CHAPTER V. THE CRISIS
Stephen A. Douglas, called the Little Giant on account of his intellect,was a type of man of which our race has had some notable examples,although they are not characteristic. Capable of sacrifice to theircountry, personal ambition is, nevertheless, the mainspring of theiractions. They must either be before the public, or else unhappy. Thistrait gives them a large theatrical strain, and sometimes brands them asadventurers. Their ability saves them from being demagogues.
In the case of Douglas, he had deliberately renewed some years beforethe agitation on the spread of slavery, by setting forth a doctrine ofextreme cleverness. This doctrine, like many others of its kind, seemedat first sight to be the balm it pretended, instead of an irritant, asit really was. It was calculated to deceive all except thinking men, andto silence all save a merciless logician. And this merciless logician,who was heaven-sent in time of need, was Abraham Lincoln.
Mr. Douglas was a juggler, a political prestidigitateur. He did thingsbefore the eyes of the Senate and the nation. His balm for the healingof the nation's wounds was a patent medicine so cleverly concocted thatexperts alone could show what was in it. So abstruse and twisted weresome of Mr. Douglas's doctrines that a genius alone might put them intosimple words, for the common people.
The great panacea for the slavery trouble put forth by Mr. Douglasat that time was briefly this: that the people of the new territoriesshould decide for themselves, subject to the Constitution, whether theyshould have slavery or not, and also decide for themselves all otherquestions under the Constitution. Unhappily for Mr. Douglas, there wasthe famous Dred Scott decision, which had set the South wild with joythe year before, and had cast a gloom over the North. The Chief Justiceof the United States had declared that under the Constitution slaveswere property,--and as such every American citizen owning slaves couldcarry them about with him wherever he went. Therefore the territoriallegislatures might pass laws until they were dumb, and yet theirsettlers might bring with them all the slaves they pleased.
And yet we must love the Judge. He was a gentleman, a strong man, and apatriot. He was magnanimous, and to his immortal honor be it said thathe, in the end, won the greatest of all struggles. He conquered himself.He put down that mightiest thing that was in him,--his ambition forhimself. And he set up, instead, his ambition for his country. He boreno ill-will toward the man whose fate was so strangely linked to his,and who finally came to that high seat of honor and of martyrdom whichhe coveted. We shall love the Judge, and speak of him with reverence,for that sublime act of kindness before the Capitol in 1861.
Abraham Lincoln might have prayed on that day of the Freeport debate:
"Forgive him, Lord. He knows not what he does." Lincoln descried thedanger afar, and threw his body into the breach.
That which passed before Stephen's eyes, and to which his ears listenedat Freeport, was the Great Republic pressing westward to the Pacific. Hewondered whether some of his Eastern friends who pursed their lips whenthe Wrest was mentioned would have sneered or prayed. A young Englishnobleman who was there that day did not sneer. He was filled insteadwith something like awe at the vigor of this nation which was sprungfrom the loins of his own. Crudeness he saw, vulgarity he heard, butForce he felt, and marvelled.
America was in Freeport that day, the rush of her people and thesurprise of her climate. The rain had ceased, and quickly was come outof the northwest a boisterous wind, chilled by the lakes and scented bythe hemlocks of the Minnesota forests. The sun smiled and frowned Cloudshurried in the sky, mocking the human hubbub below. Cheering thousandspressed about the station as Mr. Lincoln's train arrived. They hemmedhim in his triumphal passage under the great arching trees to the newBrewster House. The Chief Marshal and his aides, great men before,were suddenly immortal. The county delegations fell into their properprecedence like ministers at a state dinner. "We have faith in Abraham,Yet another County for the Rail-sputter, Abe the Giant-killer,"--so thebanners read. Here, much bedecked, was the Galena Lincoln Club, part ofJoe Davies's shipment. Fifes skirled, and drums throbbed, and the starsand stripes snapped in the breeze. And here was a delegation headedby fifty sturdy ladies on horseback, at whom Stephen gaped like acountryman. Then came carryalls of all ages and degrees, wagons fromthis county and that county, giddily draped, drawn by horses from oneto six, or by mules, their inscriptions addressing their senatorialcandidate in all degrees of familiarity, but not contempt. What theyseemed proudest of was that he had been a rail-splitter, for nearly allbore a fence-rail.
