr. Lincoln's additions, hardly less than his suppressions, present a curious contrast be- tween the seer in affairs and the scholar in affairs. Even in the substitution of one word for another, Mr. Lincoln shows a comprehension both of the situation and the language which seems to have 26 been wholly wanting in Mr. Seward, with all his experience and learning. It is said that, ponder- ing over this document, weighing in his mind its meaning and import, his head bowed and pencil in hand, Mr. Lincoln was overheard murmuring to himself: " One war at a time — one war at a time." Whilst I am on this matter of who was really President whilst Abraham Lincoln occupied the office, I may as well settle it. We all remember that, in setting up for a bigger man than his chief, Mr. Chase fared no better than Mr. Seward. But it is sometimes said that Mr. Stanton was more successful in this line. Many amusing stories are told of how Stanton lorded it over Lincoln. On a certain occasion it is related that the President was informed by an irate friend that the Secretary of War had not only refused to execute an order of his, but had called him a fool into the bar- gain. "Did Stanton say I was a fool?" said Lincoln. "Yes," replied his friend, "he said you were a blank, blank fool ! " Lincoln looked first good-humoredly at his friend and then furtively out of the window in the direction of the War De- partment, and carelessly observed: " If Stanton said that I was a blank fool, it must be true, for he is nearly always right and generally says what he means. I will just step over and see Stanton." On another occasion Mr. Lincoln is quoted as saying: "I have very little influence with this Administration, but I hope to have more with the next." Complacent humor such as this simply denotes 27 assured position. It is merely the graciousness of conscious power. But there happens to be on record a story of a different kind. This is related by Gen. James B. Fry, Provost Marshal General of the United States, on duty in the War Depart- ment. As General Fry tells it, Mr. Stanton seems to have had the right of it. The President had given an order which the Secretary of War had refused to issue. The President there- upon came into the War Department and this is what happened. In answer to Mr. Lincoln's in- quiry as to the cause of the trouble, Mr. Stanton went over the record and the grounds for his action, and concluded with: "Now, Mr. Presi- dent, these are the facts, and you must see that your order can not be executed." Lincoln sat upon a sofa with his legs crossed — I am quoting General Fry— and did not say a word until the Secretary's last remark. Then he said in a somewhat positive tone: "Mr. Secre- tary, I reckon you'll have to execute the order." Stanton replied with asperity — " Mr. President, I can not do it. The order is an improper one and I can not execute it." Lincoln fixed his eye upon Stanton, and in a firm voice, and with an accent that clearly showed his determination, he said: "Mr. Secretary, it will have to be done." "Stanton then realized" — I am still quoting General Fry — "that he was overmatched. He had made a square issue with the President and 28 been defeated, notwithstanding the fact that he was in the right. Upon an intimation from him 1 withdrew and did not witness his surrender. A few minutes after 1 reached my office I received instructions from the Secretary to carry out the President's order. Stanton never mentioned the subject to me afterward, nor did I ever ascertain the special, and no doubt sufficient reason, which the President had for his action in the case." Once General Halleck got on a high horse, and demanded that, if Mr. Lincoln approved some ill-natured remarks alleged to have been made of certain military men about Washington, by Montgomery Blair, the Postmaster-General, he should dismiss the officers from the service, but, if he did not approve, he should dismiss the Postmaster-General from the Cabinet. Mr. Lin- coln's reply is very characteristic. He declined to do either of the things demanded. He said : "Whether the remarks were really made I do not know, nor do I suppose such knowledge necessary to a correct response. Besides this, truth is generally the best vindication against slander. I propose continuing to be myself the judge as to when a member of the Cabinet shall be dismissed." Next day, however, he issued a warning to the members of his political family, which, in the form 29 of a memorandum, he read to them. There is nothing equivocal about this. In language and in tone it is the utterance of a master. I will read it to you, as it is very brief and to the pur- pose. The President said : " I must myself be the judge how long to retain and when to remove any of you from his position. It would greatly pain me to discover any of you endeavoring to procure another's removal, or in any way to prejudice him before the public. Such endeavor would be a wrong to me, and much worse, a wrong to the country. My wish is, that on this subject no remark be made, nor any question be asked by any of you, here or elsewhere, now or hereafter." Always courteous, always tolerant, always mak- ing allowance, yet always explicit, his was the master-spirit, his the guiding hand ; committing to each of the members of his Cabinet the details of the work of his own department; caring noth- ing for petty sovereignty ; but reserving to him- self all that related to great policies, the starting of moral forces and the moving of organized ideas. I want to say just here a few words about Mr. Lincoln's relation to the South and the people of the South. ' He was, himself, a Southern man. He and all his tribe were Southerners. Although he left Kentucky when but a child, he was an old child ; he never was very young ; and he grew to manhood in a Kentucky colony; for what was Illinois in those days but a Kentucky colony, grown since 30 somewhat out of proportion? He was in no sense what we in the South used to call "a poor white." Awkward, perhaps ; ungainly, perhaps, but aspiring; the spirit of a hero beneath that rugged exterior; the soul of a prose-poet behind those heavy brows ; the courage of a lion back of those patient, kindly aspects; and, long before he was of legal age, a leader. His first love was a Rutledge ; his wife was a Todd. Let the romancist tell the story of his romance. I dare not. No sadder idyl can be found in all the short and simple annals of the poor. 