LORD'S LECTURES

BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME XII

AMERICAN LEADERS. 

BY JOHN LORD, LL. D. , AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ROMAN WORLD, " "MODERN EUROPE, "ETC. , ETC. 

PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. 

The remarks made in the preface to the volume on "American Founders" areapplicable also to this volume on "American Leaders. " The lecture onDaniel Webster has been taken from its original position in "Warriorsand Statesmen" (a volume the lectures of which are now distributed forthe new edition in more appropriate groupings), and finds its naturalneighborhood in this volume with the paper on Clay and Calhoun. 

Since the intense era of the Civil War has passed away, and Northernersand Southerners are becoming more and more able to take dispassionateviews of the controversies of that time, finding honorable reasons forthe differences of opinion and of resultant conduct on both sides, ithas been thought well to include among "American Leaders" a man whostands before all Americans as the chief embodiment of the "cause" forwhich so many gallant soldiers died--Robert E. Lee. His personalcharacter was so lofty, his military genius so eminent, that North andSouth alike looked up to him while living and mourned him dead. Hiscareer is depicted by one who has given it careful study, and who, himself a wounded veteran officer of the Union army, and regarding theSouthern cause as one well "lost, " as to its chief aims of Secession andprotection to Slavery, in the interest of civilization and of the Southitself, yet holds a high appreciation of the noble man who is its chiefrepresentative. The paper on "Robert E. Lee: The Southern Confederacy, "is from the pen of Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews, Chancellor of the Universityof Nebraska. 

NEW YORK, September, 1902. 

CONTENTS. 

_ANDREW JACKSON_. 

PERSONAL POLITICS. 

Early life of JacksonStudies lawPopularity and personal traitsSent to CongressA judge in TennesseeMajor-general of militiaIndian fighter and duellistThe Creek warTecumsehMassacre at Fort MimsJackson made major-general of the regular armyThe Creek warAt PensacolaAt MobileAt New OrleansThe battle of New OrleansEffect of his successesThe Seminole warJackson as governor of FloridaSenator in CongressPresident James MonroePresident John Quincy AdamsElection of Jackson as presidentJackson's speechesCabinetThe "Kitchen Cabinet"System of appointmentsThe "Spoils System"Hostile giants in the SenateJackson's opposition to tariffsFinancial policyThe democracy hostile to a money powerWar on the United States BankNicholas BiddleIsaac Hill and Secretary InghamOpposition to the re-charter of the bankThe President's vetoRemoval of depositsJackson's high-handed measuresThe mania for speculation"Pet Banks"Commercial distressNullificationSale of public landsJohn C. CalhounThe president's proclamation against the nullifiersCompromise tariffMorgan and anti-masonryPrivate life of JacksonHis public careerEventful administration

_HENRY CLAY_. 

COMPROMISE LEGISLATION. 

Birth and educationStudies lawFavorite in societySettles in Lexington, Ky. Absorbed in politicsMarriage; personal appearanceMember of CongressSpeaker of the HouseAdvocates war with Great BritainHis speechesComparison with WebsterPeace commissioner at GhentReturns to LexingtonRe-elected speakerThe tariff questionThe tariff of 1816The charter of the United States BankBeginning of slavery agitationBeecher in England, on cotton as affecting slaveryThe Missouri questionClay as a pacificatorInternal improvementsGreek struggle for libertyTariff of 1824The "American system"The cotton lordsClay's aspirations for the presidencyHis competitorsClay secretary of state for AdamsJackson's administrationClay as oratorHis hatred of JacksonThe tariff of 1832The compromise tariff of 1833Clay again candidate for the presidencyPolitical disappointmentsBursting of the money bubbleHarrison's administrationRepeal of the Sub-Treasury ActSlavery agitationAnnexation of Texas under PolkClay as pacificator of slavery agitationJohn C. CalhounAnti-slavery leadersPassage of Clay's compromise bill of 1850Fugitive-slave lawClay's declining healthDeathServicesCharacter

_DANIEL WEBSTER_. 

THE AMERICAN UNION. 

General character and position of WebsterBirth and early lifeBegins law-practice; enters CongressHis legal careerHis oratoryCongressional services; financeIndustrial questionsDefender of the ConstitutionReply to Hayne of South CarolinaWebster's ambitionHis political relations to the SouthThe antislavery agitationWebster's 7th of March SpeechHis loyalty to the Constitution and the UnionHis political errorsGreatness and worth of his careerHis deathHis defects of characterHis counterbalancing virtuesPermanence of his ideas and his fame

_JOHN C. CALHOUN_. 

THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 

Rapid Rise of CalhounEducation; lawyer; member of CongressEarly speechesHis enlightened mindSecretary of warCondition of the SouthCalhoun's dislike of JacksonThe tariff questionBears heavily on the SouthCalhoun a defender of Southern interestsNullificationThe tariff of 1832Clay's compromise billJackson's war on the bankCalhoun in the SenateHis detestation of politics as a gameLofty private lifeEarly speechesThe original abolitionistsRadicalismNorthern lecturersCalhoun's foresightCalhoun as logicianSouthern view of slaveryAnti-slavery agitationSlavery in the District of ColumbiaJohn Quincy Adams and anti-slavery petitionsSouthern opposition to themClay on petitionsViolence of the abolitionistsMisery of the slavesAdmission of Michigan and Arkansas into the UnionTriumphs of the SouthGrowth of the abolitionists"Dough-Faces"Texan independenceAnnexation of TexasThe Mexican warThe war of ideasProphetic utterances of CalhounHis obstinacy and arroganceAdmission of California into the UnionClay's concessionsCalhoun dyingCompromise billCalhoun's careerHis want of patriotism in later lifeNullification doctrinesCalhoun contrasted with ClayHis character

_ABRAHAM LINCOLN_. 

CIVIL WAR AND PRESERVATION OF THE UNION. 

Lincoln's parentageRail splitter; country merchantIn the Black Hawk warPostmasterHis aspirations and passion for politicsStump speakerSurveyorElected to the legislatureLincoln as politicianAdmitted to the barElected member of CongressHis marriageLincoln as lawyerOratorOn the slavery questionAnti-slavery agitationThe compromise of 1850Stephen A. DouglasRepeal of the Missouri CompromiseCharles SumnerDred Scott decisionLincoln's antagonism to DouglasHis commitment to anti-slavery causeRise of the Republican partyLincoln's debates with DouglasSpeaks in New YorkLincoln as statesmanNomination for the presidencyHis electionInaugurationLincoln's cabinet; Jefferson DavisFort SumterWarLincoln as presidentBull RunConcentration of troops in WashingtonGeneral McClellanHis dilatory measuresGloomy timesRetirement of McClellanGeneral PopeMcClellan restored, fights the battle of AntietamInaction and final retirement of McClellanBurnside and the battle of FredericksburgLincoln's Emancipation ProclamationGeneral HookerLee's raid in PennsylvaniaGeneral Meade and the battle of GettysburgLincoln overworkedSiege of VicksburgGeneral GrantBattle of ChattanoogaGrant made general-in-chiefMarch of Grant on RichmondMilitary sacrificesSiege of PetersburgSurrender of LeeResults of the warStrained relations between Chase and LincolnChase chief-justiceLincoln's second inauguralHis profound wisdomHis assassinationGreat servicesPosition in history

_ROBERT E. LEE_. 

THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY. 

BY E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS, LL. D. 

Birth, lineage, personal appearance, and early career. 

A Virginian, he joins his State and the South in secession. 

His seven days' fighting against McClellan; forces the latter to raisethe siege of Richmond. 

"Stonewall" Jackson and his efficient fighting machine. 

Wins at Antietam and Fredericksburg. 

Outmanoeuvres Hooker at Chancellorsville. 

Successes at Gettysburg and at the second battle of Bull Run. 

Grant changes the fortune of war for the North. 

Confederate dearth of necessaries and "dear money". 

Lee's retreat and capitulation at Appomattox. 

His personal characteristics. 

Skill shown in his military career. 

His manoeuvring tactics and masterful strategy. 

High name among the great captains of history. 

Gains of his leadership, in spite of "a lost cause". 

Latter days, and presidency of Washington College, Lexington, Va. 

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME XII

Sherman's March to the Sea_After the painting by F. O. C. Darley_. 

James Monroe_After the painting by Gilbert Stuart, City Hall, New York_. 

Andrew Jackson_After a photograph from life_. 

Henry Clay_From a daguerreotype_. 

Martin Van Buren_From a daguerreotype_. 

Daniel Webster_After a drawing from a daguerreotype_. 

John C. Calhoun_From a daguerreotype_. 

James K. Polk_From a daguerreotype_. 

Abraham Lincoln_After an unretouched negative from life, found in 1870_. 

General George B. McClellan_After a photograph from life in the possession of the War Department, Washington, D. C. _

Ulysses S. Grant_After the painting by Chappel_. 

Assassination of President Lincoln_After the drawing by Fr. Roeber_. 

Robert E. Lee_From a photograph_. 

BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY. 

ANDREW JACKSON. 

1767-1845. 

PERSONAL POLITICS. 

It is very seldom that a man arises from an obscure and humble positionto an exalted pre-eminence, without peculiar fitness for the work onwhich his fame rests, and which probably no one else could have done sowell. He may not be learned, or cultured; he may be even unlettered andrough; he may be stained by vulgar defects and vices which are fatal toall dignity of character; but there must be something about him whichcalls out the respect and admiration of those with whom he issurrounded, so as to give him a start, and open a way for success in thebusiness or enterprise where his genius lies. 

Such a man was Andrew Jackson. Whether as a youth, or as a man pursuinghis career of village lawyer in the backwoods of a frontier settlement, he was about the last person of whom one would predict that he shouldarise to a great position and unbounded national popularity. His birthwas plebeian and obscure. His father, of Scotch-Irish descent, lived ina miserable hamlet in North Carolina, near the South Carolina line, without owning a single acre of land, --one of the poorest of the poorwhites. The boy Andrew, born shortly after his father's death in 1767, was reared in poverty and almost without education, learning at schoolonly to "read, write, and cipher;" nor did he have any marked desire forknowledge, and never could spell correctly. At the age of thirteen hewas driven from his native village by its devastation at the hands ofthe English soldiers, during the Revolutionary War. His mother, a worthyand most self-reliant woman, was an ardent patriot, and all herboys--Hugh, Robert, and Andrew--enlisted in the local home-guard. Theelder two died, Hugh of exposure and Robert of prison small-pox, whileAndrew, who had also been captured and sick of the disease, survivedthis early training in the scenes of war for further usefulness. Themother made her way on foot to Charleston, S. C. , to nurse the sickpatriots in the prison-ships, and there died of the prison fever, in1781. The physical endurance and force of character of this motherconstituted evidently the chief legacy that Andrew inherited, and itserved him well through a long and arduous life. 

At fifteen the boy was "a homeless orphan, a sick and sorrowful orphan, "working for a saddler in Charleston a few hours of the day, as hishealth would permit. With returning strength he got possession of ahorse; but his army associates had led him into evil ways, and he becameindebted to his landlord for board. This he managed to pay only bystaking his horse in a game of dice against $200, which he fortunatelywon; and this squared him with the world and enabled him to startafresh, on a better way. 

Poor and obscure as he was, and imperfectly educated, he aspired to be alawyer; and at eighteen years of age he became a law-student in theoffice of Mr. Spruce McCay in Salisbury, North Carolina. Two yearslater, in 1787, he was admitted to the bar. Not making much headway inSalisbury, he wandered to that part of the State which is now Tennessee, then an almost unbroken wilderness, exposed to Indian massacres anddepredations; and finally he located himself at Nashville, where therewas a small settlement, --chiefly of adventurers, who led lives oflicense and idleness. 

It seems that Jackson, who was appointed district-attorney, had aconsiderable practice in his profession of a rough sort, in thatfrontier region where the slightest legal knowledge was sufficient forsuccess. He was in no sense a student, like Jefferson and Madison in theearly part of their careers in Virginia as village lawyers, although hewas engaged in as many cases, and had perhaps as large an income asthey. But what was he doing all this while, when he was not in hislog-office and in the log-court-room, sixteen feet square? Was hepondering the principles or precedents of law, and storing his mind withthe knowledge gained from books? Not at all. He was attendinghorse-races and cock-fightings and all the sports which marked theSouthern people one hundred years ago; and his associates were not themost cultivated and wealthy of them either, but ignorant, rough, drinking, swearing, gambling, fighting rowdies, whose society wasrepulsive to people of taste, intelligence, and virtue. 

The young lawyer became a favorite with these men, and with their wivesand sisters and daughters. He could ride a horse better than any of hisneighbors; he entered into their quarrels with zeal and devotion; he wasbold, rash, and adventurous, ever ready to hunt a hostile Indian, orfight a duel, or defend an innocent man who had suffered injury andinjustice. He showed himself capable of the warmest and most devotedfriendship as well as the bitterest and most unrelenting hatred. He wasquick to join a dangerous enterprise, and ever showing ability to leadit, --the first on the spot to put out a fire; the first to exposehimself in a common danger; commanding respect for his honesty, sincerity, and integrity; exciting fear from his fierce wrath wheninsulted, --a man terribly in earnest; always as courteous and chivalricto women as he was hard and savage to treacherous men. Above all, he wasnow a man of commanding stature, graceful manners, dignified deportment, and a naturally distinguished air; so that he was looked up to by menand admired by women. What did those violent, quarrelsome, adventuroussettlers on the western confines of American civilization care whethertheir favorite was learned or ignorant, so long as he was manifestlysuperior to them in their chosen pursuits and pleasures, was capable ofleading them in any enterprise, and sympathized with them in all theirideas and prejudices, --a born democrat, as well as a born leader. Hisclaim upon them, however, was not without its worthy elements. He wasperfectly fearless in enforcing the law, laughing at intimidation. Heoften had to ride hundreds of miles to professional duties on circuit, through forests infested by Indians, and towns cowed by ruffians; and heand his rifle were held in great respect. He was renowned as theforemost Indian fighter in that country, and as a prosecuting attorneywhom no danger and no temptation could swerve from his duty. He wasfeared, trusted, and boundlessly popular. 

The people therefore rallied about this man. When in 1796 a conventionwas called for framing a State constitution, Jackson was one of theirinfluential delegates; and in December of that year he was sent toCongress as their most popular representative. Of course he was totallyunfitted for legislative business, in which he never could have made anymark. On his return in 1797, a vacancy occurring in the United StatesSenate, he was elected senator, on the strength of his popularity asrepresentative. But he remained only a year at Philadelphia, finding hiscalling dull, and probably conscious that he had no fitness forlegislation, while the opportunity for professional and pecuniarysuccess in Tennessee was very apparent to him. 

Next we read of his being made chief-justice of the Superior Court ofTennessee, with no more fitness for administering the law than he hadfor making it, or interest in it. Mr. Parton tells an anecdote ofJackson at this time which, whether true or not, illustrates hischaracter as well as the rude conditions amid which he made himselffelt. He was holding court in a little village in Tennessee, when agreat, hulking fellow, armed with a pistol and bowie-knife, paradedbefore the little court-house, and cursed judge, jury, and allassembled. Jackson ordered the sheriff to arrest him, but thatfunctionary failed to do it, either alone or with a posse. WhereuponJackson caused the sheriff to summon _him_ as posse, adjourned courtfor ten minutes, walked out and told the fellow to yield or be shot. 

In telling why he surrendered to one man, when he had defied a crowd, the ruffian afterwards said: "When he came up I looked him in the eye, and I saw _shoot_. There wasn't _shoot_ in nary other eye in the crowd. I said to myself, it is about time to sing small; and so I did. "

It was by such bold, fearless conduct that Jackson won admiration, --notby his law, of which he knew but little, and never could have learnedmuch. The law, moreover, was uncongenial to this man of action, and heresigned his judgeship and went for a short time into business, --tradingland, selling horses, groceries, and dry-goods, --when he was appointedmajor-general of militia. This was just what he wanted. He had now foundhis place and was equal to it. His habits, enterprises, dangers, andbloody encounters, all alike fitted him for it. Henceforth his duty andhis pleasure ran together in the same line. His personal peculiaritieshad made him popular; this popularity had made him prominent and securedto him offices for which he had no talent, seeing which he dropped them;but when a situation was offered for which he was fitted, he soon gaineddistinction, and his true career began. 

It was as an Indian fighter that he laid the foundation of his fame. His popularity with rough people was succeeded by a series of heroicactions which brought him before the eyes of the nation. There was nosham in these victories. He fairly earned his laurels, and they sowrought on the imagination of the people that he quickly became famous. 

But before his military exploits brought him a national reputation hehad become notorious in his neighborhood as a duellist. He was alwaysready to fight when he deemed himself insulted. His numerous duels werevery severely commented on when he became a candidate for thepresidency, especially in New England. But duelling was a peculiarSouthern institution; most Southern people settled their difficultieswith pistols. Some of Jackson's duels were desperate and ferocious. Hewas the best shot in Tennessee, and, it is said, could lodge twosuccessive balls in the same hole. As early as 1795 he fought with afellow lawyer by the name of Avery. In 1806 he killed in a duel CharlesDickinson, who had spoken disparagingly of his wife, whom he had latelymarried, a divorced woman, but to whom he was tenderly attached as longas she lived. Still later he fought with Thomas H. Benton, and receiveda wound from which he never fully recovered. 

Such was the life of Jackson until he was forty-five years of age, --thatof a violent, passionate, arbitrary man, beloved as a friend, and fearedas an enemy. It was the Creek war and the war with England whichdeveloped his extraordinary energies. When the war of 1812 broke out hewas major-general of Tennessee militia, and at once offered his servicesto the government, which were eagerly accepted, and he was authorized toraise a body of volunteers in Tennessee and to report with them at NewOrleans. He found no difficulty in collecting about sixteen hundred men, and in January, 1813, took them down the Cumberland, the Ohio, andMississippi to Natchez, in such flat-bottomed boats as he could collect;another body of mounted men crossed the country five hundred miles tothe rendezvous, and went into camp at Natchez, Feb. 15, 1813. 

The Southern Department was under the command of General JamesWilkinson, with headquarters at New Orleans, --a disagreeable andcontentious man, who did not like Jackson. Through his influence theTennessee detachment, after two months' delay in Natchez, was ordered bythe authorities at Washington to be dismissed, --without pay, fivehundred miles from home. Jackson promptly decided not to obey thecommand, but to keep his forces together, provide at his own expense fortheir food and transportation, and take them back to Tennessee in goodorder. He accomplished this, putting sick men on his own three horses, and himself marching on foot with the men, who, enthusiastic over hiselastic toughness, dubbed him "Old Hickory, "--a title of affection thatis familiar to this day. The government afterwards reimbursed him forhis outlay in this matter, but his generosity, self-denial, energy, andmasterly force added immensely to his popularity. 

Jackson's disobedience of orders attracted but little attention atWashington, in that time of greater events, while his own patriotism andfighting zeal were not abated by his failure to get at the enemy. Andvery soon his desires were to be granted. 

In 1811, before the war with England was declared, a generalconfederation of Indians had been made under the influence of thecelebrated Tecumseh, a chief of the Shawanoc tribe. He was a man ofmagnificent figure, stately and noble as a Greek warrior, and withaleloquent. With his twin brother, the Prophet, Tecumseh travelled fromthe Great Lakes in the North to the Gulf of Mexico, inducing tribe aftertribe to unite against the rapacious and advancing whites. But he didnot accomplish much until the war with England broke out in 1812, whenhe saw a possibility of realizing his grand idea; and by the summer of1813 he had the Creek nation, including a number of tribes, organizedfor war. How far he was aided by English intrigues is not fully known, but he doubtless received encouragement from English agents. From theBritish and the Spaniards, the Indians received arms and ammunition. 

The first attack of these Indians was on August 13, 1813, at Fort Mims, in Alabama, where there were nearly two hundred American troops, andwhere five hundred people were collected for safety. The Indians, chiefly Creeks, were led by Red Eagle, who utterly annihilated thedefenders of the fort under Major Beasley, and scalped the women andchildren. When reports of this unexpected and atrocious massacre reachedTennessee the whole population was aroused to vengeance, and GeneralJackson, his arm still in a sling from his duel with Benton, set out topunish the savage foes. But he was impeded by lack of provisions, andquarrels among his subordinates, and general insubordination. Insurmounting his difficulties he showed extraordinary tact and energy. His measures were most vigorous. He did not hesitate to shoot, whetherlegally or illegally, those who were insubordinate, thus restoringmilitary discipline, the first and last necessity in war. Soldiers soonlearn to appreciate the worth of such decision, and follow such a leaderwith determination almost equal to his own. Jackson's troops didsplendid marching and fighting. 

So rapid and relentless were his movements against the enemy that thecampaign lasted but seven months, and the Indians were nearly allkilled or dispersed. I need not enumerate his engagements, which wereregarded as brilliant. His early dangers and adventures, and hisacquaintance with Indian warfare ever since he could handle a rifle, nowstood him in good stead. On the 21st of April, 1814, the militia underhis command returned home victorious, and Jackson for his heroism andability was made a major-general in the regular army, he then beingforty-seven years of age. It was in this war that we first hear of thefamous frontiersman Davy Crockett, and of Sam Houston, afterwards sounique a figure in the war for Texan independence. In this war, too, General Harrison gained his success at Tippecanoe, which was neverforgotten; but his military genius was far inferior to that of Jackson. It is probable that had Jackson been sent to the North by the Secretaryof War, he would have driven the British troops out of Canada. There isno question about his military ability, although his reputation wassullied by high-handed and arbitrary measures. What he saw fit to do, hedid, without scruples or regard to consequences. In war everything istested by success; and in view of that, if sufficiently brilliant, everything else is forgotten. 

The successful and rapid conquest of the Creeks opened the way forJackson's Southern campaign against the English. As major-general he wassent to conclude a treaty with the Indians, which he soon arranged, andwas then put in command of the Southern Division of the army, withheadquarters at Mobile. The English made the neutral Spanish territoryof Florida a basis of operations along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, thus putting in peril both Mobile and New Orleans. They virtuallypossessed Pensacola, the Spanish force being too feeble to hold it, andmade it the rendezvous of their fleets. The Spanish authorities made ashow, indeed, of friendship with the United States, but the English flagfloated over the forts of the city, and the governor was in sympathywith England. Such was the state of affairs when Jackson arrived atMobile at the head of parts of three regiments of regulars, with athousand miles of coast to defend, and without a fort adequately armedor garrisoned. He applied to the Secretary of War for permission to takePensacola; but the government hesitated to attack a friendly powerwithout further knowledge of their unfriendly acts, and the delayedresponse, ordering caution and waiting, did not reach him. Thrown uponhis own resources, asking for orders and getting none, he was obliged toact without instructions, in face of vastly superior forces. And forthis he can scarcely be blamed, since his situation demanded vigorousand rapid measures, before they could be indorsed by the Secretary ofWar. Pensacola, at the end of a beautiful bay, ten miles from the sea, with a fine harbor, was defended by Fort Barrancas, six miles from thetown. Before it lay eight English men-of-war at anchor, the source ofmilitary supplies for the fort, on which floated the flags of bothEngland and Spain. The fleet was in command of Captain Lord Percy, whoseflagship was the "Hermes, " while Colonel Nichols commanded the troops. This latter boastful and imprudent officer was foolish enough to issue aproclamation to the inhabitants of Louisiana and Kentucky to take uparms against their country. A body of Indians were also drilled in theservice of the British, so far as Indians can be drilled toregular warfare. 

As soon as the true intentions of the English were known to GeneralJackson, who had made up his mind to take possession of Pensacola, hewrote to the Spanish governor, --a pompous, inefficient old grandee, --anddemanded the surrender of certain hostile Creek chieftains, who hadtaken refuge in the town. 

The demand was haughtily rejected. Jackson waited until three thousandTennessee militia, for whom he had urgently sent, arrived at Mobile, under the command of General Coffee, one of his efficient coadjutors inthe Creek War, and Colonel Butler, and then promptly and successfullystormed Pensacola, driving out the British, who blew up Fort Barrancasand escaped to their ships. After which he retired to Mobile to defendthat important town against the British forces, who threatenedan attack. 