But stay, what is this wagon with the high sapling flagstaff in themiddle, and the leaves still on it?
"Westward the Star of Empire takes its way. The girls link on to Lincoln; their mothers were for Clay."
Here was glory to blind you,--two and thirty maids in red sashes andblue liberty caps with white stars. Each was a state of the Union,and every one of them was for Abraham, who called them his "Basket ofFlowers." Behind them, most touching of all, sat a thirty-third shackledin chains. That was Kansas. Alas, the men of Kansas was far from beingas sorrowful as the part demanded,--in spite of her instructions shewould smile at the boys. But the appealing inscription she bore, "Set mefree" was greeted with storms of laughter, the boldest of the young menshouting that she was too beautiful to be free, and some of the oldmen, to their shame be it said likewise shouted. No false embarrassmenttroubled Kansas. She was openly pleased. But the young men who hadbrought their sweethearts to town, and were standing hand in hand withthem, for obvious reasons saw nothing: They scarcely dared to look atKansas, and those who did were so loudly rebuked that they turned downthe side streets.
During this part of the day these loving couples, whose devotion was sopatent to the whole world, were by far the most absorbing to Stephen.He watched them having their fortunes told, the young women blushing andcrying, "Say!" and "Ain't he wicked?" and the young men getting theirears boxed for certain remarks. He watched them standing open-mouthedat the booths and side shows with hands still locked, or again they werechewing cream candy in unison. Or he glanced sidewise at them, seated inthe open places with the world so far below them that even the insistentsound of the fifes and drums rose but faintly to their ears.
And perhaps,--we shall not say positively,--perhaps Mr. Brice's thoughtswent something like this, "O that love were so simple a matter to all!"But graven on his face was what is called the "Boston scorn." And noscorn has been known like unto it since the days of Athens.
So Stephen made the best of his way to the Brewster House, the eleganceand newness of which the citizens of Freeport openly boasted. Mr.Lincoln had preceded him, and was even then listening to a few remarksof burning praise by an honorable gentleman. Mr. Lincoln himself made afew remarks, which seemed so simple and rang so true, and were so freefrom political rococo and decoration generally, that even the youngmen forgot their sweethearts to listen. Then Mr. Lincoln went into thehotel, and the sun slipped under a black cloud.
The lobby was full, and rather dirty, since the supply of spittoons wasso far behind the demand. Like the firmament, it was divided into littlebodies which revolved about larger bodies. But there lacked not heresupporters of the Little Giant, and discreet farmers of influence intheir own counties who waited to hear the afternoon's debate beforedeciding. These and others did not hesitate to tell of the magnificenceof the Little Giant's torchlight procession the previous evening. EveryDred-Scottite had carried a torch, and many transparencies, so thatthe very glory of it had turned night into day. The Chief Lictor haddistributed these torches with an unheard-of liberality. But therelacked not detractors who swore that John Dibble and other Lincolniteshad applied for torches for the mere pleasure of carrying them. Sincedawn the delegations had been heralded from the house-tops, and wageredon while they were yet as worms far out or the prairie. All the morningthese continued to came in, and form in line to march past theirparticular candidate. The second great event of the day was the eventof the special over the Galena roar, of
sixteen cars and more than athousand pairs of sovereign lungs. With military precision they repairedto the Brewster House, and ahead of then a banner was flung: "WinnebagoCounty for the Tall Sucker." And the Tall Sucker was on the steps toreceive them.
But Mr. Douglas, who had arrived the evening before to the boomingof two and thirty guns, had his banners end his bunting, too. Theneighborhood of Freeport was stronghold of Northern Democrats, ardentsupporters of the Little Giant if once they could believe that he didnot intend to betray them.
Stephen felt in his bones the coming of a struggle, and wasthrilled. Once he smiled at the thought that he had become an activepartisan--nay, a worshipper--of the uncouth Lincoln. Terrible suspicionfor a Bostonian,--had he been carried away? Was his hero, after all, ahomespun demagogue? Had he been wise in deciding before he had taughta glimpse of the accomplished Douglas, whose name end fame filled theland? Stephen did not waver in his allegiance. But in his heart therelurked a fear of the sophisticated Judge and Senator and man of theworld whom he had not yet seen. In his notebook he had made a copy ofthe Question, and young Mr. Hill discovered him pondering in a cornerof the lobby at dinnertime. After dinner they went together to theircandidate's room. They found the doors open and the place packed, andthere was Mr. Lincoln's very tall hat towering above those of theother politicians pressed around him. Mr. Lincoln took three strides inStephen's direction and seized him by the shoulder.
