The Essential Works of Robert G. Ingersoll. Robert Green Ingersoll
the gentleness, of true greatness, and he could not have been a master; he had the manhood and independence of true greatness, and he could not have been a slave. He was just, and was incapable of putting a burden upon others that he himself would not willingly bear.
He was merciful and profound, and it was not necessary for him to read the history of the world to know that liberty and slavery could not live in the same nation, or in the same brain. Lincoln was a statesman.. And there is this difference between a politician and a statesman. A politician schemes and works in every way to make the people do something for him. A statesman wishes to do something for the people. With him place and power are means to an end, and the end is the good of his country.
In this campaign Lincoln demonstrated three things—first, that he was the intellectual superior of his opponent; second, that he was right; and third, that a majority of the voters of Illinois were on his side.
II.
IN 1860 the Republic reached a crisis. The conflict between liberty and slavery could no longer be delayed. For three-quarters of a century the forces had been gathering for the battle.
After the Revolution, principle was sacrificed for the sake of gain. The Constitution contradicted the Declaration. Liberty as a principle was held in contempt. Slavery took possession of the Government. Slavery made the laws, corrupted courts, dominated Presidents and demoralized the people.
I do not hold the South responsible for slavery any more than I do the North. The fact is, that individuals and nations act as they must. There is no chance. Back of every event—of every hope, prejudice, fancy and dream—of every opinion and belief—of every vice and virtue—of every smile and curse, is the efficient cause. The present moment is the child, and the necessary child, of all the past.
Northern politicians wanted office, and so they defended slavery; Northern merchants wanted to sell their goods to the South, and so they were the enemies of freedom. The preacher wished to please the people who paid his salary, and so he denounced the slave for not being satisfied with the position in which the good God had placed him.
The respectable, the rich, the prosperous, the holders of and the seekers for office, held liberty in contempt. They regarded the Constitution as far more sacred than the rights of men. Candidates for the presidency were applauded because they had tried to make slave States of free territory, and the highest court solemnly and ignorantly decided that colored men and women had no rights. Men who insisted that freedom was better than slavery, and that mothers should not be robbed of their babes, were hated, despised and mobbed. Mr. Douglas voiced the feelings of millions when he declared that he did not care whether slavery was voted up or down. Upon this question the people, a majority of them, were almost savages. Honor, manhood, conscience, principle—all sacrificed for the sake of gain or office.
From the heights of philosophy—standing above the contending hosts, above the prejudices, the sentimentalities of the day—Lincoln was great enough and brave enough and wise enough to utter these prophetic words:
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot permanently endure half slave and half free. 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. It will become all the one thing or the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it further until it becomes alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South."
This declaration was the standard around which gathered the grandest political party the world has ever seen, and this declaration made Lincoln the leader of that vast host.
In this, the first great crisis, Lincoln uttered the victorious truth that made him the foremost man in the Republic.
The Republican party nominated him for the presidency and the people decided at the polls that a house divided against itself could not stand, and that slavery had cursed soul and soil enough.
It is not a common thing to elect a really great man to fill the highest official position. I do not say that the great Presidents have been chosen by accident. Probably it would be better to say that they were the favorites of a happy chance.
The average man is afraid of genius. He feels as an awkward man feels in the presence of a sleight-of-hand performer. He admires and suspects. Genius appears to carry too much sail—to lack prudence, has too much courage. The ballast of dullness inspires confidence.
By a happy chance Lincoln was nominated and elected in spite of his fitness—and the patient, gentle, just and loving man was called upon to bear as great a burden as man has ever borne.
III.
THEN came another crisis—the crisis of Secession and Civil war.
Again Lincoln spoke the deepest feeling and the highest thought of the Nation. In his first message he said:
"The central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy."
He also showed conclusively that the North and South, in spite of secession, must remain face to face—that physically they could not separate—that they must have more or less commerce, and that this commerce must be carried on either between the two sections as friends, or as aliens.
This situation and its consequences he pointed out to absolute perfection in these words:
"Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws among friends?"
After having stated fully and fairly the philosophy of the conflict, after having said enough to satisfy any calm and thoughtful mind, he addressed himself to the hearts of America. Probably there are few finer passages in literature than the close of Lincoln's inaugural address:
"I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriotic grave to every loving heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
These noble, these touching, these pathetic words, were delivered in the presence of rebellion, in the midst of spies and conspirators—surrounded by but few friends, most of whom were unknown, and some of whom were wavering in their fidelity—at a time when secession was arrogant and organized, when patriotism was silent, and when, to quote the expressive words of Lincoln himself, "Sinners were calling the righteous to repentance."
When Lincoln became President, he was held in contempt by the South—underrated by the North and East—not appreciated even by his cabinet—and yet he was not only one of the wisest, but one of the shrewdest of mankind. Knowing that he had the right to enforce the laws of the Union in all parts of the United States, and Territories—knowing, as he did, that the secessionists were in the wrong, he also knew that they had sympathizers not only in the North, but in other lands.
Consequently, he felt that it was of the utmost importance that the South should fire the first shot, should do some act that would solidify the North, and gain for us the justification of the civilized world.
He proposed to give food to the soldiers at Sumter. He asked the advice of all his cabinet on this question, and all, with the exception of Montgomery Blair, answered in the negative, giving their reasons in writing. In spite of this, Lincoln took his own course—endeavored to send the supplies, and while thus engaged, doing his simple duty, the South commenced actual hostilities and fired on the fort. The course pursued