The city of Mobile could be defended by fortifications on Mobile Point, thirty miles distant, at the mouth of the bay, since opposite it was anarrow channel through which alone vessels of any considerable sizecould enter the bay. At this point was Fort Bowyer, in a state ofdilapidation, mounting but a few pieces of cannon. Into this fortJackson at once threw a garrison of one hundred and sixty regularinfantry under Major Lawrence, a most gallant officer. These troops wereof course unacquainted with the use of artillery, but they put the fortin the best condition they could, and on the 12th of September the enemyappeared, the fleet under Captain Percy, and a body of marines andIndians under Colonel Nichols. Jackson, then at Mobile, apprised of theappearance of the British, hastily reinforced the fort, about to beattacked by a large force confident of success. On the 15th of Septemberthe attack began; the English battered down the ramparts of thefortifications, and anchored their ships within gun-shot of the fort;but so gallant was the defence that the ships were disabled, and theenemy retreated, with a loss of about one hundred men. This victorysaved Mobile; and more, it gave confidence to the small army on whomthe defence of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico depended. 

Jackson forthwith issued his bulletins or proclamations in a trulyNapoleonic style to the inhabitants of Louisiana, to rally to thedefence of New Orleans, which he saw would probably be the next objectof attack on the part of the British. On the 2d of December hepersonally reached that city and made preparations for the expectedassault, and, ably assisted by Edward Livingston, the most prominentlawyer of the city, enlisted for the defence the French creoles, theAmerican residents, and a few Spaniards. 

New Orleans was a prize which the English coveted, and to possess itthat government had willingly expended a million of pounds sterling. Thecity not only controlled the commerce of the Mississippi, but in it werestored one hundred and fifty thousand bales of cotton, and eight hundredand ten thousand hogsheads of sugar, all of which the English governmentexpected to seize. It contained at that time about twenty thousandpeople, --less than half of whom were whites, and these chiefly Frenchcreoles, --besides a floating population of sailors and traders. 

New Orleans is built on a bend in the Mississippi, in the shape of ahorse-shoe, about one hundred miles from where by a sinuoussoutheasterly course the river empties into the Gulf of Mexico. At thecity the river was about a mile wide, with a current of four miles anhour, and back of the town was a swamp, draining to the north into LakePonchartrain, and to the east into Lake Borgne, which opens out into theGulf east of the city. It was difficult for sailing-vessels at that timeto ascend the river one hundred miles against the current, if forts andbatteries were erected on its banks; and a sort of back entrance wasafforded to the city for small vessels through lakes and lagoons at acomparatively short distance. On one of these lakes, Lake Borgne, aflotilla of light gunboats was placed for defence, under the command ofLieutenant Jones, but on December 14th an overpowering force of smallBritish vessels dispersed the American squadron, and on thetwenty-second about fifteen hundred regulars, the picked men of theBritish army, fresh from European victories under Wellington, contrivedto find their way unperceived through the swamps and lagoons to the beltof plantations between the river and the swamps, about nine miles belowNew Orleans. 

When the news arrived of the loss of the gunboats, which made the enemythe masters of Lake Borgne, a panic spread over the city, for the forcesof the enemy were greatly exaggerated. But Jackson was equal to theemergency, though having but just arrived. He coolly adopted the mostvigorous measures, and restored confidence. Times of confusion, difficulty, and danger were always his best opportunities. He proclaimedmartial law; he sent in all directions for reinforcements; he calledupon the people to organize for defence; he released and enlisted theconvicts, and accepted the proffered services of Jean Lafitte, theex-"pirate"--or, rather, smuggler--of the Gulf, with two companies ofhis ex-buccaneers; he appealed to "the noble-hearted, generous, free menof color" to enlist, and the whole town was instantly transformed into amilitary camp. Within a fortnight he had five thousand men, one-fifthregulars and the rest militia. General Jackson's address to his soldierswas spirited but inflated, encouraging and boastful, with a greatpatriotic ring, and, of course effective. The population of the city wasunited in resolving to make a sturdy defence. 

Had the British marched as soon as they landed, they probably would havetaken the city, in the existing consternation. But they waited forlarger forces from their ships, which carried six thousand troops, andin their turn exaggerated the number of the defenders, which at thefirst were only about two thousand badly frightened men. The delay was agodsend to the Americans, who now learned the strength of the enemy. 

On the 23d--as always, eager to be at his enemy, and moving with hischaracteristic energy--Jackson sent a small force down to make a nightattack on the British camp; also a schooner, heavily armed with cannon, to co-operate from the river. It was a wild and inconsequent fight; butit checked the advance of the British, who now were still more impressedwith the need of reinforcements; it aroused the confidence and fightingspirit of the Americans, and it enabled Jackson to take up a defensiveline behind an old canal, extending across the plain from river toswamp, and gave him time to fortify it. At once he raised a formidablebarricade of mud and timber, and strengthened it with cotton-bales fromthe neighboring plantations. The cotton, however, proved rather anuisance than a help, as it took fire under the attack, and smoked, annoying the men. The "fortifications of cotton-bales" were only aromance of the war. 

On the 25th arrived Sir Edward Pakenham, brother-in-law of Wellingtonand an able soldier, to take command, and on the 28th the Britishattacked the extemporized but strong breastworks, confident of success. But the sharp-shooters from the backwoods of Tennessee under Carroll, and from Kentucky under Coffee, who fought with every advantage, protected by their mud defences, were equally confident. The slaughterof the British troops, utterly unprotected though brave and gallant, wasterrible, and they were repulsed. Preparations were now made for astill more vigorous, systematic, and general assault, and a force wassent across the river to menace the city from that side. 

On the 8th of January the decisive battle was fought which extinguishedforever all dreams of the conquest of America, on the part of theBritish. General Pakenham, who commanded the advancing columns inperson, was killed, and their authorities state their loss to have beentwo thousand killed, wounded, and missing. The American loss was eightkilled and thirteen wounded. It was a rash presumption for the Britishto attack a fortified entrenchment ten feet high in some places, and tenfeet thick, with detached redoubts to flank it and three thousand menbehind it. The conflict was not strictly a battle, --not like anencounter in the open field, where the raw troops under Jackson, most ofthem militia, would have stood no chance with the veterans whomWellington had led to victory and glory. 

Jackson's brilliant defence at New Orleans was admirably planned andenergetically executed. It had no effect on the war, for the treaty ofpeace, although not yet heard of, had been signed weeks before; but itenabled America to close the conflict with a splendid success, whichoffset the disasters and mistakes of the Northern campaigns. Naturally, it was magnified into a great military exploit, and raised the fame ofJackson to such a height, all over the country, that nothing could everafterwards weaken his popularity, no matter what he did, lawful orunlawful. He was a victor over the Indians and over the English, and allhis arbitrary acts were condoned by an admiring people who had but fewmilitary heroes to boast of. 

His successes had a bad effect on Jackson himself. He came to feel thathe had a right to ride over precedents and law when it seemed to himexpedient. He set up his will against constituted authorities, andeverybody who did not endorse his measures he regarded as a personalenemy, to be crushed if possible. It was never said of him that he wasunpatriotic in his intentions, only that he was wilful, vindictive, andignorant. From the 8th of January, 1815, to the day of his death he wasthe most popular man that this country ever saw, --excepting, perhaps, Washington and Lincoln, --the central figure in American politics, withprodigious influence even after he had finally retired from public life. Immediately after the defence of New Orleans the legislatures ofdifferent States, and Congress itself, passed grateful resolutions forhis military services, and the nation heaped all the honor on the herothat was in its power to give, --medals, swords, and rewards, andCongress remitted a fine which had been imposed by Judge Hall, in NewOrleans, for contempt of court. Jackson's severity in executing sixmilitia-men for mutiny was approved generally as a wholesome exercise ofmilitary discipline, and all his acts were glorified. Wherever he wentthere was a round of festivities. He began to be talked about, as soonas the war was closed, as a candidate for the presidency, although whenthe idea was first proposed to him he repelled it with genuineindignation. 

Scarcely had the British troops been withdrawn from the Gulf of Mexicoto fight more successfully at Waterloo, when Jackson was called to putan end to the Seminole war in Florida, which Spanish territory heoccupied on the ground of self-defence. The Indians--Seminoles andCreeks--with many runaway negroes, had been pillaging the border ofGeorgia. Jackson drove them off, seized the Spanish fort on AppalacheeBay, and again took possession of Pensacola on the plea that the Spanishofficials were aiding the Indians. It required all the skill of thegovernment at Washington to defend his despotic acts, for he was ascomplete an autocrat in his limited sphere as Caesar or Napoleon. Theonly limits he regarded were the limits to his power. But in whatever hedid, he had a firm conviction that he was right. Even John Quincy Adamsjustified his acts in Florida, when his enemies were loud in theircomplaints of his needless executions, especially of two Britishtraders, Arbuthnot and Ambruter, whom he had court-martialled and shotas abettors of the Indians. He had invaded the territory of a neutralpower and driven off its representatives; but everything was condoned. And when, shortly after, Florida became United States territory bypurchase from Spain, he was made its first governor, --a new field forhim, but an appointment which President Monroe felt it necessaryto make. 

In April, 1821, having resigned his commission in the army, Jackson leftNashville with his family to take up his residence in Pensacola, enchanted with its climate and fruits and flowers, its refreshingsea-breezes, and its beautiful situation, in spite of hot weather. Asgovernor of Florida he was invested with extraordinary powers. Indeed, there was scarcely any limit to them, except that he had no power tolevy and collect taxes, and seize the property of the mixed races whodwelt in the land of oranges and flowers. It would appear that, asidefrom arbitrary acts, he did all he could for the good of the territory, under the influence of his wife, a Christian woman, whom he indulged inall things, especially in shutting up grog-shops, putting a stop toplay-going, and securing an outward respect for the Sabbath. His term ofoffice, however, was brief, and as his health was poor, for he was nevervigorous, in November of the same year he gladly returned to Nashville, and about this time built his well-known residence, the "Hermitage. " Asa farmer he was unusually successful, making agriculture lucrative evenwith slave-labor. 

Jackson had now become a prominent candidate for the presidency, and asa part of the political plan, he was, in 1823, made senator fromTennessee in Congress, where he served parts of two terms, without, however, distinguishing himself as a legislator. He made but fewspeeches, and these were short, but cast his vote on occasions ofimportance, voting against a reduction of duty on iron and woollen andcotton goods, against imprisonment for debt, and favoring some internalimprovements. In 1824 he wrote a letter advocating a "careful tariff, "so far as it should afford revenues for the national defence, and to payoff the national debt, and "give a proper distribution of our labor;"but a tariff to enrich capitalists at the expense of the laboringclasses, he always abhorred. 

The administration of James Monroe, in two full terms, from 1817 to1825, had not been marked by any great events or popular movements ofespecial historical interest. It was "the era of good feeling. " Thetimes were placid, and party animosities had nearly subsided. Theopening of the slavery discussions resulted in the Missouri Compromiseof 1820, and the irritations of that great topic were allayed for thetime. Like all his predecessors after Washington, Monroe had beensuccessively a diplomatist and Secretary of State, and the presidencyseemed to fall to him as a matter of course. He was a most respectableman, although not of commanding abilities, and discharged his dutiescreditably in the absence of exciting questions. The only event of hisadministration which had a marked influence on the destinies of theUnited States was the announcement that the future colonization of thecountry by any European State would not be permitted. This is called the"Monroe doctrine, " and had the warm support of Webster and other leadingstatesmen. It not only proclaimed the idea of complete Americanindependence of all foreign powers, but opposed all interference ofEuropean States in American affairs. The ultimate influence of theapplication of this doctrine cannot be exaggerated in importance, whether it originated with the President or not. Monroe was educated forthe bar, but was neither a good speaker nor a ready writer. Nor was he aman of extensive culture or attainments. The one great idea attributedto him was: "America for the Americans. " He was succeeded, however, by aman of fine attainments and large experience, who had passed through thegreat offices of State with distinguished credit. 

In February, 1824, Jackson was almost unanimously nominated for thepresidency by the Democratic party, through the convention inHarrisburg, and John C. Calhoun was nominated for the vice-presidency. Jackson's main rivals in the election which followed were John QuincyAdams and Henry Clay, both of whom had rendered great civil services, and were better fitted for the post. But Jackson was the most popular, and he obtained ninety-nine electoral votes, Adams eighty-four, and Claythirty-seven. No one having a majority, the election was thrown into theHouse of Representatives. Clay, who never liked nor trusted Jackson, threw his influence in favor of Adams, and Adams was elected by the voteof thirteen States. Jackson and his friends always maintained that hewas cheated out of the election, --that Adams and Clay made a bargainbetween themselves, --which seemed to be confirmed by the fact that Claywas made Secretary of State in Adams's cabinet; although this was anatural enough sequence of Clay's throwing his political strength tomake Adams president. Jackson returned, wrathful and disappointed, tohis farm, but amid boisterous demonstrations of respect wherever hewent. If he had not cared much about the presidency before, he was nowdetermined to achieve it, and to crush his opponents, whom he promptlyregarded as enemies. 

John Quincy Adams entered upon office in 1825, free from "personalobligations" and "partisan entanglements, " but with an unfriendlyCongress. This, however, was not of much consequence, since no greatsubjects were before Congress for discussion. It was a period of greattranquillity, fitted for the development of the peaceful arts, and ofinternal improvements in the land, rather than of genius in thepresidential chair. Not one public event of great importance occurred, although many commercial treaties were signed, and some internalimprovements were made. Mr. Adams lived in friendly relations with hiscabinet, composed of able men, and he was generally respected for thesimplicity of his life, and the conscientious discharge of his routineduties. He was industrious and painstaking, rising early in the morningand retiring early in the evening. He was not popular, being cold andaustere in manner, but he had a lofty self-respect, disdaining toconciliate foes or reward friends, --a New England Puritan of theseverest type, sternly incorruptible, learned without genius, eloquentwithout rhetoric, experienced without wisdom, religious withoutorthodoxy, and liberal-minded with strong prejudices. 

Perhaps the most marked thing in the political history of thatadministration was the strife for the next presidency, and the beginningof that angry and bitter conflict between politicians which had nocessation until the Civil War. The sessions of Congress were occupiedin the manufacture of political capital; for a cloud had arisen in thepolitical heavens, portending storms and animosities, and the discussionof important subjects of national scope, such as had not agitated thecountry before, --pertaining to finances, to tariffs, to constitutionallimitations, to retrenchments, and innovations. There arose newpolitical parties, or rather a great movement, extending to every townand hamlet, to give a new impetus to the Democratic sway. The leaders inthis movement were the great antagonists of Clay and Webster, --a newclass of politicians, like Benton, Amos Kendall, Martin Van Buren, DuffGreen, W. B. Lewis, and others. A new era of "politics" was inaugurated, with all the then novel but now customary machinery of local clubs, partisan "campaign newspapers, " and the organized use of pledges andpromises of appointments to office to reward "workers. " This system hadbeen efficiently perfected in New York State under Mr. Van Buren andother leaders, but now it was brought into Federal politics, and thewhole country was stirred into a fever heat of party strife. 

In a political storm, therefore, Jackson was elected, and commenced hismemorable reign in 1829, --John Quincy Adams retiring to his farm indisgust and wrath. The new president was carried into office on anavalanche of Democratic voters, receiving two hundred and sixty-oneelectoral votes, while Adams had only eighty-three, notwithstanding hislong public services and his acknowledged worth. This was too great adisappointment for the retiring statesman to bear complacently, or evenphilosophically. He gave vent to his irritated feelings in unbecominglanguage, exaggerating the ignorance of Jackson and his generalunfitness for the high office, --in this, however, betraying an estimateof the incoming President which was common among educated andconservative men. I well remember at college the contempt which thepresident and all the professors had for the Western warrior. It wasgenerally believed by literary men that "Old Hickory" could scarcelywrite his name. 

But the speeches of Jackson were always to the point, if not studied andelaborate, while his messages were certainly respectable, though rathertoo long. It is generally supposed that he furnished the rough drafts tohis few intimate friends, who recast and polished them, while some thinkthat William Lewis, Amos Kendall, and others wrote the whole of them, aswell as all his public papers. In reading the early letters of Jackson, however, it is clear that they are anything but illiterate, whatevermistakes in spelling and grammatical errors there may be. His ideas weredistinct, his sentiments unmistakable; and although he was fond of akind of spread-eagle eloquence, his views on public questions weregenerally just and vigorously expressed. A Tennessee general, brought upwith horse-jockeys, gamblers, and cock-fighters, and who never had evena fair common-school education, could not be expected to be veryaccomplished in the arts of composition, whatever talents and good sensehe naturally may have had. Certain it is that Jackson's mind was clearand his convictions were strong upon the national policy to be pursuedby him; and if he opposed banks and tariffs it was because he believedthat their influence was hostile to the true interests of the country. He doubtless well understood the issues of great public questions; only, his view of them was contrary to the views of moneyed men and bankersand the educated classes of his day generally. It is to be remarked, however, that the views he took on questions of political economy arenow endorsed by many able college professors and some Americanmanufacturers who are leading public opinion in opposition to tariffsfor protection and in the direction of free trade. 

The first thing for Jackson to do after his inauguration was to selecthis cabinet. It was not a strong one. He wanted clerks, not advisers. Hewas all-sufficient to himself. He rarely held a cabinet meeting. In avery short time this cabinet was dissolved by a scandal. General Eaton, Secretary of War, had married the daughter of a tavern-keeper, who wasremarkable for her wit and social brilliancy. The aristocratic wives ofthe cabinet ministers would not associate with her, and the Presidenttook the side of the neglected woman, in accordance with his chivalricnature. His error was in attempting to force his cabinet to accord toher a social position, --a matter which naturally belonged to women tosettle. So bitter was the quarrel, and so persistent was the Presidentin attempting to produce harmony in his cabinet on a mere socialquestion that the ministers resigned rather than fight so obstinate andirascible a man as Jackson in a matter which was outside his propersphere of action. 

The new cabinet was both more able and more subservient. EdwardLivingston of Louisiana, who wrote most of Jackson's documents when hecommanded in New Orleans, was made Secretary of State, Louis McLane ofDelaware, Secretary of the Treasury; Lewis Cass, governor fornineteen years of Michigan, Secretary of War; Levi Woodbury of NewHampshire, Secretary of the Navy; Roger B. Taney of Maryland, Attorney-General, --all distinguished for abilities. But even these ablemen were seldom summoned to a cabinet meeting. The confidential advisersof the President were Amos Kendall, afterwards Postmaster-General; DuffGreen, a Democratic editor; Isaac Hill, a violent partisan, who edited apaper in Concord, New Hampshire, and was made second auditor of thetreasury; and William B. Lewis, an old friend of the general inTennessee, --all able men, but unscrupulous politicians, who enjoyedpower rather than the display of it. These advisers became known in theparty contests of the time as the president's "Kitchen Cabinet. "

Jackson had not been long inaugurated before the influence of the"Kitchen Cabinet" was seen and felt; for it was probably through theinfluence of these men that the President brought about a marked changein the policy of the government; and it is this change which madeJackson's administration so memorable. It was the intrusion ofpersonality, instead of public policy, into the management of partypolitics. Madison did not depart from the general policy of Jefferson, nor did Monroe. "The Virginia dynasty" kept up the traditions of thegovernment as originally constituted. But Jackson cut loose from alltraditions and precedents, especially in the matter of assumingresponsibilities, and attempted to carry on the government independentlyof Congress in many important respects. It is the duty of the Presidentto execute the laws as he finds them, until repealed or altered by thenational Legislature; but it was the disposition of Jackson todisregard those laws which he disapproved, --an encroachment hard to bedistinguished from usurpation. And this is the most serious chargeagainst him as President; not his ignorance, but his despotic temper, and his self-conceit in supposing himself wiser than the collectedwisdom and experience of the representatives of the nation, --a notionwhich neither Washington nor Jefferson nor Madison ever entertained. 

Again, Jackson's system of appointments to office--the removal of menalready satisfactorily doing the work of the government, in order tomake places for his personal and political supporters--was a greatinnovation, against all the experience of governments, whether despoticor constitutional. It led to the reign of demagogues, and gave rewards, not to those who deserved promotion from their able and conscientiousdischarge of duty in public trusts, but to those who most unscrupulouslyand zealously advocated or advanced the interests of the party in power. It led to perpetual rotations in office without reasonable cause, andmade the election of party chiefs of more importance than the support ofright principles. The imperfect civil service reforms which have beensecured during the last few years with so much difficulty show thepolitical mischief for which Jackson is responsible, and which hasdisgraced every succeeding administration, --an evil so gigantic that nopresident has been strong enough to overcome it; not only injurious tothe welfare of the nation by depriving it of the services of experiencedmen, but inflicting an onerous load on the President himself which hefinds it impossible to shake off, --the great obstacle to the properdischarge of his own public duties, and the bar to all privateenjoyment. What is more perplexing and irritating to an incomingpresident than the persistent and unreasonable demands ofoffice-seekers, nine out of ten of whom are doomed to disappointment, and who consequently become enemies rather than friends of theadministration?

This "spoils system" which Jackson inaugurated has proved fatal to alldignity of office, and all honesty in elections. It has divestedpolitics of all attraction to superior men, and put government largelyinto the hands of the most venal and unblushing of demagogues. It hasproved as great and fatal a mistake as has the establishment ofuniversal suffrage which Jefferson encouraged, --a mistake at least inthe great cities of the country, --an evil which can never be remediedexcept by revolution. Doubtless it was a generous impulse on the part ofJackson to reward his friends with the spoils of office, as it was alogical sequence of the doctrine of political equality to give every mana vote, whether virtuous or wicked, intelligent or ignorant. UntilJackson was intrusted with the reins of government, no president of theUnited States, however inclined to reward political friends, dared toestablish such a principle as rotation in office or removal withoutsufficient cause. Not one there was who would not have shrunk from sucha dangerous precedent, a policy certain to produce an inferior class ofpublic servants, and take away from political life all that is lofty andennobling, except in positions entirely independent of presidentialcontrol, such as the national legislature. 

The Senate, especially during Jackson's administration, was composed ofremarkably gifted men, the most distinguished of whom opposed anddetested the measures and policy he pursued, with such unbendingobstinacy that he was filled with bitterness and wrath. This feeling wasespecially manifested towards Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, the greatlights of the Senate Chamber, --although Jackson's party had the majorityof both Houses much of the time, and thus, while often hindered, he wasin the end unchecked in his innovations and hostilities. But these threegiants he had to fight during most of his presidential career, whichkept him in a state of perpetual irritation. Their opposition was to hima bitter pill. They were beyond his power, as independent as he. Untilthen, in his military and gubernatorial capacity, his will had beensupreme. He had no opponents whom he could not crush. He was accustomedto rule despotically. As president he could be defied and restrained byCongress. His measures had to be of the nature of recommendation, exceptin the power of veto which he did not hesitate to use unsparingly; butthe Senate could refuse to ratify his appointments, and often didrefuse, which drove him beyond the verge of swearing. Again, in thegreat questions which came up for discussion, especially those in thedomain of political economy, there would be honest differences ofopinion; for political economy has settled very little, and is not, therefore, strictly a science, any more than medicine is. It is a systemof theories based on imperfect inductions. There can be no scienceexcept what is based on _indisputable_ facts, or accepted principles. There are no incontrovertible doctrines pertaining to tariffs orfinancial operations, which are modified by circumstances. 