"Why, Steve," said he, "I thought you had got away again." Turning to abig burly man with a good-natures face, who was standing by, he added."Jim, I want you to look out for this young man. Get him a seat on thestands where he can hear."
Stephen stuck close to Jim. He never knew what the gentleman's last namewas, or whether he had any. It was but a few minutes' walk to the grovewhere the speaking was to be. And as they made their way thither Mr.Lincoln passed them in a Conestoga wagon drawn by six milk-white horses.Jim informed Stephen that the Little Giant had had a six-horse coach.The grove was black with people. Hovering about the hem of the crowdwere the sunburned young men in their Sunday best, still clinging fastto the hands of the young women. Bands blared "Columbia, Gem of theOcean." Fakirs planted their stands in the way, selling pain-killersand ague cures, watermelons and lemonade, Jugglers juggled, and beggarsbegged. Jim said that there were sixteen thousand people in that grove.And he told the truth.
Stephen now trembled for his champion. He tried to think of himself asfifty years old, with the courage to address sixteen thousand people onsuch a day, and quailed. What a man of affairs it must take to dothat! Sixteen thousand people, into each of whose breasts God had putdifferent emotions and convictions. He had never even imagined such acrowd as this assembles merely to listen to a political debate. But thenhe remembered, as they dodged from in front of the horses, what it wasnot merely a political debate: The pulse of nation was here, a greatnation stricken with approaching fever. It was not now a case of excise,but of existence.
This son of toil who had driven his family thirty miles across theprairie, blanketed his tired horses and slept on the ground the nightbefore, who was willing to stand all through the afternoon and listenwith pathetic eagerness to this debate, must be moved by a patriotismdivine. In the breast of that farmer, in the breast of his tired wifewho held her child by the hand, had been instilled from birth thatsublime fervor which is part of their life who inherit the Declarationof Independence. Instinctively these men who had fought and won the Westhad scented the danger. With the spirit of their ancestors who had lefttheir farms to die on the bridge at Concord, or follow Ethan Allen intoTiconderoga, these had come to Freeport. What were three days of bodilydiscomfort! What even the loss of part of a cherished crop, if thenation's existence were at stake and their votes might save it!
In the midst of that heaving human sea rose the bulwarks of a woodenstand. But how to reach it? Jim was evidently a personage. The roughfarmers commonly squeezed a way for him. And when they did not, he madeit with his big body. As they drew near their haven, a great surging asof a tidal wave swept them off their feet. There was a deafening shout,and the stand rocked on its foundations. Before Stephen could collecthis wits, a fierce battle was raging about him. Abolitionist andDemocrat, Free Soiler and Squatter Sov, defaced one another in a rushfor the platform. The committeemen and reporters on top of it rose toits defence. Well for Stephen that his companion was along. Jim wasrecognized and hauled bodily into the fort, and Stephen after him. Thepopulace were driven off, and when the excitement died down again, hefound himself in the row behind the reporters. Young Mr. Hill pausedwhile sharpening his pencil to wave him a friendly greeting.
Stephen, craning in his seat, caught sight of Mr. Lincoln slouched intoone of his favorite attitudes, his chin resting in his hand.
But who is this, erect, compact, aggressive, searching with a confidenteye the wilderness of upturned faces? A personage, truly, to bequestioned timidly, to be approached advisedly. Here indeed was a lion,by the very look of him, master of himself and of others. By reason ofits regularity and masculine strength, a handsome face. A man of theworld to the cut of the coat across the broad shoulders. Here was oneto lift a youngster into the realm of emulation, like a character in aplay, to arouse dreams of Washington and its senators and great men. Forthis was one to be consulted by the great alone. A figure of dignity andpower, with magnetism to compel moods. Since, when he smiled, you warmedin spite of yourself, and when he frowned the world looked grave.
The inevitable comparison was come, and Stephen's hero was shrunk oncemore. He drew a deep breath, searched for the word, and gulped. Therewas but the one word. How country Abraham Lincoln looked beside StephenArnold Douglas!
