The Life of Lyman Trumbull. Horace White
hanging back would have been construed as timidity. The anti-Nebraska Democrats of Illinois required early proof that their Senator was not afraid of the Little Giant, but was his match at cut-and-thrust debate as well as his superior in dignity and moral power. The North rang with the praises of Trumbull, and some persons, whose admiration of Lincoln was unbounded and unchangeable, were heard to say that perhaps Providence had selected the right man for Senator from Illinois. Although Lincoln's personality was more magnetic, Trumbull's intellect was more alert, his diction the more incisive, and his temper was the more combative of the two.
From a mass of letters and newspapers commending Mr. Trumbull on his first appearance on the floor of the Senate, a few are selected for notice.
The New York Tribune, March 15, 1856, Washington letter signed "H. G.," p. 4, col. 5:
Mr. Trumbull's review of Senator Douglas's pro-slavery Kansas report is hailed with enthusiasm, as calculated to do honor to the palmiest days of the Senate. Though three hours long, it commanded full galleries, and the most fixed attention to the close. It was searching as well as able, and was at once dignified and convincing.
When Mr. Trumbull closed, Mr. Douglas rose, in bad temper, to complain that the attack had been commenced in his absence, and to ask the Senate to fix a day for his reply. He said Mr. Trumbull had claimed to be a Democrat; but that claim would be considered a libel by the Democracy of Illinois. Here Mr. Crittenden rose to a question of order, and a most exciting passage ensued; the flash of the Kentuckian's eye and the sternness of his bearing were such as are rarely seen in the Senate.
The New York Daily Times, Washington letter, dated June 9:
Douglas was much disconcerted to-day by Senator Trumbull's keen exposure of his Nebraska sophism. He was directly asked if he believed that the people of the territories have the right to exclude slavery before forming a state government, but he refused to give his opinion, saying that it was a question to be determined by the Supreme Court. Trumbull then exposed with great force Douglas's equivocal platform of popular sovereignty, which means one thing at the South and another at the North. The "Little Giant" was fairly smoked out.
Charles Sumner writes to E. L. Pierce, March 21:
Trumbull is a hero, and more than a match for Douglas. Illinois, in sending him, has done much to make me forget that she sent Douglas. You will read the main speech which is able; but you can hardly appreciate the ready courage and power with which he grappled with his colleague and throttled him. We are all proud of his work.
S. P. Chase, Executive Office, Columbus, Ohio, April 14, 1856, writes:
I have read your speech with great interest. It was timely—exactly at the right moment and its logic and statement are irresistible. How I rejoice that Illinois has sent you to the Senate.
John Johnson, Mount Vernon, Illinois, writes:
I wish I could express the pleasure that I and many other of your friends feel when we remember that we have such a man as yourself in Congress, who loves liberty and truth and is not ashamed or afraid to speak. Let me say that I thank the Ruler of the Universe that we have got such a man into the Senate of the United States.... Your influence will tell on the interests of the nation in years to come.
John H. Bryant, Princeton, writes:
The expectations of those who elected Mr. Trumbull to the Senate have been fully met by his course in that body, those of Democratic antecedents being satisfied and the Whigs very happily disappointed. For Mr. Lincoln the people have great respect, and great confidence in his ability and integrity. Still the feeling here is that you have filled the place at this particular time better than he could have done.28
At this time Trumbull received a letter from one of the Ohio River counties which, by reason of the singularity of its contents as well as of the subsequent distinction of the writer, merits preservation:
Green B. Raum, Golconda, Pope Co., Feb. 9, '57, wishes Trumbull to find out why he cannot get his pay for taking depositions at the instance of the Secretary of the Interior in a lawsuit involving the freedom of sixty negroes legally manumitted, but still held in slavery in Crawford County, Arkansas. The witnesses whose depositions were taken were living in Pope Co., Ill. Raum advanced $43.25 for witness fees and costs and was engaged one month in the work, for which he charged $300. This was done in May, 1855, but he had never been paid even the amount that he advanced out of his own pocket.29
In April, 1857, Trumbull received an urgent appeal from Cyrus Aldrich, George A. Nourse, and others in Minnesota asking him to come to that territory and make speeches for one month to help the Republicans carry the convention which had been called to frame a state constitution. He responded to this call and took an active part in the campaign, which resulted favorably to the Republican party.
CHAPTER V
THE LECOMPTON FIGHT
In June, 1856, Lincoln wrote to Trumbull urging him to attend the Republican National Convention which had been called to meet in Philadelphia to nominate candidates for President and Vice-President and suggesting that he labor for the nomination of a conservative man for President. Trumbull went accordingly and coöperated with N. B. Judd, Leonard Swett, William B. Archer, and other delegates from Illinois in the proceedings which led up to the futile nominations of Frémont and Dayton. The only part of these proceedings which interests us now is the fact that Abraham Lincoln, who was not a candidate for any place, received one hundred and ten votes for Vice-President. This result was brought about by Mr. William B. Archer, an Illinois Congressman, who conceived the idea of proposing his name only a short time before the voting began, and secured the coöperation of Mr. Allison, of Pennsylvania, to nominate him. Archer wrote to Lincoln that if this bright idea had occurred to him a little earlier he could have obtained a majority of the convention for him. When the news first reached Lincoln at Urbana, Illinois, where he was attending court, he thought that the one hundred and ten votes were cast for Mr. Lincoln, of Massachusetts.
He wrote to Trumbull on the 27th saying, "It would have been easier for us, I think, had we got McLean" (instead of Frémont), but he was not without high hopes of carrying the state. He was confident of electing Bissell for governor at all events. In August, Lincoln wrote again saying that he had just returned from a speaking tour in Edgar, Coles, and Shelby counties, and that he had found the chief embarrassment in the way of Republican success was the Fillmore ticket. "The great difficulty," he says, "with anti-slavery-extension Fillmore men is that they suppose Fillmore as good as Frémont on that question; and it is a delicate point to argue them out of it, they are so ready to think you are abusing Mr. Fillmore." The Fillmore vote in Illinois was 37,444.
The Republican state ticket, headed by William H. Bissell for governor, was elected, but Buchanan and Breckinridge, the Democratic nominees, received the electoral vote of the state and were successful in the country at large. The defeat of Frémont caused intense disappointment to the Republicans at the time, but it was fortunate for the party and for the country that he was beaten. He was not the man to deal with the grave crisis impending. Disunion was a club already held in reserve to greet any Republican President. Senator Mason, of Virginia, frankly said so to Trumbull in a Senate debate (December 2, 1856), after the election:
Mr. Mason: What I said was this, that if that [Republican] party came into power avowing the purpose that it did avow, it would necessarily result in the dissolution of the Union, whether they desired it or not. It was utterly immaterial who was their President; he might have been a man of straw. I allude to the purposes of the party.
Mr. Trumbull: Why, sir, neither Colonel Frémont nor any other person can be elected President of the United States except in the constitutional mode, and if any individual is elected in the mode prescribed in the Constitution, is that cause for dissolution of the Union? Assuredly not. If it be, the Constitution contains within itself the elements of its own destruction.30
Four years passed ere Mr. Mason's prediction was put to the test, and the intervening time was mainly occupied by a continuation
John H. Bryant, a man of large influence in central Illinois, brother of William Cullen Bryant.
Green B. Raum, Lawyer, Democrat, brigadier-general in the Union army in the Civil War.