The three great things which most signally marked the administration ofJackson were the debates on the tariffs, the quarrel with the UnitedStates Bank, and the Nullification theories of Calhoun. It would seemthat Jackson, when inaugurated, was in favor of a moderate tariff to aidmilitary operations and to raise the necessary revenue for federalexpenses, but was opposed to high protective duties. Even in 1831 hewaived many of his scruples as to internal improvements in deference topublic opinion, and signed the bills which made appropriations for theimprovement of harbors and rivers, for the continuation of theCumberland road, for the encouragement of the culture of the vine andolive, and for granting an extended copyright to authors. It was onlyduring his second term that his hostility to tariffs became apassion, --not from any well-defined views of political economy, forwhich he had no adequate intellectual training, but because "protection"was unpopular in the southwestern States, and because he instinctivelyfelt that it favored monopolists at the expense of the people. What hehated most intensely were capitalists and moneyed institutions; likeJefferson, he feared their influence on elections. As he was probablyconscious of his inability to grasp the complex questions of politicaleconomy, he was not bitter in his opposition to tariffs, except onpolitical grounds. Hence, generally speaking, he left Congress todiscuss that theme. We shall have occasion to look into it in thelecture on Henry Clay, and here only mention the great debates ofJackson's time on the subject, --a subject on which Congress has beendebating for fifty years, and will probably be debating for fifty yearsto come, since the whole matter depends practically on changingcircumstances, whatever may be the abstract theories of doctrinaires. 

While Jackson, then, on the whole, left tariffs to Congress, he was notso discreet in matters of finance. His war with the United States Bankwas an important episode in his life, and the chief cause of the enmitywith which the moneyed and conservative classes pursued him to the endof his days. Had he let the Bank alone he would have been freed frommost of the vexations and turmoils which marked his administration. Hewould have left a brighter name. He would not have given occasion forthose assaults which met him on every hand, and which history justifies. He might even have been forgiven for his spoils system and unprecedentedremovals from office. In attacking the Bank he laid a profane touch upona sacred ark and handled untempered mortar. He stopped the balance-wheelwhich regulated the finances of the country, and introduced no end ofcommercial disorders, ending in dire disasters. Like the tariff, finances were a question with which he was not competent to deal. Hisfault was something more than the veto on the recharter of the Bank byCongress, which he had a constitutional right to make; it was avindictive assault on an important institution before its charter hadexpired, even in his first message to Congress. In this warfare we seeunscrupulous violence, --prompted, not alone by his firm hostility toeverything which looked like a monopoly and a moneyed power, but by theinfluence of advisers who hated everything like inequality of position, especially when not usable for their own purposes. They stimulated hisjealousy and resentments. They played on his passions and prejudices. They flattered him as if he were the monarch of the universe, incapableof a wrong judgment. 

Hostility to the money-power, however, is older than the public life ofJackson. It existed among the American democracy as early as the time ofAlexander Hamilton. When he founded the first Bank of the United Stateshe met with great opposition from the followers of Jefferson, who werejealous of the power it was supposed to wield in politics. When in 1810the question came up of renewing the charter of the first United StatesBank, the Democratic-Republicans were bitter in their opposition; and soeffective was the outcry that the bank went into liquidation, its placebeing taken by local banks. These issued notes so extravagantly that thecurrency of the country, as stated by Professor Sumner, was depreciatedtwenty-five per cent. So great was the universal financial distresswhich followed the unsound system of banking operations that in 1816 anew bank was chartered, on the principles which Hamilton had laid down. 

This Bank was to run for twenty years, and its capital was thirty-fivemillions of dollars, seven of which were taken by the United States;many of its stockholders were widows, charitable institutions, andpeople of small means. Its directors were chosen by the stockholderswith the exception of five appointed by the President of the UnitedStates and confirmed by the Senate. The public money was deposited inthis Bank; it could be removed by the Secretary of the Treasury, but byhim only on giving his reasons to Congress. The Bank was located inPhiladelphia, then the money-centre of the country, but it hadtwenty-five branches in different cities, from Portsmouth, N. H. , to NewOrleans. The main institution could issue notes, not under five dollars, but the branches could not. Langdon Cleves, of South Carolina, was thefirst president, succeeded in 1823 by Nicholas Biddle, ofPhiladelphia, --a man of society, of culture, and of leisure, --a youngman of thirty-seven, who could talk and write, perhaps, better than hecould manage a great business. 

The affairs of the Bank went on smoothly for ten or twelve years, andthe financial condition of the country was never better than whencontrolled by this great central institution. Nicholas Biddle of coursewas magnified into a great financier of uncommon genius, --the firstbusiness man in the whole country, a great financial autocrat, the idolof Philadelphia. But he was hated by Democratic politicians as a manwho was intrusted with too much power, which might be perverted topolitical purposes, and which they asserted was used to help hisaristocratic friends in difficulty. Moreover, they looked with envy onthe many positions its offices afforded, which, as it was a "governmentinstitution, " they thought should be controlled by the governing party. 

Among Biddle's especial enemies were the members of the "KitchenCabinet, " who with sycophantic adroitness used Jackson as a tool. 

Isaac Hill, of New Hampshire, was one of the most envenomed of thesepoliticians, who hated not only Biddle but those who adhered to the oldFederalist party, and rich men generally. He had sufficient plausibilityand influence to enlist Levi Woodbury, Senator from New Hampshire, toforward his schemes. 

In consequence, Woodbury, on June 27, 1829, wrote to Ingham, Secretaryof the Treasury, making complaints against the president of the branchbank in Portsmouth for roughness of manner, partiality in loans, andseverity in collections. The accused official was no less a man thanJeremiah Mason, probably the greatest lawyer in New England, if not ofthe whole country, the peer as well as the friend of Webster. Inghamsent Woodbury's letter to Biddle, intimating that it was politicalpartiality that was complained of. Then ensued a correspondence betweenBiddle and Ingham, --the former defending Mason and claiming completeindependence for the Bank as to its management, so long as it could notbe shown to be involved in political movements; and the latter accusing, threatening to remove deposits, attempting to take away the pensionagency from the Portsmouth branch, _et cetera_. It was a stormy summerfor the Bank. 

Thus things stood until November, when a letter appeared in the New York"Courier and Inquirer, " stating that President Jackson, in hisforthcoming first annual message to Congress, would come out stronglyagainst the Bank itself. And sure enough, the President, in his message, astonished the whole country by a paragraph attacking the Bank, andopposing its recharter. The part of the message about the Bank wasreferred to both Houses of Congress. The committees reported in favor ofthe Bank, as nothing could be said against its management. Again, in themessage of the President in 1830, he attacked the Bank, and Benton, oneof the chief supporters of Jackson in spite of their early duel, declared in the Senate that the charter of the Bank ought not to berenewed. Here the matter dropped for a while, as Jackson and his friendswere engrossed in electioneering schemes for the next presidentialcontest, and the troubles of the cabinet on account of the Eaton scandalhad to be attended to. As already noted, they ended in its dissolution, followed by a new and stronger cabinet, in which Ingham was succeeded asSecretary of the Treasury by Louis McLane. 

It was not till 1832, --the great session of Jackson'sadministrations, --that the contest was taken up again. The Bank aimed tohave its charter renewed, although that would not expire for five yearsyet; and as the Senate was partly hostile to the President, it seemed apropitious time for the effort. Jackson, on the other hand, fearing thatthe Bank would succeed in getting its charter renewed with a friendlyCongress, redoubled his energies to defeat it. The more hostile thePresident showed himself, the more eager were the friends of the Bankfor immediate action. It was, with them, now or never. If the matterwere delayed, and Jackson were re-elected, it would be impossible tosecure a renewal of the charter, while it was hoped that Jackson wouldnot dare to veto the charter on the eve of a presidential election, andthus lose, perhaps, the vote of the great State of Pennsylvania. So itwas resolved by the friends of the Bank to press the measure. 

Five months were consumed in the discussion of this important matter, inwhich the leading members of the Senate, except Benton, supported theBank. The bill to renew the charter passed the Senate on the 11th ofJune, by a vote of twenty-eight to twenty, and the House on the 3d ofJuly by a majority of thirty-three. It was immediately vetoed by thePresident, on the ground that the Bank was an odious monopoly, withnearly a third of its stock held by foreigners, and not only odious, butdangerous as a money-power to bribe Congress and influence elections. The message accompanying the veto was able, and was supposed to bewritten by Edward Livingston or Amos Kendall. Biddle remained calm andconfident. Like Clay, he never dreamed that Jackson would dare topersist in a hostility against the enlightened public sentiment of thecountry. But Jackson was the idol of the Democracy, who would supportall his measures and condone all his faults, and the Democracyruled, --as it always will rule, except in great public dangers, whenpower naturally falls into the hands of men of genius, honesty, andexperience, almost independently of their political associations. 

The veto aroused a thunder of debate, Webster and Clay leading theassault upon it, and Benton, with other Jacksonians, defending it. Theattempt to pass the re-charter bill over the veto failed of thenecessary two-thirds majority, and the President was triumphant. 

Jackson had no idea of yielding his opinions or his will to anybody, least of all to his political enemies. The war with the Bank must go on;but its charter had three or four years still to run. All he could dolegally was to cripple it by removing the deposits. His animosity, inflamed by the denunciations of Benton, Kendall, Blair, Hill, andothers, became ungovernable. 

McLane was now succeeded in the Treasury department by Mr. Duane ofPhiladelphia, the firmest and most incorruptible of men, for whom thePresident felt the greatest respect, but whom he expected to bend to hispurposes as he had Ingham. Only the Secretary of the Treasury couldremove the deposits, and this Mr. Duane unexpectedly but persistentlyrefused to do. Jackson brought to bear upon him all his powers ofpersuasion and friendship; Duane still stood firm. Then the Presidentresorted to threats, all to no purpose; at length Duane was dismissedfrom his office, and Roger B. Taney became Secretary of the Treasury, 23d of September, 1833. Three days afterwards, Taney directed collectorsto deposit the public money in certain banks which he designated. Itseems singular that the man who two years later was appointed ChiefJustice of the Supreme Court, and who discharged the duties of thatoffice so ably and uprightly, should so readily have complied with thePresident's desire; but this must be accounted for by the facts that inregard to the Bank Taney's views were in harmony with those of Jackson, and that the removal of the deposits, however arbitrary, was notunconstitutional. 

The removal of more than nine millions from the Bank within the periodof nine months caused it necessarily to curtail its discounts, and afinancial panic was the result, which again led to acrimonious debatesin Congress, in which Clay took the lead. His opposition exasperated thePresident in the highest degree. Calhoun equalled Clay in the vehemenceof his denunciation, for his hatred of Jackson was greater than hishostility to moneyed corporations. Webster was less irritating, butequally strong in his disapproval. Jackson, in his message of December, 1833, reiterated his charge against the Bank as "a permanentelectioneering engine, " attempting "to control public opinion throughthe distresses of some, and the fears of others. " The Senate passedresolutions denouncing the high-handed measures of the government, which, however, were afterwards expunged when the Senate had becomeDemocratic. One of the most eloquent passages that Clay ever uttered washis famous apostrophe to Vice President Van Buren when presiding overthe Senate, in reference to the financial distress which existedthroughout the country, and which, of course, he traced to the removalof the deposits. Deputations of great respectability poured in upon thePresident from every quarter to induce him to change his policy, --all ofwhich he summarily and rudely dismissed. All that these deputationscould get out of him was, "Go to Nicholas Biddle; he has all the money. "In 1834, during the second term of Jackson's office, there werecommittees sent to investigate the affairs of the Bank, who were verycavalierly treated by Biddle, so that their mission failed, amid muchderision. He was not dethroned from his financial power until the UnitedStates Bank of Pennsylvania--the style under which the United StatesBank accepted a State charter in 1836, when its original nationalcharter expired--succumbed to the general crash in 1837. 

It is now generally admitted that Jackson's war on the Bank was violentand reckless, although it would be difficult to point out wherein hishostility exceeded constitutional limits. The consequences were mostdisastrous to the immediate interests of the country, but probably notto its ultimate interests. The substitution of "pet banks" forgovernment deposits led to a great inflation of paper money, followed bya general mania for speculation. When the bubble burst these banks wereunable to redeem their notes in gold and silver, and suspended theirpayments. Then the stringency of the money market equalled the previousinflation. In consequence there were innumerable failures and everythingfell in value, --lands, houses, and goods. Such was the generaldepression and scarcity of money that in many States it was difficultto raise money even to pay necessary taxes. I have somewhere read thatin one of the Western States the sheriffs sold at auction a goodfour-horse wagon for five dollars and fifty cents, two horses for fourdollars, and two cows for two dollars. The Western farmers were drivento despair. Such was the general depression that President Van Buren wascompelled in 1837 to call an extra session of Congress; nor were thedifficulties removed until the celebrated Bankrupt Law was passed in1840, chiefly through the efforts of Daniel Webster, which virtuallywiped out all debts of those who chose to avail themselves of theprivilege. What a contrast was the financial state of the country atthat time, to what it was when Jackson entered upon his administration!

It is not just to attribute all the commercial disasters which followedthe winding up of the old United States Bank to General Jackson, and tothe financial schemes of Van Buren. It was the spirit of speculation, fostered by the inflation of paper money by irresponsible banks when thegreat balance-wheel was stopped, which was the direct cause. Theindirect causes of commercial disaster, however, may be attributed toJackson's war on the Bank. The long fight in Congress to secure arecharter of the Bank, though unsuccessful, was dignified andstatesmanlike; but the ungoverned passions displayed by the removal ofdeposits resulted in nothing, and could have resulted in nothing ofadvantage to any theory of the Bank's management; and it would bedifficult to say who were most to blame for the foolish and undignifiedcrimination and recrimination which followed, --the President, or thehostile Senate. It was, at any rate, a fight in which Jackson won, butwhich, from the animosities it kindled, brought down his gray hairs insorrow to the grave. It gave him a doubtful place in the history ofthe nation. 

If Jackson's hostility to the United States Bank was inexpedient andviolent, and resulted in financial disasters, his vigorous efforts toput down Nullification were patriotic, and called forth the approval andgratitude of the nation. This was a real service of immense value, andit is probable that no other public man then on the stage could havedone this important work so well. Like all Jackson's measures, it wassummary and decided. 

Nullification grew out of the tariffs which Congress had imposed. TheSouth wanted no protective duties at all; indeed, it wanted absolutefree trade, so that planters might obtain the articles which they neededat the smallest possible cost, and sell as much cotton and tobacco asthey could with the least delay and embarrassment. Professor Sumnerargues that Southern industries either supported the Federalgovernment, or paid tribute to the Northern manufacturers, and thatconsequently the grievances of the Southern States were natural andjust, --that their interests were sacrificed to national interests, asthe New England interests had been sacrificed to the national interestsat the time of the Embargo. Undoubtedly, the South had cause ofcomplaint, and we cannot wonder at its irritation and opposition to thetaxes imposed on all for the protection of American manufactures. On theother hand, it was a grave question whether the interests of the nationat large should be sacrificed to build up the interests of theSouth, --to say nothing of the great moral issues which underlie allmaterial questions. In other words, in matters of national importance, which should rule? Should the majority yield to the minority, or theminority to the majority? In accordance with the democratic principleson which this government is founded, there is only one reply to thequestion: The majority must rule. This is the basal stone of allconstitutional government, whose disruption would produce revolution andanarchy. It is a bitter and humiliating necessity which compels theintellect, the wealth, the rank, and the fashion of England to yield tothe small majority in the House of Commons, in the matter of Irish HomeRule, but an Irishman's vote is as good as that of the son of anEnglish peer. The rule of the majority is the price of politicalliberty, for which enlightened nations are willing to pay. 

Henry Clay deserves great praise and glory for his persistent efforts atconciliation, --not only in matters pertaining to the tariff, but in thequestion of slavery to harmonize conflicting interests. But Calhoun--thegreatest man whom the South has produced--would listen to noconcessions, foreseeing that the slightest would endanger theinstitution with which the interests and pride of the Southern Stateswere identified. At this crisis the country needed a man at the helmwhose will was known to be inflexible. 

In the session of 1830, on a question concerning the sales of public(U. S. ) lands in the several States, arose the great debate betweenColonel R. Y. Hayne, of South Carolina, and Daniel Webster on thelimitations of Federal power; and Hayne's declaration of the right of aState to nullify a Federal law that was prejudicial to its interestsgained him great applause throughout the South. John C. Calhoun, UnitedStates Senator from South Carolina, was at the head of the extreme StateSovereignty party, and at a banquet celebrating the birthday ofJefferson, January 13, 1830, he proffered the toast "The Union: next toLiberty, the most dear; may we all remember that it can only bepreserved by respecting the rights of the States, and distributingequally the benefit and burden of the Union. " Jackson, as President, andpractical chief of the Democracy, was of course present at thispolitical banquet. His profound patriotism and keen political instinctscented danger, and with his usual impulse to go well forward to meet anenemy, he gave, "The Federal Union: it must be preserved. " This simpledeclaration was worth more than all the wordy messages and proclamationshe ever issued; it not only served notice upon the seceders of his timethat they had a great principle to deal with, but it echoed after him, and was the call to which the nation victoriously rallied in its supremestruggle with treason, thirty years later. 

Notwithstanding the evident stand taken by the President, the Calhounparty continued their opposition on State lines to the Federalauthority. And when Congress passed the tariff of July, 1832, the SouthCarolina legislature in the autumn called a convention, which pronouncedthat Act and the Tariff Act of 1828 unconstitutional, --"null and void, and no law;" called on the State legislature to pass laws to prevent theexecution of the Federal revenue acts; and declared that any attempt atcoercion on the part of the Federal authorities would be regarded asabsolving South Carolina and all its people from all further obligationto retain their union with the other States, and that they should thenforthwith proceed to organize a separate government, as a sovereign andindependent State. 

If such a man as Buchanan had then been in the presidential chair thereprobably would have been a Southern Confederacy; and in 1832 it mighthave been successful. But Jackson was a man of different mould. Democratand Southern sympathizer as he was, he instantly took the most vigorousmeasures to suppress such a thing in the bud, before there was time toconcert measures of disunion among the other Southern States. He sentGeneral Scott to Charleston, with a body of troops stationed not faraway. He ordered two war-vessels to the harbor of the misguided andrebellious city. On December 4 in his annual message he called theattention of Congress to the opposition to the revenue laws andintimated that he should enforce them. On December 11 he issued aproclamation to the inhabitants of South Carolina, written byLivingston, moderate in tone, in which it was set forth that the powerof one State to annul a law of the United States was incompatible withthe existence of the Union, and inconsistent with the spirit of theconstitution. Governor Hayne issued a counter-proclamation, whileCalhoun resigned the vice-presidency in order to represent SouthCarolina on the floor of the Senate. In January the President sentanother message to Congress asking for authority to suppress rebellion. 

Congress rallied around the Executive and a bill was passed providingfor the enforcement of the collection of the customs at Charleston, andarming the President with extraordinary powers to see that the dangerswere averted. Most of the States passed resolutions againstNullification, and there was general approval of the vigorous measuresto be enforced if necessary. The Nullifiers, unprepared to resist thewhole military power of the country, yielded, but with ill grace, to thethreatened force. Henry Clay in February introduced a compromise tariff, and on the 27th of that month it was completed, together with anEnforcement Act. On March 3 it became a law, and on March 11 the SouthCarolina Nullifiers held an adjourned meeting of their convention andnullified their previous nullification. The triumph of Jackson wascomplete, and his popularity reached its apex. 

It is not to be supposed that the collection of duties in Southern partswas the only cause of Nullification. The deeper cause was not at firstavowed. It was the question of slavery, which is too large a topic to bediscussed in this connection. It will be treated more fully in asubsequent lecture. 

An important event took place during the administration of Jackson, which demands our notice, although it can in no way be traced to hisinfluence; and this was the Anti-Masonic movement, ending in theformation of a new political party. 

The beginning of this party was obscure enough. One Morgan in WesternNew York was abducted and murdered for revealing the alleged secrets ofFreemasonry. These were in reality of small importance, but Morgan hadmortally offended a great secret society of which he was a member, bybringing it into public contempt. His punishment was greater than hiscrime, which had been not against morality, but against a powerful bodyof men who never did any harm, but rather much good in the way ofcharities. The outrage aroused public indignation, --that a man should bemurdered for making innocent revelations of mere ceremonies andpretensions of small moment; and as the Masons would make no apologies, and no efforts to bring the offenders to justice, it was inferred by thecredulous public that Masons were not fit to be entrusted with politicaloffice. The outrage was seized upon by cunning politicians to makepolitical capital. Jackson was a Mason. Hence the new party ofAnti-Masons made war against him. As they had been his supporters, theDemocratic party of the State of New York was divided. 

The leading Democratic leaders had endeavored to suppress this schism;but it daily increased, founded on popular ignorance and prejudice, until it became formidable. In 1830, four years after the murder, theAnti-Masons had held conventions and framed a political platform ofprinciples, the chief of which was hostility to all secret societies. The party, against all reason, rapidly spread through New York, Pennsylvania, and New England, --its stronghold being among the farmersof Vermont. Ambitious politicians soon perceived that a union with thisparty would favor their interests, and men of high position became itsleaders. In 1831 the party was strong enough to assemble a convention inBaltimore to nominate candidates for the presidency, and William Wirt, the great Maryland lawyer, was nominated, not with any hope of election, but with the view of dividing the ranks of the Democratic party, and ofstrengthening the opposition headed by Clay, --the National Republicanparty, which in the next campaign absorbed all the old Federalistremnants, and became the Whig party. 

All opposition to Jackson, however, was to no purpose. He was electedfor his second term, beginning in 1833. The Anti-Masonic movementsubsided as rapidly as it was created, having no well-defined principlesto stand upon. It has already passed into oblivion. 

I have now presented the principal subjects which made theadministrations of Jackson memorable. There are others of minorimportance which could be mentioned, like the removal of the Indians toremote hunting-grounds in the West, the West India trade, the successfulsettlement of the Spoliation Claims against France, which threatened toinvolve the country in war, --prevented by the arbitration of England;similar settlements with Denmark, Spain, and Naples; treaties ofcommerce with Russia and Turkey; and other matters in which Jackson'sdecided character appeared to advantage. But it is not my purpose towrite a complete history of Jackson or of his administrations. Those whowant fuller information should read Parton's long biography, in whichalmost every subject under the sun is alluded to, and yet which, inspite of its inartistic and unclassical execution, is the best thesaurusI know of for Jacksonian materials. More recent histories aredissertations in disguise, on disputed points. 

Here, then, I bring this lecture to a close with a brief allusion tothose things which made up the character of a very remarkable man, whodid both good and evil in his public career. His private life isunusually interesting, by no means a model for others to imitate, yetshowing great energy, a wonderful power of will, and undoubted honestyof purpose. His faults were those which may be traced to an imperfecteducation, excessive prejudices, a violent temper, and the incense offlatterers, --which turned his head and of which he was inordinatelyfond. We fail to see in him the modesty which marked Washington and mostof the succeeding presidents. As a young man he fought duels withoutsufficient provocation. He put himself in his military career above thelaw, and in his presidential career above precedents and customs, whichsubjected him to grave animadversion. As a general he hanged tworespectable foreigners as spies, without sufficient evidence. Heinflicted unnecessary cruelties in order to maintain militarydiscipline, --wholesome, doubtless, but such as less arbitrary commanderswould have hesitated to do. He invaded the territory of a neutral stateon the plea of self-defence. In his conversation he used expletives notconsidered in good taste, and which might be called swearing, withoutmeaning any irreverence to the Deity, although in later life he seldomused any other oath than "By the Eternal!"

Personally, Jackson's habits were irreproachable. In regard to thepleasures of the table he was temperate, almost abstemious. He wasalways religiously inclined and joined the Church before hedied, --perhaps, however, out of loyalty to his wife, whom he adored, rather than from theological convictions. But whatever he deemed hisduty, he made every sacrifice to perform. Although fond of power, hewas easily accessible, and he was frank and genial among his intimatefriends. With great ideas of personal dignity, he was unconventional inall his habits, and detested useless ceremonies and the etiquette ofcourts. He put a great value on personal friendships, and never brokethem except under necessity. For his enemies he cherished a vindictivewrath, as unforgiving as Nemesis. 

In the White House Jackson was remarkably hospitable, and he returned tohis beloved Hermitage poorer than when he left it. He cared little formoney, although an excellent manager of his farm. He was high-minded andjust in the discharge of debts, and, although arbitrary, he wasindulgent to his servants. 