Had the Lord ever before made and set over against each other two suchdifferent men? Yes, for such are the ways of the Lord.
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The preliminary speaking was in progress, but Stephen neither heard norsaw until he felt the heavy hand of his companion on his knee.
"There's something mighty strange, like fate, between them two," he wassaying. "I recklect twenty-five years ago when they was first in theLegislatur' together. A man told me that they was both admitted topractice in the S'preme Court in '39, on the same day, sir. Then youknow they was nip an' tuck after the same young lady. Abe got her.They've been in Congress together, the Little Giant in the Senate, andnow, here they be in the greatest set of debates the people of thisstate ever heard; Young man, the hand of fate is in this here, mark mywords--"
There was a hush, and the waves of that vast human sea were stilled. Aman, lean, angular, with coat-tail: flapping-unfolded like a grotesquefigure at a side-show.
No confidence was there. Stooping forward, Abraham Lincoln began tospeak, and Stephen Brice hung his head and shuddered. Could this shrillfalsetto be the same voice to which he had listened only that morning?Could this awkward, yellow man with his hands behind his back be he whomhe had worshipped? Ripples of derisive laughter rose here and there, onthe stand and from the crowd. Thrice distilled was the agony of thosemoments!
But what was this feeling that gradually crept over him? Surprise?Cautiously he raised his eyes. The hands were coming around to thefront. Suddenly one of them was thrown sharply back, with a determinedgesture, the head was raised,--and--and his shame was for gotten. Inits stead wonder was come. But soon he lost even that, for his mind wasgone on a journey. And when again he came to himself and looked uponAbraham Lincoln, this was a man transformed. The voice was no longershrill. Nay, it was now a powerful instrument which played strangely onthose who heard. Now it rose, and again it fell into tones so low as tostart a stir which spread and spread, like a ripple in a pond, until itbroke on the very edge of that vast audience.
"Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution?"
It was out, at last, irrevocably writ in the recording book
of History,for better, for worse. Beyond the reach of politician, committee, orcaucus. But what man amongst those who heard and stirred might say thatthese minutes even now basting into eternity held the Crisis of a nationthat is the hope of the world? Not you, Judge Douglas who sit theresmiling. Consternation is a stranger in your heart,--but answer thequestion if you can. Yes, your nimble wit has helped you out of many atight corner. You do not feel the noose--as yet. You do not guess thatyour reply will make or mar the fortunes of your country. It is notyou who can look ahead two short years and see the ship of Democracysplitting on the rocks at Charleston and at Baltimore, when the power ofyour name might have steered her safely.
But see! what is this man about whom you despise? One by one he istaking the screws out of the engine which you have invented to run yourship. Look, he holds them in his hands without mixing them, and showsthe false construction of its secret parts.
For Abraham Lincoln dealt with abstruse questions in language so limpidthat many a farmer, dulled by toil, heard and understood and marvelled.The simplicity of the Bible dwells in those speeches, and they are nowclassics in our literature. And the wonder in Stephen's mind was thatthis man who could be a buffoon, whose speech was coarse and whoseperson unkempt, could prove himself a tower of morality and truth. Thathas troubled many another, before and since the debate at Freeport.
That short hour came all too quickly to an end. And as the Moderatorgave the signal for Mr. Lincoln, it was Stephen's big companion whosnapped the strain, and voiced the sentiment of those about him.
"By Gosh!" he cried, "he baffles Steve. I didn't think Abe had it inhim."
The Honorable Stephen A. Douglas, however, seemed anything but baffledas he rose to reply. As he waited for the cheers which greeted him todie out, his attitude was easy and indifferent, as a public man's shouldbe. The question seemed not to trouble him in the least. But for StephenBrice the Judge stood there stripped of the glamour that made him, evenas Abraham Lincoln had stripped his doctrine of its paint and colors,and left it punily naked.