He loved frankness in his dealings with advisers, although he was easilyimposed upon. While he leaned on the counsels of his "Kitchen Cabinet"he rarely summoned a council of constitutional advisers. He parted withone of the ablest and best of his cabinet who acted from a sense of dutyin a matter where he was plainly right. Toward Nicholas Biddle and HenryClay he cherished the most inexorable animosity for crossing his path. 

When we remember his lack of political knowledge, his "spoils system, "his indifference to internal improvements, his war on the United StatesBank, and his arbitrary conduct in general, we feel that Jackson'selevation to the presidency was a mistake and a national misfortune, however popular he was with the masses. Yet he was in accord with hisgeneration. 

It is singular that this man did nothing to attract national noticeuntil he was forty-five years of age. The fortune of war placed him on athrone, where he reigned as a dictator, so far as his powers wouldallow. Happily, in his eventful administration he was impeded by hostileand cynical senators; but this wholesale restraint embittered his life. His great personal popularity continued to the end of his life in 1845, but his influence is felt to this day, both for good and for evil. Hispatriotism and his prejudices, his sturdy friendships and his relentlesshatreds, his fearless discharge of duty and his obstinacy of self-will, his splendid public services and the vast public ills he inaugurated, will ever make this picturesque old hero a puzzle to moralists. His lifewas turbulent, and he was glad, when the time came, to lay down hisburden and prepare himself for that dread Tribunal before which allmortals will be finally summoned, --the one tribunal in which hebelieved, and the only one which he was prompt to acknowledge. 

AUTHORITIES. 

The works written on Jackson are very numerous. Probably the best is thebiography written by Parton, defective as it is. Professor W. E. Sumner'swork, in the series of "American Statesmen, " is full of interesting andimportant facts, especially in the matters of tariff and finance. Seealso Benton's Thirty Years in the United States Senate; Cobbett's Lifeof Jackson; Curtis's Life of Webster; Colton's Life and Times of HenryClay, as well as Carl Schurz on the same subject; Von Holst, Life ofCalhoun; Memoir of John Quincy Adams; Tyler's Life of Taney; Sargent'sPublic Men; the Speeches of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun. 

HENRY CLAY. 

1777-1852. 

COMPROMISE LEGISLATION. 

All the presidents of the United States, with the exception of three orfour, must yield in influence to Henry Clay, so far as concernsdirecting the policy, and shaping the institutions of this country. Onlytwo other American statesmen--Hamilton and Webster--can be compared tohim in genius, power, and services. These two great characters will befound treated elsewhere. 

In regard to what is called "birth, " Clay was not a patrician, likeWashington, nor had he so humble an origin as Andrew Jackson or AbrahamLincoln. Like most other great men, he was the architect of of his ownfortunes, doomed to drudgeries in the early part of his career, andclimbing into notice by energy and force of character. 

He was born, 1777, in a little Virginian hamlet called the "Slashes, "in Hanover County, the son of a Baptist minister, who preached to poorpeople, and who died when Henry was four years old, leaving six otherchildren and a widow, with very scanty means of support. The littlecountry school taught him "the rudiments, " and his small earnings asplough-boy and mill-boy meantime helped his mother. The mother wasmarked by sterling traits of character, and married for her secondhusband a Captain Watkins, of Richmond. This worthy man treated hisstep-son kindly, and put him into a retail store at the age of fourteen, no better educated than most country lads, --too poor to go to college, but with aspirations, which all bright and ambitious boys are apt tohave, especially if they have no fitness for selling the common thingsof life, and are fond of reading. Henry's step-father, having aninfluential friend, secured for the disgusted and discontented youth aposition in the office of the Clerk of the High Court of Chancery, ofwhich the eminent jurist, George Wythe, was chancellor. The judge andthe young copyist thus naturally became acquainted, and acquaintanceripened into friendship, for the youth was bright and useful, and madean excellent amanuensis to the learned old lawyer, in whose office bothThomas Jefferson and John Marshall had been students of law. 

After serving four years, Clay resolved to become a lawyer, entered theoffice of the Attorney-General of the State, and one year after wasadmitted to the bar, having in all probability acquired much legalknowledge from the communicative Chancellor, whom everybody loved andhonored, --one of the earliest in Virginia to emancipate his slaves, andprovide for their support. The young fellow's reading, also, had beenguided by his learned friend, in the direction of history, Englishgrammar, and the beginnings of law. 

The young lawyer, with his pleasing manners, quick intelligence, andreal kindness of heart soon became a favorite in Richmond society. Hewas neither handsome, nor elegant, nor aristocratic, but he had personalgeniality, wit, brilliancy in conversation, irreproachable morals, andwas prominent in the debating society, --a school where young men learnthe art of public speaking, like Gladstone at Oxford. It is thoughtprobable that Clay's native oratorical ability, which he assiduouslycultivated, --the gift which, as Schurz says, "enabled him to make littletell for much, and to outshine men of vastly greater learning, "--misledhim as to the necessity for systematic and thorough study. Lack ofthoroughness and of solid information was his especial weakness throughlife, in spite of the charm and power of his personal oratory. 

It is always up-hill work for a young lawyer to succeed in afashionable city, where there is more intellect than business, and whenhe himself has neither family, nor money, nor mercantile friends. SoHenry Clay, at twenty-one, turned his eyes to the West, --the land ofpromise, which was especially attractive to impecunious lawyers, needyfarmers, spendthrift gentlemen, merchants without capital, and vigorousmen of enterprise, --where everybody trusts and is trusted, and wheretalents and character are of more value than money. He had not muchlegal knowledge, nor did he need much in the frontier settlements on theOhio and its valleys; the people generally were rough and illiterate, and attached more importance to common-sense and industry than to legaltechnicalities and the subtle distinctions of Coke and Blackstone. If anadvocate could grasp a principle which appealed to consciousness, andenforce it with native eloquence, he was more likely to succeed than oneversed in learned precedents without energy or plausible utterances. 

The locality which Clay selected was Lexington in Kentucky, --then asmall village in the midst of beautiful groves without underbrush, wherethe soil was of virgin richness, and the landscape painted with almostperpetual verdure; one of the most attractive spots by nature on theface of the earth, --a great contrast to the flat prairies of Illinois, or the tangled forests of Michigan, or the alluvial deposits of theMississippi. It was a paradise of hills and vales, easily converted intolawns and gardens, such as the primitive settlers of New England wouldhave looked upon with blended envy and astonishment. 

Lexington in 1797, the year that Clay settled in it as a lawyer, wascalled "the intellectual centre of the Far West, " as the Ohio valley wasthen regarded. In reality it was a border-post, the inhabitants of whichwere devoted to horse-racing, hunting, and whiskey-drinking, with asprinkling of educated people, among whom the young lawyer soondistinguished himself, --a born orator, logical as well as rhetorical. 

Clay's law practice at first was chiefly directed to the defence ofcriminals, and it is said that no murderer whom he defended was everhanged; but he soon was equally successful in civil cases, graduallyacquiring a lucrative practice, without taking a high rank as a jurist. He was never a close student, being too much absorbed in politics, society, and pleasure, except on rare occasions, for which he "crammed. "His reading was desultory, and his favorite works were politicalspeeches, many of which he committed to memory and then declaimed, tothe delight of all who heard him. His progress at the bar must have beenremarkably rapid, since within two years he could afford to purchase sixhundred acres of land, near Lexington, and take unto himself awife, --domestic, thrifty, painstaking, who attended to all the detailsof the farm, which he called "Ashland. " As he grew in wealth, hispopularity also increased, until in all Kentucky no one was so generallybeloved as he. Yet he would not now be called opulent, and he neverbecame rich, since his hospitalities were disproportionate to his means, and his living was more like that of a Virginia country gentleman thanof a hard-working lawyer. 

At this time Clay was tall, erect, commanding, with long arms, smallhands, a large mouth, blue, electrical eyes, high forehead, a sanguinetemperament, excitable, easy in his manners, self-possessed, courteous, deferential, with a voice penetrating and musical, with great command oflanguage, and so earnest that he impressed everybody with his blendedsincerity and kindness of heart. 

The true field for such a man was politics, which Clay loved, so thathis duties and pleasures went hand in hand, --an essential thing forgreat success. His first efforts were in connection with aconstitutional convention in Kentucky, when he earnestly advocated asystem of gradual emancipation of slaves, --unpopular as that idea wasamong his fellow-citizens. It did not seem, however, to hurt hispolitical prospects, for in 1803 he was solicited to become a member ofthe State legislature, and was easily elected, being a member of theDemocratic-Republican party as led by Jefferson. He made his mark atonce as an orator, and so brilliant and rapid was his legislative careerthat he was elected in 1806 to the United States Senate to fill theunexpired term, of John Adair, --being only twenty-nine years old, theyoungest man that ever sat in that body of legislators. All that couldthen be said of him was that he made a good impression in the debatesand on the committees, and was a man of great promise, a favorite insociety, attending all parties of pleasure, and never at home in theevening. On his return to Kentucky he was again elected as a member ofthe lower House in the State legislature, and chosen Speaker, --anexcellent training for the larger place he was to fill. In the winter of1809-10 he was a second time sent to the United States Senate, for twoyears, to fill the unexpired term of Buckner Thurston, where he madespeeches in favor of encouraging American manufacturing industries, notto the extent of exportation, --which he thought should be confined tosurplus farm-produce, --but enough to supply the people with clothing andto make them independent of foreign countries for many thingsunnecessarily imported. He also made himself felt on many otherimportant topics, and was recognized as a rising man. 

When his term had expired in the Senate, he was chosen a member of theHouse of Representatives at Washington, --a more agreeable field to himthan the Senate, as giving him greater scope for his peculiar eloquence. He was promptly elected Speaker, which position, however, did notinterfere with his speech-making whenever the House went into Committeeof the Whole. It was as Speaker of the House of Representatives thatClay drew upon himself the eyes of the nation; and his truly greatcongressional career began in 1811, on the eve of the war with GreatBritain in Madison's administration. 

Clay was now the most influential, and certainly the most popular man inpublic life, in the whole country, which was very remarkable, considering that he was only thirty-seven years of age. Daniel Websterwas then practising law in Portsmouth, N. H. , two years before hiselection to Congress, and John C. Calhoun had not yet entered theSenate, but was chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations in theHouse of Representatives, and a warm friend of the Speaker. 

The absorbing subject of national interest at that time was thethreatened war with England, which Clay did his best to bring about, andWebster to prevent. It was Webster's Fourth-of-July Oration atPortsmouth, in 1812, which led to his election to Congress as aFederalist, in which oration he deprecated war. The West generally wasin favor of it, having not much to lose or to fear from a contest whichchiefly affected commerce, and which would jeopardize only New Englandinterests and the safety of maritime towns. Clay, who had from his firstappearance at Washington made himself a champion of American interests, American honor, and American ideas generally, represented the popularparty, and gave his voice for war, into which the government had driftedunder pressure of the outrages inflicted by British cruisers, theimpressment of our seamen, and the contempt with which the United Stateswere held and spoken of on all occasions by England, --the latter anelement more offensive to none than to the independent and bellicosesettlers in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. 

Clay is generally credited with having turned the scales in favor of thewar with Great Britain, when the United States comprised less than eightmillions of people, when the country had no navy of any account, and avery small army without experienced officers, while Great Britain wasmistress of the seas, with an enormous army, and the leader of theallied Powers that withstood Napoleon in Spain and Portugal. To the eyesof the Federalists, the contest was rash, inexpedient, and doubtful inits issues; and their views were justified by the disasters that ensuedin Canada, the incompetency of Hull, the successive defeats of Americangenerals with the exception of Jackson, and the final treaty of peacewithout allusion to the main causes which had led to the war. But theRepublicans claimed that the war, if disastrous on the land, had beenglorious on the water; that the national honor had been vindicated; thata navy had been created; that the impressment of American seamen waspractically ended forever; and that England had learned to treat thegreat republic with outward respect as an independent, powerful, andconstantly increasing empire. 

As the champion of the war, and for the brilliancy and patriotism of hisspeeches, all appealing to the national heart and to national pride, Clay stood out as the most eminent statesman of his day, with unboundedpopularity, especially in Kentucky, where to the last he retained hishold on popular admiration and affection. His speeches on the war aremore marked for pungency of satire and bitterness of invective againstEngland than for moral wisdom. They are appeals to passions rather thanto reason, of great force in their day, but of not much value toposterity. They are not read and quoted like Webster's masterpieces. They will not compare, except in popular eloquence, with Clay's ownsubsequent efforts in the Senate, when he had more maturity ofknowledge, and more insight into the principles of political economy. But they had great influence at the time, and added to his fame asan orator. 

In the summer of 1814 Clay resigned his speakership of the House ofRepresentatives to accept a diplomatic mission as Peace Commissioner toconfer with commissioners from Great Britain. He had as associates JohnQuincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Jonathan Russell, and AlbertGallatin--the ablest financier in the country after the death ofHamilton. The Commissioners met at Ghent, and spent five tedious monthsin that dull city. The English commissioners at once took very highground, and made imperious demands, --that the territory now occupied bythe States of Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and a part of Ohioshould be set apart for the Indians under an English protectorate; thatthe United States should relinquish the right of keeping armed vesselson the great Lakes; that a part of Maine should be ceded to GreatBritain to make a road from Halifax to Quebec, and that all questionsrelating to the right of search, blockades, and impressment of seamenshould remain undiscussed as before the war. At these preposterousdemands Clay was especially indignant. In fact, he was opposed to anytreaty at all which should not place the United States and Great Britainon an equality, and would not have been grieved if the war had lastedthree years longer. Adams and Gallatin had their hands full to keep theWestern lion from breaking loose and returning home in disgust, whilethey desired to get the best treaty they could, rather than no treaty atall. Gradually the British commissioners abated their demands, and gaveup all territorial and fishery claims, and on December 14, 1814, concluded the negotiations on the basis of things before the war, --the_status quo ante bellum_. Clay was deeply chagrined. He signed thedocument with great reluctance, and always spoke of it as "a damned badtreaty, " since it made no allusion to the grievance which provoked thewar which he had so eloquently advocated. 

Gallatin and Clay spent some time in Paris, and most of the ensuingsummer in London on further negotiations of details. But Clay had nosooner returned to Lexington than he was re-elected to the nationallegislature, where he was again chosen Speaker, December 4, 1815, havingdeclined the Russian mission, and the more tempting post of theSecretary of War. He justly felt that his arena was the House ofRepresentatives, which, as well as the Senate, had a Republicanmajority. It was his mission to make speeches and pull political wires, and not perplex himself with the details of office, which required moreexecutive ability and better business habits than he possessed, andwhich would seriously interfere with his social life. How could he playcards all night if he was obliged to be at his office at ten o'clock inthe morning, day after day, superintending clerks, and doing work whichto him was drudgery? Much more pleasant to him was it to preside overstormy debates, appoint important committees, write letters to friends, and occasionally address the House in Committee of the Whole, when hisvoice would sway the passions of his intelligent listeners; for he hadthe power "to move to pity, and excite to rage. "

Besides all this, there were questions to be discussed and settled byCongress, important to the public, and very interesting to politicians. The war had bequeathed a debt. To provide for its payment, taxes must beimposed. But all taxation is unpopular. The problem was, to make taxesas easy as possible. Should they be direct or indirect? Should they beimposed for a revenue only, or to stimulate and protect infantmanufactures? The country was expanding; should there be nationalprovision for internal improvements, --roads, canals, etc. ? There werequestions about the currency, about commerce, about the Indians, abouteducation, about foreign relations, about the territories, whichdemanded the attention of Congress. The most important of these werethose connected with revenues and tariffs. 

It was this latter question, connected with internal improvements andthe sales of public lands, in which Clay was most interested, and which, more than any other, brought out and developed his genius. He isgenerally quoted as "the father of the protective policy, " to developAmerican manufactures. The genius of Hamilton had been directed to thebest way to raise a revenue for a new and impoverished country; that ofClay sought to secure independence of those foreign products which go sofar to enrich nations. 

Webster, when reproached for his change of views respecting tariffs, issaid to have coolly remarked that when he advocated the shippinginterest he represented a great commercial city; and when he afterwardsadvocated tariffs, he spoke as the representative of a manufacturingState, --a sophistical reply which showed that he was more desirous ofpopularity with his constituents than of being the advocate ofabstract truth. 

Calhoun advocated the new tariff as a means to advance the cottoninterests of the South, and the defence of the country in time of war. Thus neither of the great political leaders had in view nationalinterests, but only sectional, except Clay, whose policy was morefar-reaching. And here began his great career as a statesman. Beforethis he was rather a politician, greedy of popularity, and desirous tomake friends. 

The war of 1812 had, by shutting out foreign products, stimulatedcertain manufactures difficult to import, but necessary for militaryoperations, like cheap clothing for soldiers, blankets, gunpowder, andcertain other articles for general use, especially such as are made ofiron. When the war closed and the ports opened, the country received agreat inflow of British products. Hence the tariff of 1816, the earliestfor protection, imposed a tax of about thirty-five per cent on articlesfor which the home industry was unable to supply the demand, and twentyper cent on coarse fabrics of cotton and wool, distilled spirits, andiron; while those industries which were in small demand were admittedfree or paid a mere revenue tax. This tariff, substantially proposed byGeorge M. Dallas, Secretary of the Treasury, was ably supported by Clay. But his mind was not yet fully opened to the magnitude and consequencesof this measure, --his chief arguments being based on the safety of thecountry in time of war. In this movement he joined hands with Calhoun, one of his warmest friends, and one from whose greater logical genius heperhaps drew his conclusions. 

At that time party lines were not distinctly drawn. The old Federalistshad lost their prestige and power. The Republicans were in a greatmajority; even John Quincy Adams and his friends swelled their ranksJefferson had lost much of his interest in politics, and was cultivatinghis estates and building up the University of Virginia. Madison wasanticipating the pleasures of private life, and Monroe, a plain, noncommittal man, the last of "the Virginia dynasty, " thought only offollowing the footsteps of his illustrious predecessors, and living inpeace with all men. 

The next important movement in Congress was in reference to the charterof the newly proposed second United States Bank, and in this the greatinfluence of Clay was felt. He was in favor of it, as a necessity, inview of the miserable state of the finances, the suspension of speciepayments, and the multiplication of State banks. In the earlier part ofhis career, in 1811, he had opposed a recharter of Hamilton's NationalBank as a dangerous money-corporation, and withal unconstitutional onthe ground that the general government had no power to chartercompanies. All this was in accordance with Western democracy, everjealous of the money-power, and the theorizing proclivities ofJefferson, who pretended to hate everything which was supported in theold country. But with advancing light and the experience of depreciatedcurrency from the multiplication of State banks, Clay had changed hisviews, exposing himself to the charge of inconsistency; which, however, he met with engaging candor, claiming rather credit for his ability andwillingness to see the change of public needs. He now thereforesupported the bill of Calhoun, which created a national bank with acapital of thirty-five million dollars, substantially such as wasproposed by Hamilton. The charter was finally given in April, 1816, torun for twenty years. 

Doubtless such a great money-corporation--great for those times--didwield a political influence, and it might have been better if the Bankhad been chartered with a smaller capital. It would have created fewerenemies, and might have escaped the future wrath of General Jackson. Webster at first opposed the bill of Calhoun; but when it was afterwardsseen that the Bank as created as an advantage to the country, he becameone of its strongest supporters. Webster was strongly conservative bynature; but when anything was established, like Lord Thurlow he ceasedall opposition, especially if it worked well. 

In 1816 James Monroe was elected President, and Clay expected to be madeSecretary of State, as a step to the presidency, which he now ardentlydesired. But he was disappointed, John Quincy Adams being chosen byMonroe as Secretary of State. Monroe offered to Clay the mission toEngland and the Department of War, both of which he declined, preferringthe speakership, to which he was almost unanimously re-elected. HereClay brought his influence to bear, in opposition to the views of theadministration, to promote internal improvements to which some objectedon constitutional grounds, but which he defended both as a statesman anda Western man. The result was a debate, ending in a resolution "thatCongress has power under the Constitution to appropriate money for theconstruction of post roads, military and other roads, and of canals forthe improvement of water-courses. "

Meanwhile a subject of far greater interest called out the best energiesof Mr. Clay, --the beginning of a memorable struggle, even the agitationof the Slavery question, which was not to end until all the slaves inthe United States were emancipated by a single stroke of AbrahamLincoln's pen. So long as the products of slave labor were unprofitable, through the exhaustion of the tobacco-fields, there was a sort ofsentimental philanthropy among disinterested Southern men tending to apartial emancipation; but when the cotton gin (invented in 1793) hadtrebled the value of slaves, and the breeding of them became aprofitable industry, the philanthropy of the planters vanished. TheEnglish demand for American cotton grew rapidly, and in 1813 Francis C. Lowell established cotton manufactures in New England, so that cottonleaped into great importance. Thus the South had now become jealous ofinterference with its "favorite institution. "

In an address in Manchester, England, October, 1863, --the first of thattremendous series of mob-controlling speeches with which Henry WardBeecher put a check on the English government by convincing the Englishpeople of the righteousness of the Federal cause during our CivilWar, --that "minister-plenipotentiary, " as Oliver Wendell Holmes calledhim, gave a witty summary of this change. After showing that the greatFathers of Revolutionary times, and notably the great Southerners, wereantislavery men; that the first abolition society was formed in theMiddle and Border States, and not in the Northeast; and thatemancipation was enacted by the Eastern and Middle States as a naturalconsequence of the growth of that sentiment, the orator said:--

"What was it, then, when the country had advanced so far towardsuniversal emancipation in the period of our national formation, thatstopped this onward tide? First, the wonderful demand for cottonthroughout the world, precisely when, from the invention of the cottongin, it became easy to turn it to service. Slaves that before had beenworth from three to four hundred dollars began to be worth six hundreddollars. That knocked away one third of adherence to the moral law. Thenthey became worth seven hundred dollars, and half the law went; then, eight or nine hundred dollars, and there was no such thing as moral law;then, one thousand or twelve hundred dollars, --and slavery became one ofthe Beatitudes. "

Therefore, when in 1818 the territory of Missouri applied for admissionto the Union as a State, the South was greatly excited by theproposition from Mr. Tallmadge, of New York, that its admission shouldbe conditioned upon the prohibition of slavery within its limits. It wasa revelation to the people of the North that so bitter a feeling shouldbe aroused by opposition to the extension of an acknowledged evil, whichhad been abolished in all their own States. The Southern leaders, ontheir side, maintained that Congress could not, under the Constitution, legislate on such a subject, --that it was a matter for the States aloneto decide; and that slavery was essential to the prosperity of theSouthern States, as white men could not labor in the cotton and ricefields. The Northern orators maintained that not only had the right ofCongress to exclude slavery from the Territories been generallyadmitted, but that it was a demoralizing institution and more injuriousto the whites even than to the blacks. The Southern leaders becamefuriously agitated, and threatened to secede from the Union rather thansubmit to Northern dictation; while at the North the State legislaturesdemanded the exclusion of slaves from Missouri. 

Carl Schurz, in his admirable life of Clay, makes a pertinent summary:"The slaveholders watched with apprehension the steady growth of theFree States in population, wealth, and power. .. . As the slaveholdershad no longer the ultimate extinction, but now the perpetuation, ofslavery in view, the question of sectional power became one of firstimportance to them, and with it the necessity of having more slaveStates for the purpose of maintaining the political equilibrium, atleast in the Senate. A struggle for more slave States was to them astruggle for life. "

Thus the two elements of commercial profit and political power wereinvolved in the struggle of the South for the maintenance and extensionof slavery. 

The House of Representatives in 1819 adopted the Missouri bill with theamendment restricting slavery, but the Senate did not concur; andAlabama was admitted as a Territory without slavery restriction. In thenext Congress Missouri was again introduced, but the antislaveryamendment was voted down. In 1820 Mr. Thomas, a senator from Illinois, proposed, as a mutual concession, that Missouri should be admittedwithout restriction, but that in all that part of the territory outsidethat State ceded by France to the United States, north of the latitudeof 36° 30' (the southern boundary of Missouri), slaves should thereafterbe excluded; and this bill was finally passed March 2, 1820. Mr. Clay iscredited with being the father of this compromise, but, according to Mr. Schurz, he did not deserve the honor. He adopted it, however, andadvocated it with so much eloquence and power that it owed its successlargely to his efforts, and therefore it is still generally ascribedto him. 

At that time no statesmen, North or South, had fully grasped the slaveryquestion. Even Mr. Calhoun once seemed to have no doubt as to theauthority of Congress to exclude slavery from the Territories, but hewas decided enough in his opposition when he saw that it involved anirreconcilable conflict of interests, --that slavery and freedom areantagonistic ideas, concerning which there can be no genuine compromise. "There may be compromises, " says Von Holst, "with regard to measures, but never between principles. " And slavery, when the Missouri Compromisewas started, was looked upon as a measure rather than as a principle, concerning which few statesmen had thought deeply. As the agitationincreased, measures were lost sight of in principles. 

The compromise by which Missouri was admitted as a slave State, whileslavery should be excluded from all territory outside of it north of 36°30', was a temporary measure of expediency, and at that period wasprobably a wise one; since, if slavery had been excluded from Missouri, there might have been a dissolution of the Union. The preservation ofthe Union was the dearest object to the heart of Clay, who wasgenuinely and thoroughly patriotic. Herein he doubtless rendered a greatpublic service, and proved himself to be a broad-minded statesman. Toeffect this compromise Clay had put forth all his energies, not only ineloquent speeches and tireless labors in committees and a series ofparliamentary devices for harmonizing the strife, but in innumerableinterviews with individuals. 

In 1820, Clay retired to private life in order to retrieve his fortunesby practice at the bar. Few men without either a professional or aprivate income can afford a long-continued public service. Although themembers of Congress were paid, the pay was not large enough, --only eightdollars a day at that time. But Clay's interval of rest was soon cutshort. In three years he was again elected to the House ofRepresentatives, and in December, 1823, was promptly chosen Speaker by alarge majority. He had now recovered his popularity, and was generallyspoken of as "the great pacificator. "

In Congress his voice was heard again in defence of internalimprovements, --the making of roads and canals, --President Monroe havingvetoed a bill favoring them on the ground that it was unconstitutionalfor Congress to vote money for them. Clay, however, succeeded ininducing Congress to make an appropriation for a survey of such roads asmight be deemed of national importance, which Mr. Monroe did notoppose. It was ever of vital necessity, in the eyes of Mr. Clay, to openup the West to settlers from the East, and he gloried in the prospect ofthe indefinite expanse of the country even to the Pacific ocean. "Sir, "said he, in the debate on this question, "it is a subject of peculiardelight to me to look forward to the proud and happy period, distant asit may be, when circulation and association between the Atlantic and thePacific and the Mexican Gulf shall be as free and perfect as they are atthis moment in England, the most highly improved country on the globe. Sir, a new world has come into being since the Constitution wasadopted. .. . Are we to neglect and refuse the redemption of that vastwilderness which once stretched unbroken beyond the Alleghany?" In theseviews he proved himself one of the most far-sighted statesmen that hadas yet appeared in Congress, --a typical Western man of enthusiasm andboundless hope. 

Not less enthusiastic was he in his open expressions of sympathy withthe Greek struggle for liberty; as was the case also with DanielWebster, --both advocating relief to the Greeks, not merely fromsentiment, but to strike a blow at the "Holy Alliance" of Europeankingdoms, then bent on extinguishing liberty in every country in Europe. Clay's noble speech in defence of the Greeks was not, however, receivedwith unanimous admiration, since many members of Congress were fearfulof entangling the United States in European disputes and wars; and themovement came to naught. 

Then followed the great debates which led to the famous tariff of 1824, in which Mr. Clay, although Speaker of the House, took a prominent partin Committee of the Whole, advocating an increase of duties for theprotection of American manufactures of iron, hemp, glass, lead, wool, woollen and cotton goods, while duties on importations which did notinterfere with American manufactures were to be left on a mere revenuebasis. This tariff had become necessary, as he thought, in view of theprevailing distress produced by dependence on foreign markets. He wouldprovide a home consumption for American manufactures, and thus develophome industries, which could be done only by imposing import taxes thatshould "protect" them against foreign competition. His speech on what hecalled the "American System" was one of the most elaborate he ever made, and Mr. Carl Schurz says of it that "his skill of statement, hisingenuity in the grouping of facts and principles, his plausibility ofreasoning, his brilliant imagination, the fervor of his diction, thewarm patriotic tone of his appeals" presented "the arguments which werecurrent among high-tariff men then and which remain so still;" while, on the other hand, "his superficial research, his habit of satisfyinghimself with half-knowledge, and his disinclination to reason outpropositions logically in all their consequences" gave incompleteness tohis otherwise brilliant effort. It made a great impression in spite ofits weak points, and called out in opposition the extraordinaryabilities of Daniel Webster, through whose massive sentences appearedhis "superiority in keenness of analysis, in logical reasoning, inextent and accuracy of knowledge, in reach of thought and mastery offundamental principles, " over all the other speakers of the day. Andthis speech of. Mr. Webster's stands unanswered, notwithstanding theopposite views he himself maintained four years afterwards, when hespoke again on the tariff, but representing manufacturing interestsrather than those of shipping and commerce, advocating expediency ratherthan abstract principles the truth of which cannot be gainsaid. The billas supported by Mr. Clay passed by a small majority, the members fromthe South generally voting against it. 

After the tariff of 1824 the New England States went extensively intomanufacturing, and the Middle States also. The protective idea hadbecome popular in the North, and, under strong protests from theagricultural South, in 1828 a new tariff bill was enacted, largely onthe principle of giving more protection to every interest that askedfor it. This, called by its opponents "the tariff of abominations, " waspassed while Clay was Secretary of State; the discontent under it was togive rise to Southern Nullification, and to afford Clay anotheropportunity to act as "pacificator. " All this tariff war is set forth inclear detail in Professor Sumner's "Life of Jackson. "

This question of tariffs has, for seventy years now, been the greatissue, next to slavery, between the North and South. More debates havetaken place on this question than on any other in our Congressionalhistory, and it still remains unsettled, like most other questions ofpolitical economy. The warfare has been constant and uninterruptedbetween those who argue subjects from abstract truths and those who lookat local interests, and maintain that all political questions should bedetermined by circumstances. When it seemed to be the interest of GreatBritain to advocate protection for her varied products, protection wasthe policy of the government; when it became evidently for her interestto defend free trade, then free trade became the law of Parliament. 

On abstract grounds there is little dispute on the question: if all theworld acted on the principles of free trade, protection would beindefensible. Practically, it is a matter of local interest: it is theinterest of New England to secure protection for its varied industriesand to secure free raw materials for manufacture; it is the interest ofagricultural States to buy wares in the cheapest market and to seekforeign markets for their surplus breadstuffs. The question, however, onbroad grounds is whether protection is or is not for the interest of thewhole country; and on that point there are differences of opinion amongboth politicians and statesmen. Formerly, few discussed the subject onabstract principles except college professors and doctrinaires; but itis a most momentous subject from a material point of view, and the greatscale on which protection has been tried in America since the Civil Warhas produced a multiplicity of consequences--industrial andeconomic--which have set up wide-spread discussions of both principlesand practical applications. How it will be finally settled, no one canpredict; perhaps through a series of compromises, with ever lesseningrestriction, until the millennial dream of universal free trade shallbecome practicable. Protection has good points and bad ones. While itstimulates manufactures, it also creates monopolies and widens thedistinctions between the rich and the poor. Disproportionate fortuneswere one of the principal causes of the fall of the Roman Empire, andare a grave danger to our modern civilization. 

But then it is difficult to point out any period in the history ofcivilization when disproportionate fortunes did not exist, except inprimitive agricultural States in the enjoyment of personal liberty, likeSwitzerland and New England one hundred years ago. They certainlyexisted in feudal Europe as they do in England to-day. The great cottonlords are feudal barons under another name. Where money is worshippedthere will be money-aristocrats, who in vulgar pride and power rival theworst specimens of an hereditary nobility. There is really little thatis new in human organizations, --little that Solomon and Aristotle hadnot learned. When we go to the foundation of society it is the samestory, in all ages and countries. Most that is new is superficial andtransitory. The permanent is eternally based on the certitudes of life, which are moral and intellectual rather than mechanical and material. Whatever promotes these certitudes is the highest political wisdom. 

We now turn to contemplate the beginnings of Mr. Clay's aspirations tothe presidency, which from this time never left him until he had onefoot in the grave. As a successful, popular, and ambitious man who hadalready rendered important services, we cannot wonder that he sought theenvied prize. Who in the nation was more eminent than he? But such aconsummation of ambition is not attained by merit alone. He had enemies, and he had powerful rivals. 

In 1824 John Quincy Adams, as Monroe's Secretary of State, was in theline of promotion, --a statesman of experience and abilities, thesuperior of Clay in learning, who had spent his life in the publicservice, and in honorable positions, especially as a foreign minister. He belonged to the reigning party and was the choice of New England. Moreover he had the prestige of a great name. He was, it is true, farfrom popular, was cold and severe in manners, and irritable intemperament; but he was public-spirited, patriotic, incorruptible, loftyin sentiment, and unstained by vices. 

Andrew Jackson was also a formidable competitor, --a military hero, theidol of the West, and a man of extraordinary force of character, withundoubted executive abilities, but without much experience in civilaffairs, self-willed, despotic in temper, and unscrupulous. Crawford, ofGeorgia, Secretary of the Treasury, with great Southern prestige, and anadroit politician, was also a candidate. Superior to all thesecandidates in political genius was Calhoun of South Carolina, not yet soprominent as he afterwards became. 

The popular choice in 1824 lay between Jackson and Adams, and as nocandidate obtained a majority of the electoral votes, the electionreverted to the House of Representatives, and Adams was chosen, much tothe chagrin of Jackson, who had the largest number of popular votes, andthe disappointment of Clay, who did not attempt to conceal it. When thelatter saw that his own chances were small, however, he had thrown hisinfluence in favor of Adams, securing his election, and became hisSecretary of State. Jackson was indignant, as he felt he had been robbedof the prize by a secret bargain, or coalition, between Clay and Adams. In retiring from the speakership of the House, which he had held solong, Clay received the formal and hearty thanks of that body for hisundeniably distinguished services as presiding officer. In knowledge ofparliamentary law and tactics, in prompt decisions, --never onceoverruled in all his long career, --in fairness, courtesy, self-command, and control of the House at the stormiest times, he certainly never hada superior. Friends and enemies alike recognized and cordially expressedtheir sense of his masterly abilities. 

The administration of Adams was not eventful, but to his credit he madeonly four removals from office during his term of service, and these forgood cause; he followed out the policy of his predecessors, even underpressure from his cabinet refusing to recognize either friends orenemies as such, but simply holding public officers to their duty. So, too, in his foreign policy, which was conservative and prudent, and freefrom entangling alliances, at a time when the struggle for independenceamong the South American republics presented an occasion forinterference, and when the debates on the Panama mission--a proposedcouncil of South and Central American republics at Panama, to which theUnited States were invited to send representatives--were embarrassing tothe Executive. 

The services of Mr. Clay as Secretary of State were not distinguished. He made a number of satisfactory treaties with foreign powers, andexhibited great catholicity of mind; but he was embroiled in quarrelsand disputes anything but glorious, and he further found his situationirksome. His field was the legislature; as an executive officer he wasout of place. It may be doubted whether he would have made as good aPresident as many inferior politicians. He detested office labor, andwas sensitive to hostile criticism. His acceptance of the office ofSecretary of State was probably a blunder, as his appointment was(though unjustly) thought by many to be in fulfilment of a bargain, andit did not advance his popularity. He was subject to slanders andmisrepresentations. The secretaryship, instead of being a step to thepresidency, was thus rather an impediment in his way. It was not even aposition of as much power as the speakership. It gave him no excitement, and did not keep him before the eyes of the people. His health failed. He even thought of resignation. 

The supporters of the Adams administration, those who more and morecame to rank themselves as promoters of tariffs and internalimprovements, with liberal views as to the constitutional powers of thenational government, gradually consolidated in opposition to the partyheaded by Jackson. The former called themselves National Republicans, and the latter, Democratic Republicans. During the Jacksonianadministrations they became known more simply as Whigs and Democrats. 

On the accession of General Jackson to the presidency in 1829, Mr. Clayretired to his farm at Ashland; but while he amused himself by raisingfine cattle and horses, and straightening out his embarrassed finances, he was still the recognized leader of the National Republican party. Hewas then fifty-two years of age, at his very best and strongest period. He took more interest in politics than in agriculture or in literarymatters. He was not a learned man, nor a great reader, but a closeobserver of men and of all political movements. He was a great favorite, and received perpetual ovations whenever he travelled, always ready tomake speeches at public meetings, which were undoubtedly eloquent andinstructive, but not masterpieces like those of Webster at Plymouth andBunker Hill. They were not rich in fundamental principles of governmentand political science, and far from being elaborate, but were earnest, patriotic, and impassioned. Clay was fearless, ingenuous, and chivalric, and won the hearts of the people, which Webster failed to do. Both weregreat debaters, the one appealing to the understanding, and the other topopular sentiments. Webster was cold, massive, logical, althoughoccasionally illuminating his argument with a grand glow ofeloquence, --the admiration of lawyers and clergymen. Clay was thedelight of the common people, --impulsive, electrical, brilliant, callingout the sympathies of his hearers, and captivating them by his obvioussincerity and frankness, --not so much convincing them as moving them andstimulating them to action. Webster rarely lost his temper, but he couldbe terribly sarcastic, harsh, and even fierce. Clay was passionate andirritable, but forgiving and generous, loath to lose a friend and eagerfor popularity; Webster seemed indifferent to applause, and even toordinary friendship, proud, and self-sustained. Clay was vain andsusceptible to flattery. No stranger could approach Webster, but Claywas as accessible as a primitive bishop. New England was proud ofWebster, but the West loved Clay. Kentucky would follow her favorite tothe last, whatever mistakes he might make, but Massachusetts desertedWebster when he failed to respond to her popular convictions. Both menwere disappointed in the prize they sought: one because he was notloved by the people, colossal as they admitted him to be, --a frowningJupiter Tonans absorbed in his own majesty; the other because he hadincurred the hatred of Jackson and other party chiefs who were enviousof his popularity, and fearful of his ascendency. 

The hatred which Clay and Jackson had for each other was inexorable. Itsteeped them both in bitterness and uncompromising opposition. They wererivals, --the heads of their respective parties. Clay regarded Jackson asan ignorant, despotic, unscrupulous military chieftain, who had beenraised to power by the blind adoration of military success; whileJackson looked upon Clay as an intriguing politician, without honesty, industry, or consistency, gifted only in speech-making. Their quarrelsand mutual abuse formed no small part of the political history of thecountry during Jackson's administration, and have received fromhistorians more attention than they deserved. Mr. Colton takes up aboutone half of his first volume of the "Life of Clay" in dismal documentswhich few care about, relating to what he calls the "Great Conspiracy, "that is, the intrigues of politicians to rob Clay of his rights, --themiserable party warfare which raged so furiously and blindly from 1825to 1836. I need not here dwell on the contentions and slanders andhatreds which were so prominent at the time the two great nationalparties were formed, and which divided the country until the Civil War. 

The most notable portion of Henry Clay's life was his great career asSenator in Congress, which he entered in December, 1831, two years afterthe inauguration of President Jackson. The first subject of nationalimportance to which he gave his attention was the one with which hisname and fame are mostly identified, --the tariff, to a moderate form ofwhich the President in 1829 had announced himself to be favorable, butwhich he afterwards more and more opposed, on the ground that therevenues already produced were in excess of the needs of the government. The subject was ably discussed, --first, in a resolution introduced bySenator Clay declarative of principles involving some reduction ofduties on articles that did not compete with American industries, butmaintaining generally the "American System" successfully introduced byhim in the tariff of 1824; and then, in a bill framed in accordance withthe resolution, --both of which were passed in 1832. 

Clay's speeches on this tariff of 1832 were among the strongest andablest he ever delivered. Indeed, he apparently exhausted his subject. Little has been added by political economists to the arguments forprotection since his day. His main points were: that it was beneficialto all parts of the Union, and absolutely necessary to much the largestportion; that the price of cotton and of other agricultural products hadbeen sustained and a decline averted, by the protective system; thateven if the foreign demand for cotton had been diminished by theoperation of this system (the plea of the Southern leaders), thediminution had been more than compensated in the additional demandcreated at home; that the competition produced by the system reduces theprice of manufactured articles, --for which he adduced his facts; andfinally that the policy of free trade, without benefiting any section ofthe Union, would, by subjecting us to foreign legislation, regulated byforeign interests, lead to the prostration and ruin of ourmanufactories. 

It must be remembered that this speech was made in 1832, before ourmanufactures--really "infant industries"--could compete successfullywith foreigners in anything. At the present time there are manyinterests which need no protection at all, and the protection of theseinterests, as a matter of course, fosters monopolies. And hence, theprogress which is continually being made in manufactures, enabling thiscountry to be independent of foreign industries, makes protective dutieson many articles undesirable now which were expedient and even necessarysixty years ago, --an illustration of the fallacy of tariffs founded onimmutable principles, when they are simply matters of expediencyaccording to the changing interests of nations. 

We have already, in the lecture on Jackson, described the Nullificationepisode, with the threatening protests against the tariff of 1828 andits amendments of 1832; Jackson's prompt action; and Clay's patrioticand earnest efforts resulting in the Compromise Tariff of March, 1833. By this bill duties were to be gradually reduced from 25 per cent _advalorem_ to 20 per cent. Mr. Webster was not altogether satisfied, norwere the extreme tariff men, who would have run the risks of thethreatened nullification by South Carolina. It proved, however, apopular measure, and did much to tranquillize the nation; yet it did notwholly satisfy the South, nor any extreme partisans, as compromisesseldom do, and Clay lost many friends in consequence, a result which heanticipated and manfully met. It led to one of his finest bursts ofeloquence. 

"I have, " said he, "been accused of ambition in presenting this measure. Ambition! inordinate ambition! Low, grovelling souls who are utterlyincapable of elevating themselves to the higher and nobler duties ofpure patriotism--beings who, forever keeping their own selfish aims inview, decide all public measures by their presumed influence on theirown aggrandizement--judge me by the venal rule which they prescribe forthemselves. I am no candidate for any office in the gift of theseStates, united or separated. I never wish, never expect to be. Pass thisbill, tranquillize the country, restore confidence and affection forthe Union, and I am willing to go to Ashland and renounce public serviceforever. Yes, I have ambition, but it is the ambition of being thehumble instrument in the hands of Providence to reconcile a dividedpeople, once more to revive concord and harmony in a distractedland, --the pleasing ambition of contemplating the glorious spectacle ofa free, united, prosperous, and fraternal people. "

The policy which Mr. Clay advocated with so much ability during thewhole of his congressional life was that manufactures, as well as theculture of rice, tobacco, and cotton, would enrich this country, andtherefore ought to be fostered and protected by Congress, whatever Mr. Hayne or Mr. Calhoun should say to the contrary, or even General Jacksonhimself, whose sympathies were with the South, and consequently withslavery. Therefore Clay is called the father of the American System, --hewas the advocate, not of any local interests, but the interests of thecountry as a whole, thus establishing his claim to be a statesman ratherthan a politician who never looks beyond local and transient interests, and is especially subservient to party dictation. The Southernpoliticians may not have wished to root out manufacturing altogether, but it was their policy to keep the agricultural interests in theascendent. 

Soon after the close of the session of the Twenty-Second Congress, Mr. Clay, on his return to Ashland, put into execution a project he had longcontemplated of visiting the Eastern cities. At that period even anexcursion of one thousand miles was a serious affair, and attended withgreat discomfort. Wherever Mr. Clay went he was received withenthusiasm. Receptions, public dinners, and fêtes succeeded each otherin all the principal cities. In Baltimore, in Wilmington, and inPhiladelphia, he was entertained at balls and banquets. In New York hewas the guest of the city and was visited by thousands eager to shakehis hand. The company controlling the line between New York and Bostontendered to him the use of one of their fine steamers to Rhode Island, where every social honor was publicly given him. In Boston he waswelcomed by a committee of forty, in behalf of the young men, headed byMr. Winthrop, and was received by a committee of old men, when he waseloquently addressed by Mr. William Sullivan, and was subsequentlywaited upon by the mayor and aldermen of the city. Deputations fromPortland and Portsmouth besought the honor of a visit. At Charlestown, on Bunker Hill Edward Everett welcomed him in behalf of the city, andpronounced one of his felicitous speeches. At Faneuil Hall a delegationof young men presented him with a pair of silver pitchers. He was evendragged to lyceum lectures during the two weeks he remained in Boston. He thence proceeded amid public demonstrations to Worcester, Springfield, Hartford, Northampton, Pittsfield, Troy, Albany, and backagain to New York. The carriage-makers of Newark begged his acceptanceof one of their most costly carriages for the use of his wife. No oneexcept Washington, Lafayette, and General Grant ever received moreenthusiastic ovations in New England, --all in recognition of hisservices as a statesman, without his having reached any higher positionthan that of Senator or Secretary of State. 

In such a rapid review of the career of Mr. Clay as we are obliged tomake, it is impossible to enter upon the details of political movementsand the shifting grounds of party organizations and warfare. We mustnot, however, lose sight of that most characteristic element of Clay'spublic life, --his perennial candidature for the presidency. We havealready seen him in 1824, when his failure was evident, throwing hisinfluence into the scale for John Quincy Adams. In 1828, as Adams'Secretary of State, he could not be a rival to his chief, and so escapedthe whelming overthrow with which Jackson defeated their party. In 1832he was an intensely popular candidate of the National Republicans, especially the merchants and manufacturers of the North and East and thefriends of the United States Bank; but Southern hostility to his tariffprinciples and the rally of "the people" in support of Jackson's war onmoneyed institutions threw him out again in notable defeat. In 1836 andagain in 1840, Clay was prominent before the Conventions of the Whig orNational Republican party, but other interests subordinated his claimsto nomination, and the election of Van Buren by the Democrats in 1836, and of Harrison by the Whigs in 1840, kept him still in abeyance. In1844 Clay was again the Whig candidate, the chief issue being theadmission of Texas, but he was defeated by Polk and the Democrats; andafter that the paramount slavery question pushed him aside, and hedropped out of the race. 

The bitter war which Clay made on the administration of General Jackson, especially in reference to the United States Bank question, has alreadybeen noticed, and although it is an important passage in his history, Imust pass it by to avoid repetition, which is always tedious. All Iwould say in this connection is that Clay was foremost among thesupporters of the Bank, and opposed not only the removal of deposits butalso the sub-treasury scheme of Mr. Van Buren that followed the failureto maintain the Bank. Some of his ablest oratory was expended in theunsuccessful opposition to these Democratic measures. 

In 1837, came the bursting of the money-bubble, which had turnedeverybody's head and led to the most extravagant speculations, highprices, high rents, and lofty expectations in all parts of the country. This was followed of course by the commercial crisis, the generaldistress, and all the evils which Clay and Webster had predicted, but towhich the government of Van Buren seemed to be indifferent whileenforcing its pet schemes, against all the settled laws of trade and theexperiences of the past. But the country was elastic after all, and agreat reaction set in. New political combinations were made to expressthe general indignation against the responsible party in power, and theWhig party arose, joined by many leading Democrats like Rives ofVirginia and Tallmadge of New York, while Calhoun went over to VanBuren, and dissolved his alliance with Clay, which in reality forseveral years had been hollow. In the presidential election of 1840 Mr. Van Buren was defeated by an overwhelming majority, and the Whigs cameinto power under the presidency of General Harrison, chosen not fortalents or services, but for his availability. 