Standing up, the very person of the Little Giant was contradictory, aswas the man himself. His height was insignificant. But he had the headand shoulders of a lion, and even the lion's roar. What at contrast thering of his deep bass to the tentative falsetto of Mr. Lincoln'sopening words. If Stephen expected the Judge to tremble, he was greatlydisappointed. Mr. Douglas was far from dismay. As if to show the peoplehow lightly he held his opponent's warnings, he made them gape byputting things down Mr. Lincoln's shirt-front and taking them out of hismouth: But it appeared to Stephen, listening with all his might, thatthe Judge was a trifle more on the defensive than his attitude mightlead one to expect. Was he not among his own Northern Democrats atFreeport? And yet it seemed to give him a keen pleasure to call hishearers "Black Republicans." "Not black," came from the crowd againand again, and once a man: shouted, "Couldn't you modify it and callit brown?" "Not a whit!" cried the Judge, and dubbed them "Yankees,"although himself a Vermonter by birth. He implied that most of theseBlack Republicans desired negro wives.
But quick,--to the Question, How was the Little Giant, artful in debateas he was, to get over that without offence to the great South? Veryskillfully the judge disposed of the first of the interrogations. Andthen, save for the gusts of wind rustling the trees, the grove mighthave been empty of its thousands, such was the silence that fell. Buttighter and tighter they pressed against the stand, until it trembled.
Oh, Judge, the time of all artful men will come at length. How were youto foresee a certain day under the White Dome of the Capitol? Had yoursight been long, you would have paused before your answer. Had yoursight been long, you would have seen this ugly Lincoln bareheaded beforethe Nation, and you are holding his hat. Judge Douglas, this act alonehas redeemed your faults. It has given you a nobility of which we didnot suspect you. At the end God gave you strength to be humble, and soyou left the name of a patriot.
Judge, you thought there was a passage between Scylla and Charybdiswhich your craftiness might overcome.
"It matters not," you cried when you answered the Question, "it mattersnot which way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstractquestion whether slavery may or may not go into a territory underthe Constitution. The people have the lawful means to introduce or toexclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exista day or an hour anywhere unless it is supported by local policeregulations."
Judge Douglas, uneasy will you lie to-night, for you have uttered theFreeport Heresy.
It only remains to be told how Stephen Brice, coming to the BrewsterHouse after the debate, found Mr. Lincoln. On his knee, in transportsof delight, was a small boy, and Mr. Lincoln was serenely playing onthe child's Jew's-harp. Standing beside him was a proud father who haddragged his son across two counties in a farm wagon, and who was toreturn on the morrow to enter this event in the family Bible. In acorner of the room were several impatient gentlemen of influence whowished to talk about the Question.
But when he saw Stephen, Mr. Lincoln looked up with a smile of welcomethat is still, and ever will be, remembered and cherished.
"Tell Judge Whipple that I have attended to that little matter, Steve,"he said.
"Why, Mr. Lincoln," he exclaimed, "you have had no time."
"I have taken the time," Mr. Lincoln replied, "and I think that I amwell repaid. Steve," said he, "unless I'm mightily mistaken, you know alittle more than you did yesterday."
"Yes, sir! I do," said Stephen.
"Come, Steve," said Mr. Lincoln, "be honest. Didn't you feel sorry forme last night?"
Stephen flushed scarlet.
"I never shall again, sir," he said.
The wonderful smile, so ready to come and go, flickered and went out. Inits stead on the strange face was ineffable sadness,--the sadness of theworld's tragedies, of Stephen stoned, of Christ crucified.
"Pray God that you may feel sorry for me again," he said.
Awed, the child on his lap was still. The politician had left the room.Mr. Lincoln had kept Stephen's hand in his own.
"I have hopes of you, Stephen," he said. "Do not forget me."
Stephen Brice never has. Why was it that he walked to the station with aheavy heart? It was a sense of the man he had left, who had been and wasto be. This Lincoln of the black loam, who built his neighbor's cabinand hoed his neighbor's corn, who had been storekeeper and postmasterand flat-boatman. Who had followed a rough judge dealing a rough justicearound a rough circuit; who had rolled a local bully in the dirt;rescued women from insult; tended the bedside of many a sick coward whofeared the Judgment; told coarse stories on barrels by candlelight (butthese are pure beside the vice of great cities); who addressed politicalmobs in the raw, swooping down from the stump and flinging embroilerseast and west. This physician who was one day to tend the sickbed of theNation in her agony; whose large hand was to be on her feeble pulse, andwhose knowledge almost divine was to perform the miracle of her healing.So was it that, the Physician Himself performed His cures, and when workwas done, died a martyr.
Abraham Lincoln died in His name