The best that can be said of Harrison is that he was an honest man. Hewas a small farmer in Ohio with no definite political principles, buthad gained some military _éclat_ in the War of 1812. The presidentialcampaign of 1840 is well described by Carl Schurz as "a popular frolic, "with its "monster mass-meetings, " with log-cabins, raccoons, hardcider, with "huge picnics, " and ridiculous "doggerel about 'Tippecanoeand Tyler too. '" The reason why it called out so great enthusiasm wasfrivolous enough in itself, but it expressed the popular reactionagainst the misrule of Jackson and Van Buren, which had plunged thecountry into financial distress, notwithstanding the general prosperitywhich existed when Jackson was raised to power, --a lesson to all futurepresidents who set up their own will against the collected experienceand wisdom of the leading intellects of the country. 

President Harrison offered to the great chieftain of the Whig party thefirst place in his cabinet, which he declined, preferring his senatorialdignity and power. Besides, he had been Secretary of State under JohnQuincy Adams and found the office irksome. He knew full well that histrue arena was the Senate Chamber, --which also was most favorable to hispresidential aspirations. But Webster was induced to take the officedeclined by Clay, having for his associates in the cabinet such able menas Ewing, Badger, Bell, Crittenden, and Granger. 

Mr. Clay had lost no time, when Congress assembled in December, 1840, inoffering a resolution for the repeal of the sub-treasury act; but as theDemocrats had still a majority in the Senate the resolution failed. When the next Congress assembled, General Harrison having lived only onemonth after his inauguration and the Vice-president, John Tyler, havingsucceeded him, the sub-treasury act was repealed; but the Presidentrefused to give his signature to the bill for the re-charter of theUnited States Bank, to the dismay of the Whigs, and the deepdisappointment of Clay, who at once severed his alliance with Tyler, andbecame his bitter opponent, carrying with him the cabinet, whichresigned, with the exception of Webster, who was engaged in importantnegotiations in reference to the northeastern boundary. The new cabinetwas made up of Tyler's personal friends, who had been Jackson Democrats, and the fruits of the great Whig victory were therefore in a measurelost. The Democratic party gradually regained its ascendency, which itretained with a brief interval till the election of Abraham Lincoln. 

A question greater than banks and tariffs, if moral questions aregreater than material ones, now began again to be discussed in Congress, ending only in civil war. This was the slavery question. I have alreadyspoken of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which Mr. Clay has the chiefcredit of effecting, but the time now came for him to meet the questionon other grounds. The abolitionists, through the constant growth of theantislavery sentiment throughout the North, had become a power, anddemanded that slavery should be abolished in the District of Columbia. 

And here again I feel it best to defer what I have to say on antislaveryagitation to the next lecture, especially as Clay was mixed up in itonly by his attempt to pour oil on the troubled waters. He himself was aSoutherner, and was not supposed to take a leading part in the conflict, although opposed to slavery on philanthropic grounds. Without being anabolitionist, he dreaded the extension of the slave-power; yet as hewished to be President he was afraid of losing votes, and did not wishto alienate either the North or the South. But for his inordinate desirefor the presidential office he might have been a leader in theantislavery movement. All his sympathies were with freedom. He took thedeepest interest in colonization, and was president of the ColonizationSociety, which had for its aim the sending of manumitted negroesto Liberia. 

The question of the annexation of Texas, forced to the front in theinterest of the slaveholding States, united the Democrats and electedJames K. Polk President in 1844; while Clay and the Whig Party, whoconfidently expected success, lost the election by reason of the growthof the Antislavery or Liberty party which cast a large vote in NewYork, --the pivotal State, without whose support in the Electoral Collegethe carrying of the other Northern States went for nought. The MexicanWar followed; and in 1846 David Wilmot of Pennsylvania moved anamendment to a bill appropriating $2, 000, 000 for final negotiations, providing that in all territories acquired from Mexico slavery should beprohibited. The Wilmot Proviso was lost, but arose during the next fouryears, again and again, in different forms, but always as the standardof the antislavery Northerners. 

When the antislavery agitation had reached an alarming extent, andthreatened to drive the South into secession from the Union, Clayappeared once again in his great role as a pacificator. To preserve theUnion was the dearest object of his public life. He would by a timelyconcession avert the catastrophe which the Southern leaders threatened, and he probably warded off the inevitable combat when, in 1850, he madehis great speech, in favor of sacrificing the Wilmot Proviso, andenacting a more stringent fugitive-slave law. 

In 1848, embittered by having been set aside as the nominee of the Whigparty for the presidency in favor of General Taylor, one of thesuccessful military chieftains in the Mexican War, --who as a Southernman, with no political principles or enemies, was thought to be more"available, "--Clay had retired from the Senate, and for a year hadremained at Ashland, nominally and avowedly "out of politics, " butintensely interested, and writing letters about the new slaverycomplications. In December, 1849, he was returned to the Senate, andinevitably became again one of the foremost in all the debates. 

When the conflict had grown hot and fierce, in January, 1850, Clayintroduced a bill for harmonizing all interests. As to the disputedquestion of slavery in the new territory, he would pacify the North byadmitting California as a free State, and abolishing slavery and theslave-trade in the District of Columbia; while the South was to beplacated by leaving Utah and New Mexico unrestricted as to slavery, andby a more efficient law for the pursuit and capture of fugitive slaves. His speech occupied two days, delivered in great physical exhaustion, and was "an appeal to the North for concession and to the South forpeace. " Like Webster, who followed with his renowned "Seventh-of-Marchspeech" and who alienated Massachusetts because he did not go far enoughfor freedom, Clay showed that there could be no peaceable secession, that secession meant war, and that it would be war to propagate a wrong, in which the sympathy of all mankind would be against us. 

Calhoun followed, defending the interests of slavery, which he called"the rights of the South, " though too weak to deliver his speech, whichwas read for him. He clearly saw the issue, --that slavery was doomed ifthe Union were preserved, --and therefore welcomed war before the Northshould be prepared for it. It was the South Carolinian's last greateffort in the Senate, for the hand of death was upon him. He realizedthat if the South did not resist and put down agitation on the slaveryquestion, the cause would be lost. It was already virtually lost, sincethe conflict between freedom and slavery was manifestly irrepressible, and would come in spite of concessions, which only put off the evil day. 

On the 11th of March Seward, of New York, now becoming prominent in theSenate, spoke, deprecating all compromise on a matter of principle, anddeclaring that there was a "higher law than the Constitution itself. " Hetherefore would at least prevent the extension of slavery by any meansin the power of Congress, on the ground of moral right, not of politicalexpediency, undismayed by all the threats of secession. Two weeksafterward Chase of Ohio took the same ground as Seward. From that timeSeward and Chase supplanted Webster and Clay in the confidence of theNorth, on all antislavery questions. 

After seven months of acrimonious debate in both houses of Congress andduring a session of extraordinary length, the compromise measures ofClay were substantially passed, --a truce rather than a peace, which putoff the dreadful issue for eleven years longer. It was the best thingto do, for the South was in deadly earnest, exceedingly exasperated, andblinded. A war in 1851 would have had uncertain issues, with such a manas Fillmore in the presidential chair, to which he had succeeded on thedeath of Taylor. He was a most respectable man and of fair abilities, but not of sufficient force and character to guide the nation. It wasbetter to submit for a while to the Fugitive Slave Law than drive theSouth out of the Union, with the logical consequences of the separation. But the abolitionists had no idea of submitting to a law which wasinhuman, even to pacify the South, and the law was resisted in Boston, which again kindled the smothered flames, to the great disappointmentand alarm of Clay, for he thought that his compromise bill had settledthe existing difficulties. 

In the meantime the health of the great pacificator began to decline. Hewas forced by a threatening and distressing cough to seek the air ofCuba, which did him no good. He was obliged to decline an invitation ofthe citizens of New York to address them on the affairs of the nation, but wrote a long letter instead, addressed more to the South than to theNorth, for he more than any other man, saw the impending dangers. Although there was a large majority at the South in favor of Union, yetthe minority had become furious, and comprised the ablest leaders, concerning whose intention such men as Seward and Chase and John P. Hale were sceptical. In the ferment of excited passions it is not safeto calculate on men's acting according to reason. It is wiser to predictthat they will act against reason. Here Clay was wiser in his anxietythan the Northern statesmen generally, who thought there would be peacebecause it was reasonable. 

Clay did not live to see all compromises thrown to the winds. He diedJune 29, 1852, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, at the NationalHotel in Washington. Imposing funeral ceremonies took place amid generallamentation, and the whole country responded with glowing eulogies. 

I have omitted allusion to other speeches which the great statesman madein his long public career, and have presented only the salient points ofhis life, in which his parliamentary eloquence blazed with the greatestheat; for he was the greatest orator, in general estimation, that thiscountry has produced, although inferior to Webster in massive power, inpurity of style, in weight of argument, and breadth of knowledge. To mymind his speeches are diffuse and exaggerated, and wanting insimplicity. But what reads the best is not always the most effective indebate. Certainly no American orator approached him in electrical power. No one had more devoted friends. No one was more generally beloved. Noone had greater experience, or rendered more valuable public services. 

And yet he failed to reach the presidency, to which for thirty years hehad aspired, and which at times seemed within his grasp. He had madepowerful enemies, especially in Jackson and his partisans, andpoliticians dreaded his ascendency, and feared that as President hewould be dictatorial, though not perhaps arbitrary like Jackson. Hewould have been a happier man if he had not so eagerly coveted a prizewhich it seems is unattainable by mere force of intellect, and is oftenconferred apparently by accidental circumstances. It is too high anoffice to be sought, either by genius or services, except in themilitary line; but even General Scott, the real hero of the Mexican war, failed in his ambitious aspirations, as well as Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Benton, Seward, Chase, and Douglas, while less prominent men wereselected, and probably ever will be. This may be looked at as a rebuketo political ambition, which ought to be satisfied with the fameconferred by genius rather than that of place, which never yet made aman really great. The presidency would have added nothing to the glorywhich Clay won in the Congress of the United States. It certainly addednothing to the fame of Grant, which was won on the battlefield, and itdetracted from that of Jackson. And yet Clay felt keenly thedisappointment, that with all his talents and services, weaker men werepreferred to him. 

Aside from the weakness of Clay in attempting to grasp a phantom, hischaracter stands out in an interesting light on the whole. He had hisfaults and failings which did not interfere with his ambition, and greatand noble traits which more than balanced them, the most marked of whichwas the patriotism whose fire never went out. If any man ever loved hiscountry, and devoted all the energies of his mind and soul to promoteits welfare and secure its lasting union, that man was the illustriousSenator from Kentucky, whose eloquent pleadings were household words fornearly half a century throughout the length and breadth of the land. With him there was no East, no West, no North, and no South, to beespecially favored or served, but the whole country, one and indivisiblefor ages to come. And no other man in high position had a more glowingconviction of its ever-increasing power and glory than he. 

"Whether, " says his best biographer, "he thundered against Britishtyranny on the seas, or urged the recognition of the South Americansister republics, or attacked the high-handed conduct of the militarychieftain in the Florida war, or advocated protection and internalimprovements, or assailed the one-man power and spoils politics in theperson of Andrew Jackson, or entreated for compromise and conciliationregarding the tariff or slavery, --there was always ringing through hiswords a fervid plea for his country, a zealous appeal in behalf of thehonor and the future greatness and glory of the republic, or an anxiouswarning lest the Union be put in jeopardy. "

One thing is certain, that no man in the country exercised so great aninfluence, for a generation, in shaping the policy of nationallegislation as Henry Clay, a policy which, on the whole, has provedenlightened, benignant, and useful. And hence his name and memory willnot only be honorably mentioned by historians, but will be fondlycherished so long as American institutions shall endure. He is one ofthe greater lights in the galaxy of American stars, as he was theadvocate of principles which have proved conducive to nationalprosperity in the first century of the nation's history. It is a greatthing to give shape to the beneficent institutions of a country, andespecially to be a source of patriotic inspiration to its people. It isgreater glory than to be enrolled in the list of presidents, especiallyif they are mentioned only as the fortunate occupants of a great officeto which they were blindly elected. Of the long succession of theoccupants of the Papal Chair, the most august of worldly dignities, notone in twenty has left a mark, or is of any historical importance, while hundreds of churchmen and theologians in comparatively humblepositions have left an immortal fame. The glory of Clay is not dimmedbecause he failed in reaching a worthy object of ambition. It is enoughto be embalmed in the hearts of the people as a national benefactor, andto shine as a star of the first magnitude in the political firmament. 

AUTHORITIES. 

Carl Schurz's Life of Henry Clay is far the ablest and most interestingthat I have read. The Life of Clay by Colton is fuller and morepretentious, but is diffuse. Benton's Thirty Years in Congress should beconsulted; also the various Lives of Webster and Calhoun. See alsoWilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America. The writings ofthe political economists, like Sumner, Walker, Carey, and others, shouldbe consulted in reference to tariffs. The Life of Andrew Jackson shedslight on Clay's hostility to the hero of New Orleans. 

DANIEL WEBSTER. 

A. D. 1782-1852. 

THE AMERICAN UNION. 

If I were required to single out the most prominent political genius inthe history of the United States, after the death of Hamilton, I shouldsay it was Daniel Webster. He reigned for thirty years as a politicaldictator to his party, and at the same time was the acknowledged head ofthe American Bar. He occupied two spheres, in each of which he gainedpre-eminence. But for envy, and the enemies he made, he probably wouldhave reached the highest honor that the nation had to bestow. Hisinfluence was vast, until those discussions arose which provoked one ofthe most gigantic wars of modern times. For a generation he was theobject of universal admiration for his eloquence and power. In politicalwisdom and experience he had no contemporaneous superior; there was nopublic man from 1820 to 1850 who had so great a prestige, and whose nameand labors are so well remembered. His speeches and forensic argumentsare more often quoted than those of any other statesman and lawyer thecountry has produced. His works are in every library, and are stillread. His fame has not waned, in spite of the stirring events which havetaken place since his death. Great generals have arisen and passed outof mind, but the name and memory of Webster are still fresh. Amid thetumults and parties of the war he foresaw and dreaded, his glory mayhave passed through an eclipse, but his name is to-day one of theproudest connected with our history. Living men, occupying greatofficial positions, are of course more talked about and thought of thanhe; but of those illustrious characters who figured in public affairs ageneration ago, no one has so great a posthumous fame and influence asthe distinguished senator from Massachusetts. No man since the days ofJefferson is seated on a loftier pedestal; and no one is likely to livelonger, if not in the nation's heart, yet in its admiration forintellectual superiority and respect for political services. While hereigned as a political oracle for more than thirty years, --almost anidol in the eyes of his constituents, --it was his misfortune to bedethroned and reviled, in the last ten years of his life, by the verypeople who had exalted and honored him, and at last to diebroken-hearted, from the loss of his well-earned popularity and thefailure of his ambitious expectations. His life is sad as well asproud, like that of so many other great men who at one time led, and atanother time opposed, popular sentiments. Their names stand out on everypage of history, examples of the mutability of fortune, --alike joyousand saddened men, reaping both glory and shame; and sometimes glory forwhat is evil, and shame for what is good. 

When Daniel Webster was born, --1782, in Salisbury, New Hampshire, nearthe close of our Revolutionary struggle, ---there were very few prominentand wealthy families in New England, very few men more respectable thanthe village lawyers, doctors, and merchants, or even thrifty andintelligent farmers. Very few great fortunes had been acquired, andthese chiefly by the merchants of Boston, Salem, Portsmouth, and otherseaports whose ships had penetrated to all parts of the world Webstersprang from the agricultural class, --larger then in proportion to theother classes than now at the East, --at a time when manufactures were intheir infancy and needed protection; when travel was limited; when itwas a rare thing for a man to visit Europe; when the people were obligedto practise the most rigid economy; when everybody went to church; whenreligious scepticism sent those who avowed it to Coventry; whenministers were the leading power; when the press was feeble, andelections were not controlled by foreign immigrants; when men drank ruminstead of whiskey, and lager beer had never been heard of, nor thegreat inventions and scientific wonders which make our age an era hadanywhere appeared. The age of progress had scarcely then set in, andeverybody was obliged to work in some way to get an honest living; forthe Revolutionary War had left the country poor, and had shut up manychannels of industry. The farmers at that time were the most numerousand powerful class, sharp, but honest and intelligent; who honoredlearning, and enjoyed discussions on metaphysical divinity. Their sonsdid not then leave the paternal acres to become clerks in distantcities; nor did their daughters spend their time in reading Frenchnovels, or sneering at rustic duties and labors. This age of progresshad not arisen when everybody looks forward to a millennium of idlenessand luxury, or to a fortune acquired by speculation and gambling ratherthan by the sweat of the brow, --an age, in many important respects, justly extolled, especially for scientific discoveries and mechanicalinventions, yet not remarkable for religious earnestness or moralelevation. 

The life of Daniel Webster is familiar to all intelligent people. Hisearly days were spent amid the toils and blessedness of a New Englandfarm-house, favored by the teachings of intelligent, God-fearingparents, who had the means to send him to Phillips Academy in Exeter, then recently founded, where he fitted for college, and shortly afterentered Dartmouth, at the age of fifteen. In connection with Webster, Ido not read of any remarkable precocity, at school or college, such asmarked Cicero, Macaulay, and Gladstone; but it seems that he won theesteem of both teachers and students, and was regarded as a verypromising youth. After his graduation he taught an academy at Fryeburg, for a time, and then began the study of the law, --first at Salisbury, and subsequently in Boston, in the office of the celebrated GovernorGore. He was admitted to the bar in 1805, and established himself inBoscawen, but soon afterwards removed to Portsmouth, where he entered ona large practice, encountering such able lawyers as Jeremiah Mason andJeremiah Smith, who both became his friends and admirers, for Webster'slegal powers were soon the talk of the State. At the early age ofthirty-one he entered Congress (1813), and took the whole House bysurprise with his remarkable speeches, during the war with GreatBritain, --on such topics as the enlargement of the navy, the repeal ofthe embargo, and the complicated financial questions of the day. In 1815he retired awhile from public life, and removed to Boston, where heenjoyed a lucrative practice. In 1822 he re-entered Congress. So popularwas he at this time, that, on his re-election to Congress in 1824, hereceived four thousand nine hundred and ninety votes out of fivethousand votes cast. In 1827 he entered the Senate, where he was toreign as one of its greatest chiefs, --the idol of his party in NewEngland, practising his profession at the same time, a leader of theAmerican Bar, and an oracle in politics on all constitutional questions. 

With this rapid sketch, I proceed to enumerate the services of DanielWebster to his country, since on these enduring fame and gratitude arebased. And first, I allude to his career as a lawyer, --not a narrow, technical lawyer, seeking to gain his case any way he can, with an eyeon pecuniary rewards alone, but a lawyer devoting himself to the studyof great constitutional questions and fundamental principles. In hislegal career, when for nearly forty years he discussed almost everyissue that can arise between individuals and communities, somehalf-a-dozen cases have become historical, because of the importance ofthe principles and interests involved. In the Gibbons and Ogden case heassumed the broad ground that the grant of power to regulate commercewas exclusively the right of the General Government. William Wirt, hisdistinguished antagonist, --then at the height of his fame, --relied onthe coasting license given by States; but the lucid and luminousarguments of the young lawyer astonished the court, and made old JudgeMarshall lay down his pen, drop back in his chair, turn up hiscoat-cuffs, and stare at the speaker in amazement at his powers. 

The first great case which gave Webster a national reputation was thatpertaining to Dartmouth College, his _alma mater_, which he loved asNewton loved Cambridge. The college was in the hands of politicians, andWebster recovered the college from their hands and restored it to thetrustees, laying down such broad principles that every literary andbenevolent institution in this land will be grateful to him forever. This case, which was argued with consummate ability, and with words aseloquent as they were logical and lucid, melting a cold court intotears, placed Webster in the front rank of lawyers, which he kept untilhe died. In the Ogden and Saunders case he settled the constitutionalityof State bankrupt laws; in that of the United States Bank he maintainedthe right of a citizen of one State to perform any legal act in another;in that which related to the efficacy of Stephen Girard's will, hedemonstrated the vital importance of Christianity to the success of freeinstitutions, --so that this very college, which excluded clergymen frombeing teachers in it, or even visiting it, has since been presided overby laymen of high religious character, like Judge Jones and DoctorAllen. In the Rhode Island case he proved the right of a State to modifyits own institutions of government. In the Knapp murder case he broughtout the power of conscience--the voice of God to the soul--with suchterrible forensic eloquence that he was the admiration of all Christianpeople. No better sermon was ever preached than this appeal to theconscience of men. 

In these and other cases he settled very difficult and importantquestions, so that the courts of law will long be ruled by his wisdom. He enriched the science of jurisprudence itself by bringing out thefundamental laws of justice and equity on which the whole science rests. He was not as learned as he was logical and comprehensive. His greatnessas a lawyer consisted in seeing and seizing some vital point notobvious, or whose importance was not perceived by his opponent, and thenbringing to bear on this point the whole power of his intellect. Hisknowledge was marvellous on those points essential to his argument; buthe was not probably learned, like Kent, in questions outside hiscases, --I mean the details and technicalities of law. He did, however, know the fundamental principles on which his great cases turned, andthese he enforced with much eloquence and power, so that his ablestopponents quailed before him. Perhaps his commanding presence andpowerful tones and wonderful eye had something to do with his success atthe Bar as well as in the Senate, --a brow, a voice, and an eye thatmeant war when he was fairly aroused; although he appealed generally toreason, without tricks of rhetoric. If he sometimes intimidated, herarely resorted to exaggerations, but confined himself strictly to thefacts, so that he seemed the fairest of men. This moderation had greatweight with an intelligent jury and with learned judges. He always paidgreat deference to the court, and was generally courteous to hisopponents. Of all his antagonists at the Bar, perhaps it was JeremiahMason and Rufus Choate whom he most dreaded; yet both of these great menwere his warm friends. Warfare at the Bar does not mean personalanimosity, --it is generally mutual admiration, except in the antagonismof such rivals as Hamilton and Burr. Webster's admiration for Wirt, Pinkney, Curtis, and Mason was free from all envy; in fact, Webster wastoo great a man for envy, and great lawyers were those whom he lovedbest, whom he felt to be his brethren, not secret enemies. Hisadmiration for Jeremiah Mason was only equalled by that for JudgeMarshall, who was not a rival. Webster praised Marshall as he might haveErskine or Lyndhurst. 

Mr. Webster, again, attained to great eminence in another sphere, inwhich lawyers have not always succeeded, --that of popular oratory, inthe shape of speeches and lectures and orations to the people directly. In this sphere I doubt if he ever had an equal in this country, although Edward Everett, Rufus Choate, Wendell Phillips, and others weredistinguished for their popular eloquence, and in some respects were theequals of Webster. But he was a great teacher of the people, directly, --a sort of lecturer on the principles of government, offinance, of education, of agriculture, of commerce. He was superblyeloquent in his eulogies of great men like Adams and Jefferson. HisBunker Hill and Plymouth addresses are immortal. He lecturedoccasionally before lyceums and literary institutions. He spoke tofarmers in their agricultural meetings, and to merchants in marts ofcommerce. He did not go into political campaigns to any great extent, asis now the custom with political leaders on the eve of importantelections. He did not seek to show the people how they should vote, somuch as to teach them elemental principles. He was the oracle, the sage, the teacher, --not the politician. 

In the popular assemblies--whether for the discussion of politicaltruths or those which bear on literature, education, history, finance, or industrial pursuits--Mr. Webster was pre-eminent. What audiences wereever more enthusiastic than those that gathered to hear his wisdom andeloquence in public halls or in the open air? It is true that in hislater years he lost much of his wonderful personal magnetism, and didnot rise to public expectation except on great occasions; but in middlelife, in the earlier part of his congressional career, he had no peer asa popular orator. Edward Everett, on some occasions, was his equal, sofar as manner and words were concerned; but, on the whole, even in hisgrandest efforts, Everett was cold compared with Webster in his palmydays. He never touched the heart and reason as did Webster; although itmust be conceded that Everett was a great rhetorician, and was master ofmany of the graces of oratory. 

The speeches and orations of Webster were not only weighty in matter, but were wonderful for their style, --so clear, so simple, so direct, that everybody could understand him. He rarely attempted to express morethan one thought in a single sentence; so that his sentences neverwearied an audience, being always logical and precise, not involved andlong and complicated, like the periods of Chalmers and Choate and somany of the English orators. It was only in his grand perorations thathe was Ciceronian. He despised purely extemporary efforts; he did notbelieve in them. He admits somewhere that he never could make a goodspeech without careful preparation. The principles embodied in hisfamous reply to Colonel Hayne of South Carolina, in the debate in theSenate on the right of "nullification, " had lain brooding in his mindfor eighteen months. To a young minister he said, There is no suchthing as extemporaneous acquisition. 

Webster's speeches are likely to live for their style alone, outsidetheir truths, like those of Cicero and Demosthenes, like the historiesof Voltaire and Macaulay, like the essays of Pascal and Rousseau; andthey will live, not only for both style and matter, but for the exaltedpatriotism which burns in them from first to last, for those sentimentswhich consecrate cherished institutions. How nobly he recognizesChristianity as the bulwark of national prosperity! How delightfully hepresents the endearments of home, the certitudes of friendship, thepeace of agricultural life, the repose of all industrial pursuits, however humble and obscure! It was this fervid patriotism, this publicrecognition of what is purest in human life, and exalted in aspirations, and profound in experience, --teaching the value of our privileges andthe glory of our institutions, --which gave such effect to his eloquence, and endeared him to the hearts of the people until he opposed theirpassions. If we read any of these speeches, extending over thirty years, we shall find everywhere the same consistent spirit of liberty, ofunion, of conciliation, the same moral wisdom, the same insight intogreat truths, the same recognition of what is sacred, the same repose onwhat is permanent, the same faith in the expanding glories of this greatnation which he loved with all his heart. In all his speeches onecannot find a sentence which insults the consecrated sentiments ofreligion or patriotism. He never casts a fling at Christianity; he neverutters a sarcasm in reference to revealed truths; he never flippantlyaspires to be wiser than Moses or Paul in reference to theologicaldogmas. "Ah, my friends, " said he, in 1825, "let us remember that it isonly religion and morals and knowledge that can make men respectable andhappy under any form of government; that no government is respectablewhich is not just; that without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public principle, fidelity, and honor, no mere form ofgovernment, no machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society. "

Thus did he discourse in those proud days when he was accepted as anational idol and a national benefactor, --those days of triumph and ofvictory, when the people gathered around him as they gather around asuccessful general. Ah! how they thronged to the spot where he wasexpected to speak, --as the Scotch people thronged to Edinboro' andGlasgow to hear Gladstone:--

 "And when they saw his chariot but appear, Did they not make an universal shout, That Tiber trembled underneath her banks To hear the replication of their sounds Made in her concave shores?"

But it is time that I allude to those great services which Websterrendered to his country when he was a member of Congress, --services thatcan never be forgotten, and which made him a national benefactor. 

There were three classes of subjects on which his genius pre-eminentlyshone, --questions of finance, the development of American industries, and the defence of the Constitution. 

As early as 1815, Mr. Webster acquired a national reputation by hisspeech on the proposition to establish a national bank, which heopposed, since it was to be relieved from the necessity of redeeming itsnotes in specie. This was at the close of the war with Great Britain, when the country was poor, business prostrated, and the financesdisordered. To relieve this pressure, many wanted an inflated papercurrency, which should stimulate trade. But all this Mr. Websteropposed, as certain to add to the evils it was designed to cure. Hewould have a bank, indeed, but he insisted it should be established onsound financial principles, with notes redeemable in gold and silver. And he brought a great array of facts to show the certain and utterfailure of a system of banking operations which disregarded thefundamental financial laws. He maintained that an inflated currencyproduced only temporary and illusive benefits. Nor did he believe inhopes which were not sustained by experience. "Banks, " said he, "arenot revenue. They may afford facilities for its collection anddistribution, but they cannot be sources of national income, which mustflow from deeper fountains. Whatever bank-notes are not convertible intogold and silver, at the will of the holder, become of less value thangold and silver. No solidity of funds, no confidence in bankingoperations, has ever enabled them to keep up their paper to the value ofgold and silver any longer than they paid gold and silver on demand. "Similar sentiments he advanced, in 1816, in his speech on the legalcurrency, and also in 1832, when he said that a disordered currency isone of the greatest of political evils, --fatal to industry, frugality, and economy. "It fosters the spirit of speculation and extravagance. Itis the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich man's field bythe sweat of the poor man's brow. " In these days, when principles offinance are better understood, these remarks may seem like platitudes;but they were not so fifty or sixty years ago, for then they had theforce of new truth, although even then they were the result of politicalwisdom, based on knowledge and experience; and his views were adopted, for he appealed to reason. 

Webster's financial speeches are very calm, like the papers of Hamiltonand Jay in "The Federalist, " but as interesting and persuasive as thoseof Gladstone, the greatest finance-minister of modern times. They areplain, simple, direct, without much attempt at rhetoric. He spoke like agreat lawyer to a bench of judges. The solidity and soundness of hisviews made him greatly respected, and were remarkable in a young man ofthirty-four. The subsequent financial history of the country shows thathe was prophetic. All his predictions have come to pass. What is moremarked in our history than the extravagance and speculation attendingthe expansion of paper money irredeemable in gold and silver? Whatmisery and disappointment have resulted from inflated values! It wasdoubtless necessary to do without gold and silver in our life-and-deathstruggle with the South; but it was nevertheless a misfortune, seen inthe gambling operations and the wild fever of speculation which attendedthe immense issue of paper money after the war. The bubble was sure toburst, sooner or later, like John Law's Mississippi scheme in the timeof Louis XV. How many thousands thought themselves rich, in New York andChicago, in fact everywhere, when they were really poor, --as any man ispoor when his house or farm is not worth the mortgage. As soon as wereturned to gold and silver, or it was known we should return to them, then all values shrunk, and even many a successful merchant found he wasreally no richer than he was before the war. It had been easy to secureheavy mortgages on inflated values, and also to get a great interest oninvestments; but when these mortgages and investments shrank to whatthey were really worth, the holders of them became embarrassed andimpoverished. The fit of commercial intoxication was succeeded bydepression and unhappiness, and the moral evils of inflated values weregreater than the financial, since of all demoralizing things the spiritof speculation and gambling brings, at last, the most dismal train ofdisappointments and miseries. Inflation and uncertainty in values, whether in stocks or real estate, alternating with the return ofprosperity, seem to have marked the commercial and financial history ofthis country during the last fifty years, more than that of any othernation under the sun, and given rise to the spirit of extravagantspeculations, both disgraceful and ruinous. 

Equally remarkable were Mr. Webster's speeches on tariffs and protectiveindustries. He here seemed to borrow from Alexander Hamilton, who is thefather of our protective system. Here he co-operated with Henry Clay;and the result of his eloquence and wisdom on those great principles ofpolitical economy was the adherence to a policy--against greatopposition--which built up New England and did not impoverish the West. Where would the towns of Lowell, Manchester, and Lawrence have beenwithout the aid extended to manufacturing interests? They made thenation comparatively independent of other nations; they enriched thecountry, even as manufactures enriched Great Britain and France. Whatwould England be if it were only an agricultural country? It would havebeen impossible to establish manufactures of textile fabrics, withoutprotection. Without aid from governments, this branch of Americanindustry would have had no chance to contend with the cheap labor ofEuropean artisans. I do not believe in cheap labor. I do not believe inreducing intelligent people to the condition of animals. I would givethem the chance to rise; and they cannot rise if they are doomed tolabor for a mere pittance. The more wages men can get for honest labor, the better is the condition of the whole country. Withdraw protectionfrom infant industries, and either they perish, or those who work inthem sink to the condition of the laboring classes of Europe. Nor do Ibelieve it is a good thing for a nation to have all its eggs in onebasket. I would not make this country exclusively agricultural becausewe have boundless fields and can raise corn cheap, any more than I wouldrecommend a Minnesota farmer to raise nothing but wheat. Insects andmildews and unexpected heats may blast a whole harvest, and the farmerhas nothing to fall back upon. He may make more money, for a time, byraising wheat exclusively; but he impoverishes his farm. He should raisecattle and sheep and grass and vegetables, as well as wheat or corn. Then he is more independent and more intelligent, even as a nation is byvarious industries, which call out all kinds of talent. 

I know that this is a controverted point. Everything _is_ controvertedin political economy. There is scarcely a question which is settled inits whole range of subjects; and I know that many intellectual andenlightened men are in favor of what they call free-trade, especiallyprofessors in colleges. But there is no such thing as free-trade, strictly, in any nation, or in the history of nations. No nationlegislates for universal humanity on philanthropic principles; itlegislates for itself. There is no country where there are not highduties on some things, not even England. No nation can be governed onabstract principles and in disregard of its necessities. When it was forthe interest of England to remove duties on corn, in order thatmanufactures might be stimulated, they took off duties on corn, becausethe laboring-classes in the mills had to be fed. Agricultural interestsgave way, for a time, to manufacturing interests, because the wealth ofthe country was based on them rather than on lands, and becauselandlords did not anticipate that bread-stuffs brought from this countrywould interfere with the value of their rents. But England, with allher proud and selfish boasts about free-trade, may yet have to take aretrograde course, like France and Prussia, or her landed interests maybe imperilled. The English aristocracy, who rule the country, cannotafford to have the value of their lands reduced one-half, for thoselands are so heavily mortgaged that such a reduction of value would ruinthem; nor will they like to be forced to raise vegetables rather thanwheat, and turn themselves into market-gardeners instead of greatproprietors. The landlords of Great Britain may yet demand protectionfor themselves, and, as they control Parliament, they will look out forthemselves by enacting measures of protection, unless they areintimidated by the people who demand cheap bread, or unless they submitto revolution. It is eternal equity and wisdom that the weak should beprotected. There may be industries strong enough now to dispense withprotection; but unless they are assisted when they are feeble, they willcease to exist at all. Take our shipping, for instance, with foreignports, --it is not merely crippled, it is almost annihilated. Is itdesirable to cut off that great arm of national strength? Shall we marchon to our destiny, blind and lame and halt? What will we do if Englandand other countries shall find it necessary to protect themselves fromimpoverishment, and reintroduce duties on bread-stuffs high enough tomake the culture of wheat profitable? Where then will our farmers find amarket for their superfluous corn, except to those engaged in industrieswhich we should crush by removing protection?

I maintain that Mr. Webster, in defending our various industries with somuch ability, for the benefit of the nation on the whole, rendered veryimportant services, even as Hamilton and Clay did; although the solidSouth, wishing cheap labor, and engaged exclusively in agriculture, wasopposed to him. The independent South would have establishedfree-trade, --as Mr. Calhoun advocated, and as any enlightened statesmanwould advocate, when any interest can stand alone and defy competition, as was the case with the manufactures of Great Britain fifty years ago. The interests of the South and those of the North, under the institutionof slavery, were not identical; indeed, they had been in fierceopposition for more than fifty years. Mr. Webster was, in his argumentson tariffs and cognate questions, the champion of the North, as Mr. Calhoun was of the South; and this opposition and antagonism gave greatforce to Webster's eloquence at this time. His sentences are short, interrogative, idiomatic. He is intensely in earnest. He grapples withsophistries and scatters them to the winds; both reason and passionvivify him. 

This was the period of Webster's greatest popularity, as the defenderof Northern industries. This made him the idol of the merchants andmanufacturers of New England. He made them rich; no wonder they made himpresents. They ought, in gratitude, to have paid his debts over and overagain. What if he did, in straitened circumstances, accept their aid?They owed to him more than he owed to them; and with all their favor andbounty Webster remained poor. He was never a rich man, but always anembarrassed man, because he had expensive tastes, like Cicero at Romeand Bacon in England. This, truly, was not to his credit; it was a flawin his character; it involved him in debt, created enemies, and injuredhis reputation. It may have lessened his independence, and it certainlyimpaired his dignity. But there were also patriotic motives whichprompted him, and which kept him poor. Had he devoted his great talentsexclusively to the law, he might have been rich; but he gave his time tohis country. 

His greatest services to his country, however, were as the defender ofthe Constitution. Here he soared to the highest rank of political fame. Here he was a statesman, having in view the interests of the wholecountry. He never was what we call a politician. He never was such amiserable creature as that. I mean a mere politician, whose calling isthe meanest a man can follow, since it seeks only spoils, and is aperpetual deception, incompatible with all dignity and independence, whose only watchword is success. 

Not such was Webster. He was too proud and too dignified for that formof degradation; and he perhaps sacrificed his popularity to hisintellectual dignity, and the glorious consciousness of being a nationalbenefactor, --as a real statesman seeks to be, and is, when he falls backon the elemental principles of justice and morality, like a late Premierof England, one of the most conscientious statesmen that ever controlledthe destinies of a nation. Webster, like Burke, was haughty, austere, and brave; but such a man is not likely to remain the favorite of thepeople, who prefer an Alcibiades to a Cato, except in great crises, whenthey look to a man who can save them, and whom they can forget. 

I cannot enumerate the magnificent bursts of eloquence which electrifiedthe whole country when Webster stood out as the defender of theConstitution, when he combated secession and defended the Union. Hownoble and gigantic he was when he answered the aspersions of theSouthern orators, --great men as they were, --and elaborately showed thatthe Union meant something more than a league of sovereign States! Thegreat leaders of secession were overthrown in a contest which theycourted, and in which they expected victory. His reply to Hayne is, perhaps, the most masterly speech in American political history. It isone of the immortal orations of the world, extorting praise andadmiration from Americans and foreigners alike. In his variousencounters with Hayne, McDuffee, and Calhoun, he taught the principlesof political union to the rising generation. He produced thoseconvictions which sustained the North in its subsequent contest topreserve the integrity of the Nation. There can be no estimate of theservices he rendered to the country by those grand and patrioticefforts. But for these, the people might have succumbed to thesophistries of Calhoun; for he was almost as great a giant as Webster, and was more faultless in his private life. He had an immense influence;he ruled the whole South; he made it solid. The speeches of Webster inthe Senate made him the oracle of the North. He was not only the greatchampion of the North, and of Northern interests, but he was the teacherof the whole country. He expounded the principles of theConstitution, --that this great country is one, to be forever united inall its parts; that its stars and stripes were to float over every cityand fortress in the land, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from theriver St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and "bearing for their mottono such miserable interrogatory as, What are all these worth? nor thoseother words of delusion and folly, Liberty first and Union afterwards;but that other sentiment, dear to every American heart, Liberty andUnion, now and forever, one and inseparable!"

It was after his memorable speech in reply to Hayne that I saw Websterfor the first time. I was a boy in college, and he had come to visit it;and well do I remember the unbounded admiration, yea, the veneration, felt for him by every young man in that college and throughout thetown, --indeed, throughout the whole North, for he was the pride andglory of the land. It was then that they called him godlike, lookinglike an Olympian statue, or one of the creations of Michael Angelo whenhe wished to represent majesty and dignity and power in repose, --themost commanding human presence ever seen in the Capitol at Washington. 

When we recall those patriotic and noble speeches which were read andadmired by every merchant and farmer and lawyer in the country, and bywhich he produced great convictions and taught great lessons, we cannotbut wonder why his glory was dimmed, and he was pulled down from hispedestal, and became no longer an idol. It is affirmed by many that itwas his famous 7th of March speech which killed him, which disappointedhis friends and alienated his constituents. I am therefore compelled tosay something about that speech, and of his history at that time. 

Mr. Webster was doubtless an ambitious man. He aspired to thepresidency. And why not? It is and will be a great dignity, such asought to be conferred on great ability and patriotism. Was he not ableand patriotic? Had he not rendered great services? Was he notuniversally admired for his genius and experience and wisdom? Who wasmore prominent than he, among the statesmen of the country, or morethoroughly fitted to fulfil the duties of that high office? Was it notnatural that he should have aspired to be one of the successors ofWashington and Adams and Jefferson? He comprehended the honor and thedignity of that office. He did not seek it in order to divide itsspoils, or to reward his friends; but he did wish to secure the highestprize that could be won by political services; he did desire to receivethe highest honor in the gift of the people, even as Cicero sought theconsulate at Rome; he did believe himself capable of representing thecountry in its most exacting position. It is nothing against a man thathe is ambitious, provided his ambition is lofty. Most of the illustriousmen of history have been ambitious, --Cromwell, Pitt, Thiers, Guizot, Bismarck, --but ambitious to be useful to their country, as well as toreceive its highest rewards. Webster failed to reach the position hedesired, because of his enemies, and, possibly, from jealousy of histowering height, --just as Clay failed, and Aaron Burr, and AlexanderHamilton, and Stephen Douglas, and William H. Seward. The politicians, who control the people, prefer men in the presidential chair whom theythink they can manage and use, not those to whom they will be forced tosuccumb. Webster was not a man to be controlled or used, and so thepoliticians rejected him. This he deeply felt, and even resented. Hisfailure saddened his latter days and embittered his soul, although hewas too proud to make loud complaints. 

I grant he did not here show magnanimity. He thought that the presidencyshould be given to the ablest and most experienced statesman. He did notappear to see that this proud position is too commanding to be bestowedexcept for the most exalted services, and such services as attract thecommon eye, especially in war. Presidents in so great a country as thisreign, like the old feudal kings, by the grace of God. They are selectedby divine Providence, as David was from the sheepfold. No American, however great his genius, except the successful warrior, can ever hopeto climb to this dizzy height, unless personal ambition is lost sight ofin public services. This is wisely ordered, to defeat unscrupulousambition. It is only in England that a man can rise to supreme power byforce of genius, since he is selected virtually by his peers, and not bythe popular voice. He who leads Parliament is the real king of Englandfor the time, since Parliament is omnipotent. Had Webster been anEnglishman, and as powerful in the House of Commons as he was inCongress at one time, he might have been prime minister. But he couldnot be president of the United States, although the presidential poweris much inferior to that exercised by an English premier. It is thedignity of the office, not its power, which constitutes the value of thepresidency. And Webster loved dignity even more than power. 

In order to arrive at this coveted office, --although its duties probablywould have been irksome, --it is possible that he sought to conciliatethe South and win the favor of Southern leaders. But I do not believe heever sought to win their favor by any abandonment of his formerprinciples, or by any treachery to the cause he had espoused. Yet it isthis of which he has been accused by his enemies, --many of those enemieshis former friends. The real cause of this estrangement, and of all theaccusations against him, was this, --he did not sympathize with theAbolition party; he was not prepared to embark in a crusade againstslavery, the basal institution of the South. He did not like slavery;but he knew it to be an institution which the Constitution, of which hewas the great defender, had accepted, --accepted as a compromise, inthose dark days which tried men's souls. Many of the famous statesmenwho deliberated in that venerated hall in Philadelphia also disliked anddetested slavery; but they could not have had a constitution, they couldnot have had a united country, unless that institution was acknowledgedand guaranteed. So they accepted it as the lesser evil. They made acompromise, and the Constitution was signed. Now, everybody knows thatthe Abolitionists of the North, about the year 1833, attacked slavery, although it was guaranteed by the Constitution; attacked it, not as anevil merely, but as a sin; attacked it, by virtue of a higher law thanconstitutional provision. And as an evil, as a stain on our country, asan insult to the virtue and intelligence of the age, as a crime againsthumanity, these people of the North declared that slavery ought to beswept away. Mr. Webster, as well as Mr. Fillmore, Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Everett, and many other acknowledged patriots, was for letting slaveryalone, as an evil too great to be removed without war; which, moreover, could not be removed without an infringement on what the Southconsidered as its rights. He was for conciliation, in order to preservethe Constitution as well as the Union. The Abolitionists were violent intheir denunciations. And although it took many years to permeate theNorth with their leaven, they were in earnest; and under persecutionsand mobs and ostracism and contempt they persevered until they createda terrible public opinion. The South had early taken the alarm, and inorder to protect their peculiar and favorite institution, had at varioustimes attempted to extend it into newly acquired territories where itdid not exist, claiming the protection of the Constitution. Mr. Websterwas one of their foremost opponents in this, contesting their right todo it under the Constitution. But in 1848 the Antislavery opinion at theNorth crystallized in a political organization, --the Free-Soil Party;and on the other hand the South proposed to abrogate the MissouriCompromise of 1820 as an offset to the admission of California as a freeState, and at the same time asked in further concession the passage ofthe Fugitive Slave Bill; and, in anticipation of failing to get these, threatened secession, which of course meant war. 

It was at this crisis that Mr. Webster delivered his celebrated 7th ofMarch speech, --in many respects his greatest, --in which he advocatedconciliation and adherence to the Constitution, but which wasrepresented to support Southern interests, which all his life he hadopposed; and more, to advocate these interests, in order to secureSouthern votes for the presidency. Some of the rich and influential menof Boston who disliked Webster for other reasons, --for he used to snubthem, even after they had lent him money, --made the most they could ofthat speech, to alienate the people. The Abolitionists, at last hostileto Mr. Webster, who stood in their way and would not adopt theirdictation or advice, also bitterly denounced this speech, until itfinally came to be regarded by the common people, few of whom ever readit, as a very unpatriotic production, entirely at variance with theviews that Webster formerly advanced; and they forsook him. 

Now, what is the real gist and spirit of that speech? The passions whichagitated the country when it was delivered have passed away, and notonly can we now calmly criticise it, but people will listen to thecriticism with all the attention it deserves. 

It is my opinion, shared by Peter Harvey and other friends of Mr. Webster, that in no speech he ever made are patriotic and Unionsentiments more fully avowed. Said he, with fiery emphasis:--

"I hear with distress and anguish the word 'secession. ' Secession!peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to seethat miracle. The dismemberment of this great country withoutconvulsion! The breaking up the fountains of the great deep withoutruffling the surface! There can be no such thing as peaceable secession. It is an utter impossibility. Is this great Constitution, under which welive, to be melted and thawed away by secession, as the snows on themountains are melted away under the influence of the vernal sun? No, sir; I see as plainly as the sun in the heavens what that disruptionmust produce. I see it must produce war. "

"Peaceable secession! peaceable secession! What would be the result?Where is the line to be drawn? What States are to secede? What is toremain American? What am I to be? Am I to be an American no longer, --asectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no country in common?Heaven forbid! Where is the flag of the Union to remain? Where is theeagle still to tower? What is to become of the army? What is to becomeof the navy? What is to become of the public lands? How is each of thethirty States to defend itself? Will you cut the Mississippi in two, leaving free States on its branches and slave States at its mouth? Canany one suppose that this population on its banks can be severed by aline that divides them from the territory of a foreign and aliengovernment, down somewhere, --the Lord knows where, --upon the lowerbranches of the Mississippi? Sir, I dislike to pursue this subject. Ihave utter disgust for it. I would rather hear of national blasts andmildews and pestilence and famine, than hear gentlemen talk aboutsecession. To break up this great government! To dismember this gloriouscountry! To astonish Europe with an act of folly, such as Europe for twocenturies has never beheld in any government! No, sir; such talk isenough to make the bones of Andrew Jackson turn round in his coffin. "

Now, what are we to think of these sentiments, drawn from the 7th ofMarch speech, so disgracefully misrepresented by the politicians andthe fanatics? Do they sound like bidding for Southern votes? Can anyUnion sentiments be stronger? Can anything be more decided or morepatriotic? He warns, he entreats, he predicts like a prophet. He provesthat secession is incompatible with national existence; he sees nothingin it but war. And of all things he dreaded and hated, it was war. Heknew what war meant. He knew that a civil war would be the direstcalamity. He would ward it off. He would be conciliating. He would takeaway the excuse of war, by adhering to the Constitution, --the writtenConstitution which our fathers framed, and which has been the admirationof the world, under which we have advanced to prosperity and glory as nonation ever before advanced. 

But a large class regarded the Constitution as unsound, in some respectsa wicked Constitution, since it recognized slavery as an institution. By"the higher law, " they would sweep slavery away, perhaps by moral means, but by endless agitations, until it was destroyed. Mr. Webster, Iconfess, did not like those agitations, since he knew they would end inwar. He had a great insight, such as few people had at that time. Buthis prophetic insight was just what a large class of people did notlike, especially in his own State. He uttered disagreeable truths, --asall prophets do, --and they took up stones to stone him, --to stone himfor the bravest act of his whole life, in which a transcendent wisdomappeared, and which will be duly honored when the truth shall be seen. 

The fact was, at that time Mr. Webster seemed to be a croaker, aJeremiah, as Burke at one time seemed to his generation, when hedenounced the recklessness of the French Revolution. Very few people atthe North dreamed of war. It was never supposed that the Southernleaders would actually become rebels. And they, on the other hand, neverdreamed that the North would rise up solidly and put them down. And ifwar were to happen, it was supposed that it would be brief. Even sogreat and sagacious a statesman as Seward thought this. The Souththought that it could easily whip the Yankees; and the North thoughtthat it could suppress a Southern rebellion in six weeks. Both sidesmiscalculated. And so, in spite of warnings, the nation drifted intowar; but as it turned out in the end it seems a providential event, --the way God took to break up slavery, the root and source of all oursectional animosities; a terrible but apparently necessary catastrophe, since more than a million of brave men perished, and more than fivethousand millions of dollars were spent. Had the North been wise, itwould have compensated the South for its slaves. Had the South beenwise, it would have accepted the compensation and set them free, But itwas not to be. That issue could only be settled by the most terriblecontest of modern times. 

I will not dwell on that war, which Webster predicted and dreaded. Ionly wish to show that it was not for want of patriotism that he becameunpopular, but because he did not fall in with the prevailing passionsof the day, or with the public sentiment of the North in reference toslavery, not as to its evils and wickedness, but as to the way in whichit was to be opposed. The great reforms of England, since the accessionof William III. , have been effected by using constitutional means, --notviolence, not revolution, not war; but by an appeal to reason andintelligence and justice. No reforms in any nation have been greater andmore glorious than those of the nineteenth century, --all effected byconstitutional methods. Mr. Webster vainly attempted constitutionalmeans. He was a lawyer. He reverenced the Constitution, with all itscompromises. He would observe the law of contracts. Yet no man in thenation was more impatient than he at the threats of secession. Heforetold that secession would lead to war. And if Mr. Webster had livedto see the war of which he had such anxious prescience, I firmly believethat he would have marched under the banner of the North with patriotismequal to any man. He would have been where Mr. Everett was. One of hisown sons was slain in that war. He was not a Northern man with Southernprinciples; his whole life attested his Northern principles. There neverwas a time when he was not hated and mistrusted by the Southern leaders. It is not a proof that he was Southern in his sympathies because he wasnot an Abolitionist; and by an Abolitionist I mean what was meant thirtyyears ago, --one who was unscrupulously bent on removing slavery by anymeans, good or bad; since slavery, in his eyes, was a _malum per se_, not a misfortune, an evil, a sin, but a crime to be washed out by thebesom of destruction. 

Mr. Webster did not sympathize with these extreme views. He was not areformer; but that does not show that he was unpatriotic, or a Southernman in his heart. "The higher law, " to him, was the fulfilment of acontract; the maintenance of promises made in good faith, whether thosepromises were wise or foolish; the observance of laws so long as theywere laws. There was, undeniably, a great evil and shame to be removed, but he was not responsible for it; and he left that evil in the hands ofHim who said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, "--as He did repay infour years' devastations, miseries, and calamities, and these so awful, so unexpected, so ill-prepared for, that a thoughtful and kind-heartedperson, in view of them, will weep rather than rejoice; for it is notpleasant to witness chastisements and punishments, even if necessaryand just, unless the people who suffer are fiends and incarnate devils, as very few men are. Human nature is about the same everywhere, andindividuals and nations peculiarly sinful are generally made so by theirsurroundings and circumstances. The reckless people of frontier miningdistricts are not naturally worse than adventurers in New York orPhiladelphia; nor is any vulgar and ignorant man, in any part of thecountry, suddenly made rich, probably any coarser in his pleasures, ormore sensual in his appearance, or more profane in his language, thanwas Vitellius, or Heliogabalus, or Otho, on an imperial throne. 

But even suppose Mr. Webster, in the decline of his life, intoxicated byhis magnificent position or led astray by ambition, made seriouspolitical errors. What then? All great men have made errors, both injudgment and in morals, --Caesar, when he crossed the Rubicon;Theodosius, when he slaughtered the citizens of Thessalonica; Luther, when he quarrelled with Zwingli; Henry IV. , when he stooped at Canossa;Elizabeth, when she executed Mary Stuart; Cromwell, when he bequeathedabsolute power to his son; Bacon, when he took bribes; Napoleon, when hedivorced Josephine; Hamilton, when he fought Burr. The sun itself passesthrough eclipses, as it gives light to the bodies which revolve aroundit. Even David and Peter stumbled. Because Webster professed to know asmuch of the interests of the country as the shoemakers of Lynn, andrefused to be instructed in his political duties by Garrison and WendellPhillips, does he deserve eternal reprobation? Because he opposed thepublic sentiments of his constituents on one point, when perhaps theywere right, is he to be hurled from his lofty pedestal? Are all hisservices to be forgotten because he did not lift up his trumpet voice infavor of immediate emancipation? And even suppose he sought toconciliate the South when the South was preparing for rebellion, --ispeace-making such a dreadful thing? Go still farther: suppose he wishedto conciliate the South in order to get Southern support for thepresidency--which I grant he wanted, and possibly sought, --is he to beunforgiven, and his name to be blasted, and he held up to the risinggeneration as a fallen man? Does a man fall hopelessly because hestumbles? Is a man to be dethroned because he is not perfect? When wasWebster's vote ever bought and sold? Who ever sat with more dignity inthe councils of the nation? Would he have voted for "back pay"? Would hehave bought a seat in the Senate, even if he had been as rich as abonanza king?

Consider how few errors Webster really committed in a public career ofnearly forty years. Consider the beneficence and wisdom of the measureswhich he generally advocated, and which would have been lost but forhis eloquence and power. Consider the greatness and lustre of hiscongressional career on the whole. Who has proved a greater benefactorto this nation, on the floor of Congress, than he? I do not wish toeulogize, still less to whitewash, so great a man, but only to rendersimple justice to his memory and deeds. The time has come to lift theveil which for thirty years has concealed his noble political services. The time has come to cry shame on those boys who mocked a prophet, andsaid, "Go up, thou bald-head!"--although no bears were found to devourthem. The time has come for this nation to bury the old slanders of anexciting political warfare, and render thanks for the services performedby the greatest intellectual giant of the past generation, --servicesrendered not on the floor of the Senate alone, not in the nationallegislature for thirty years, but in one of the great offices of State, when he made a treaty with England which saved us from an entanglingwar. The Ashburton treaty is the brightest gem in the coronet with whichhe should be crowned. It was the proudest day in Webster's life whenRufus Choate announced to him one evening that the Senate had confirmedthe treaty. It was not when he closed his magnificent argument in behalfof Dartmouth College, not when he addressed the intelligence of NewEngland at Bunker Hill, not when he demolished Governor Hayne, not whenhe sat on the woolsack with Lord Brougham, not when he was entertainedby Louis Philippe, that the proudest emotions swelled in his bosom, butwhen he learned that he had prevented a war with England, --for he knewthat England and America could not afford to fight; that it would be afight where gain is loss and glory is shame. 

At last, worn out with labor and disease, and perhaps embittered bydisappointment, and saddened to see the increasing tendency to elevatelittle men to power, --the "grasshoppers, who make the field ring withtheir importunate chinks, while the great cattle chew the cud and aresilent, "--Webster died at Marshfield, Oct. 24, 1852, at seventy years ofage. At the time he was Secretary of State. He died in the consolationsof a religion in which he believed, surrounded with loving friends; andeven his enemies felt that a great man in Israel had fallen. Nothingthen was said of his defects, for great defects he had, --a toweringintellectual pride like Chatham, an austerity like Gladstone, passionslike those of Mirabeau, extravagance like that of Cicero, indifferenceto pecuniary obligations, like Pitt and Fox and Sheridan; but these wereoverbalanced by the warmth of his affections for his faithful friends, simplicity of manners and taste, courteous treatment of opponents, dignity of character, kindness to the poor, hospitality, enjoyment ofrural scenes and sports, profound religious instincts, devotion to whathe deemed the welfare of his country, independence of opinions andboldness in asserting them at any hazard and against all opposition, andunbounded contempt of all lies and shams and tricks. These traits willmake his memory dear to all who knew him. And as Florence, too late, repented of her ingratitude to Dante, and appointed her most learned mento expound the "Divine Comedy" when he was dead, so will the writings ofWebster be more and more a study among lawyers and statesmen. His famewill spread, and grow wider and greater, like that of Bacon and Burke, and of other benefactors of mankind; and his ideas will not pass awayuntil the glorious fabric of American institutions, whose foundationswere laid by God-fearing people, shall be utterly destroyed, and theCapitol, where his noblest efforts were made, shall become a mass ofbroken and prostrate columns beneath the débris of the nation's ruin!No, not then shall they perish, even if such gloomy changes arepossible, any more than the genius of Cicero has faded among the ruinsof the Eternal City; but they shall shine upon the most distant works ofman, since they are drawn from the wisdom of all preceding generations, and are based on those principles which underlie all possiblecivilizations!

AUTHORITIES. 

The Works of Daniel Webster, in eight octavo volumes, including hisspeeches, addresses, orations, and legal arguments; Life of DanielWebster, by G. T. Curtis; Private Correspondence, edited by F. Webster;Private Life, by C. Lanman; C. W. March's Reminiscences of Congress;Peter Harvey's Reminiscences and Anecdotes; Edward Everett's Oration onthe Unveiling of the Statue in Boston; R. C. Winthrop and Evarts, on thesame occasion in New York; Contemporaneous Lives of Clay, Calhoun, andBenton; the great Oration on Webster by Rufus Choate at DartmouthCollege; J. Barnard's Life and Character of Daniel Webster; E. P. Whipple's Essay on Webster; Eulogies on the Death of Webster, especiallythose by G. S. Hillard, L. Woods, A. Taft, R. D. Hitchcock, and TheodoreParker, also Addresses and Orations on the One Hundredth Anniversary ofWebster's Birth, too numerous to mention, ---especially the address ofSenator Bayard at Dartmouth College. The complete and exhaustive Life ofWebster is yet to be written, although the most prominent of hiscontemporaries have had something to say. 

JOHN C. CALHOUN. 

1782-1850. 

THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 

The extraordinary abilities of John C. Calhoun, the great influence heexerted as the representative of Southern interests in the NationalLegislature, and especially his connection with the Slavery Question, make it necessary to include him among the statesmen who, for evil orgood, have powerfully affected the destinies of the United States. He isa great historical character, --the peer of Webster and Clay incongressional history, and more unsullied than either of them in thevirtues of private life. In South Carolina he was regarded as littleless than a demigod, and until the antislavery agitation began he wasviewed as among the foremost statesmen of the land. His elevation tocommanding influence in Congress was very rapid, and but for hisidentification with partisan interests and a bad institution, there wasno office in the gift of the nation to which he could not reasonablyhave aspired. 

John Caldwell Calhoun was born in 1782, of highly respectableProtestant-Irish descent, in the Abbeville District in South Carolina. He was not a patrician, according to the ideas of rich planters. He hadbut a slender school education in boyhood, but was prepared for collegeby a Presbyterian clergyman, entered the Junior Class of Yale College in1802, and was graduated with high honors. He chose the law for hisprofession, studied laboriously for three years, spending eighteenmonths at the then famous law school at Litchfield, Connecticut, andgave great promise, in his remarkable logical powers, of becoming aneminent lawyer. 

Whatever abilities Mr. Calhoun may have had for the law, it does notappear that he practised it long, or to any great extent. His taste andhis genius inclined him to politics. And, having married a lady withsome fortune, he had sufficient means to live without professionaldrudgery. After serving a short time in the State Legislature of SouthCarolina, he was elected a member of Congress, and took his seat in theHouse of Representatives in 1811, at the age of twenty-nine. From thevery first his voice was heard. He made a speech in favor of raising tenthousand additional men to our army to resist the encroachments of GreatBritain and prepare for hostilities should the country drift into war. It was an able speech for a young man, and its scornful repudiation ofreckoning the costs of war against insult and violated rights had achivalric ring about it: "Sir, I here enter my solemn protest against alow and calculating avarice entering this hall of legislation. It isonly fit for shops and counting-houses. .. . It is a compromising spirit, always ready to yield a part to save the residue. " Here at an early datewe hear the key-note of his life, --hatred of compromises andhalf-measures. If it were necessary to go to war at all, he would fightregardless of expense. 

Thus Calhoun began his public career as an advocate of war with GreatBritain. The old Revolutionary sores had not yet had time to heal, andthere was general hostility to England, except among the Virginiaaristocrats and the Federalists of the North. Although a young man, Calhoun was placed upon the important committee of Foreign Affairs, ofwhich he was soon made chairman. 

Calhoun's early speeches in Congress gave promise of rare abilities. Themost able of them were those on the repeal of the Embargo, in 1814; onthe commercial convention with Great Britain in 1816; on the UnitedStates Bank Bill and the tariff the same year; and on the InternalImprovement Bill in 1817. The main subject which occupied Congress from1812 to 1814 was the war with Great Britain, during the administrationof Madison; and afterwards, till 1817, the great questions at issue werein reference to tariffs and internal improvements. 

In the discussion of these subjects Calhoun took broad and patrioticground. At that time we see no sectional interests predominating in hismind. He favored internal improvements, great permanent roads, and eventhe protection of manufactures, and a National Bank. On all thesequestions his sectional interests at a later day led him to support theexact opposite of these early national views. Says Von Holst: "Hisspeech on the new tariff bill (April 6, 1816) was a long and carefullyprepared argument in favor of the whole economical platform on which theWhig party stood to the last day of its existence. .. . Even Henry Clayand Horace Greeley have not been able to put their favorite doctrineinto stronger language. .. . His final aim was the industrial independenceof the United States from Europe; and this, he thought, could beobtained by protective duties. "

Calhoun's speeches, during the six years that he was a member of theHouse of Representatives, were so able as to attract the attention ofthe nation, and in 1817 Monroe selected him as his Secretary of War. Andhe made a good executive officer in this branch of the public service, putting things to rights, and bringing order out of confusion, living onterms of friendship with John Quincy Adams and other members of thecabinet, planning military roads, introducing a system of strict economyin his department, and making salutary reforms. He tolerated no abuses. He was disposed to do justice to the Indians, and raise them from theirdegradation, even seeking to educate them, when it was more thanprobable that they would return to their barbaric habits, --a race, as itwould seem from experience, very difficult to civilize. Adams thus spokeof his young colleague: "Mr. Calhoun is a man of fair and candid mind, of honorable principles, of quick and clear understanding, of coolself-possession, of enlarged philosophical views, and of ardentpatriotism. He is above all sectional and factious prejudices more thanany other statesman of this Union with whom I have ever acted, "--a verydifferent verdict from what he wrote in his diary in 1831. Judge Storywrote of him in 1823 in these terms: "I have great admiration for Mr. Calhoun, and think few men have more enlarged and liberal views of thetrue policy of the national government. "

The post he held, however, was not Calhoun's true arena, but one whichan ambitious young man of thirty-five could not well decline, from thehonor it brought. The secretaryship of war is the least important of allthe cabinet offices in time of peace, and was especially so when thearmy was reduced to six thousand men. Its functions amounted to littlemore than sending small detachments to military posts, making contractsfor the commissariat, visiting occasionally the forts andfortifications, and making a figure in Washington society. It furnishedno field for extensive operations, or the exercise of remarkablequalities of mind. But inasmuch as it made Calhoun a member of thecabinet, it gave him an opportunity to express his mind on all nationalissues, and exercise an influence on the President himself. It did notmake him prominent in the eyes of the nation. He was simply the head ofa bureau, although an important personage in the eyes of the cadets ofWest Point and of some lazy lieutenants stationed among the Indians. Butwhatever the part he was required to play, he did his duty, showedability, and won confidence. He doubtless added to his reputation, elsehe would not have been talked about as a candidate for the presidency, selected as a candidate for the vice-presidency, and chosen to thatposition by Northern votes, as he was in 1824, when the election wasthrown into the House of Representatives, and the friends of Henry Claymade Adams, instead of Jackson, President. Calhoun's popularity with allparties resulted in his election as vice-president by a very largepopular vote. He deserved it. The day had not come for the ascendency ofmere politicians, and their division of the spoils of office. 

The condition of the slaveholding States at this period was mostprosperous. The culture of cotton had become exceedingly lucrative. Richplanters spent their summers at the North in luxurious independence. Itwas the era of general "good feeling. " No agitating questions hadarisen. Young men at the South sought education in the New Englandcolleges; manufacturing interests were in their infancy, and had not, asyet, excited Southern jealousy. Commercial prosperity in New England wasthe main object desired, although the war with Great Britain had proveddisastrous to it. Political influence seemed to centre in the SouthernStates. These States had furnished four presidents out of five. Thegreat West had not arisen in its might; it had no great cities: butCharleston and Boston were centres of culture and wealth, and on goodterms with each other, both equally free from agitating questions, andboth equally benignant to the institution of slavery, which theConstitution was supposed to have made secure forever. The Adamsadministration was notable for nothing but beginnings of the tariffquestion and the protectionist Act of 1828, the growth of the Democraticparty, the final intensity of the presidential campaign of 1828, and theelection of Jackson, with Calhoun as Vice-president. 

As the incumbent of this office for two terms, Mr. Calhoun did not makea great mark in history. His office was one of dignity and not of power;but during his vice-presidency important discussions took place inCongress which placed him, as presiding officer of the Senate, in anembarrassing position. He was between two fires, and gradually becamealienated from the two opposing parties to whom he owed his election. Hecould go neither with Adams nor with Jackson on public measures, andboth interfered with his aspirations for the presidency. His personalrelations with Jackson, who had been his warm friend and supporter, became strained after his second election as Vice-President. He tookpart against Jackson in the President's undignified attempt to force hiscabinet to recognize the social position of Mrs. Eaton. Further, it wasdivulged by Crawford, who had been Secretary of the Treasury in Monroe'scabinet when Calhoun was Secretary of War, that the latter had in 1818favored a censure of Jackson for his unauthorized seizure of Spanishterritory in the Florida campaign during the Seminole War; and thisincreased the growing animosity. What had been an alienation between thetwo highest officers of the government ripened into intense hatred, which was fatal to the aspirations of Calhoun for the presidency; for noman could be President against the overpowering influence of Jackson. This was a bitter disappointment to Calhoun, for he had set his hearton being the successor of Jackson in the presidential chair. 

There were two subjects which had arisen to great importance during Mr. Calhoun's terms of executive office which not only blasted his prospectsfor the presidency, but separated him forever from his former friendsand allies. 

One of these was the tariff question, which gave him great uneasiness. He opened his eyes to see that protection and internal improvements, soably advocated by Henry Clay, and even by himself in 1816, were becomingthe policy of the government to the enriching of the North. True, it wasonly an economical question, but it seemed to him to lay the axe to theroot of Southern prosperity. It was his settled conviction that tariffsfor protection would increase the burdens of the South by raising theprice of all those articles which it was compelled to buy, and thatlarge profits on articles manufactured in the United States would onlyenrich the Northern manufacturers. The South, being an agriculturalcountry exclusively, naturally sought to buy in the cheapest market, andtherefore wanted no tariff except for revenue. When Mr. Calhoun saw thatprotectionist duties were an injury to the slaveholding States hereversed entirely his former opinions. And what influence he couldexert as the presiding officer of the Senate was now displayed againstthe Adams party, which had favored his election to the vice-presidency, and of course alienated his Northern supporters, especially Adams, whonow turned against him, and as bitterly denounced as once he had favoredand praised him. Calhoun had now both the Jackson and Adams partiesagainst him, though for different reasons. 

Up to this time, until the agitation of the tariff question began, Mr. Calhoun had not been a party man. He was regarded throughout the countryas a statesman, rather than as a politician. 

But when manufactures of cotton and woollen goods were being establishedin Lowell, Lawrence, Dover, Great Falls, and other places in NewEngland, wherever there was a water-power to turn the mills, it becameobvious that a new tariff would be imposed to protect these infantindustries and manufacturing interests everywhere. The tariff of 1824had borne heavily on the South, producing great irritation, and verynaturally "the planters complained that they had to bear all the burdensof protection without enjoying its benefits, --that the things they hadto buy had become dearer, while the things produced and exported found aless market. " Financial ruin stared them in the face. It seemed to thema great injustice that the interests of the planters should besacrificed to the monopolists of the North. 

In the defence of Southern interests Mr. Calhoun in the Senate at firstappealed to reason and patriotism. It is true that he now became apartisan, but he had been sent to Congress as the champion of the cottonlords. He was no more unpatriotic than Webster, who at first, as therepresentative of the merchants of Boston, advocated freer trade in theinterests of commerce, and afterwards, as the representative ofMassachusetts at large, turned round and advocated protective duties forthe benefit of the manufacturer. It is a nice question, as to where aCongressman should draw the line of advocacy between local and generalinterests. What are men sent to Congress for, except to advance theinterests intrusted to them by their constituents? When are these to bemerged in national considerations? Calhoun's mission was to protectSouthern interests, and he defended them with admirable logical power. He was one of three great masters of debate in the Senate. No one couldreasonably blame him for the opinions he advanced, for he had a right tothem; and if he took sectional ground he did as most party leaders do. It was merely a congressional fight. 

But when, after the tariff of 1828, it appeared to Calhoun that therewas no remedy; that protection had become the avowed and permanentpolicy of the government; that the tobacco and cotton of the South, being the chief bulk of our exports, were paying tribute to Northernmanufactures, which were growing strong under protection of Federaltaxes on competing imports; and that the South was menaced withfinancial ruin, --he took a new departure, the first serious politicalerror of his life, and became disloyal to the Union. 

In July, 1831, he made an elaborate address to the people of SouthCarolina, in which, discussing the theoretical relations of the Statesto the Union, he put forth the doctrine that any State could nullify thelaws of Congress when it deemed them unconstitutional, as he regardedthe existing tariff to be. He looked upon the State, rather than theUnion of States, as supreme, and declared that the State could secede ifthe Union enforced unconstitutional measures. This, as Von Hoist pointsout, practically meant that, "whenever different views are entertainedabout the powers conferred by the Constitution upon the Federalgovernment, those of the _minority_ were to prevail, "--an evidentabsurdity under a republican government. 

In June, 1832, was passed another tariff bill, offering some reductions, but still based on protection as the underlying principle. Inconsequence, South Carolina, entirely subservient to the influence ofCalhoun, who in August issued another manifesto, passed in November thenullification ordinance, to take effect the following February. Asalready recited, President Jackson took the most vigorous measures, sustained by Congress, and gave the nullifiers clearly to understandthat if they resisted the laws of the United States, the whole power ofthe government would be arrayed against them. They received theproclamation defiantly, and the governor issued a counter one. 

It was in this crisis that Calhoun resigned the vice-presidency, and wasimmediately elected to the United States Senate, where he could fightmore advantageously. Then the President sent a message to Congressrequesting new powers to put down the nullifiers by force, should thenecessity arrive, which were granted, for he was now at the height ofhis popularity and influence. The nullifiers enraged him, and thoughthey abstained from resorting to extreme measures, they continued theirthreats. The country appeared to be on the verge of war. 

The party leaders felt the necessity of a compromise, and Henry Claybrought forward in the Senate a bill which, in March, 1833, became alaw, which reduced the tariff. It apparently appeased the South, not yetprepared to go out of the Union, and the storm blew over. There was nodoubt, however, that, had the South Carolinians resisted the governmentwith force of arms they would have been put down, for Jackson was bothInfuriated and firm. He had even threatened to hang Calhoun as high asHaman, --an absurd threat, for he had no power to hang anybody, exceptone with arms in his hands, --and then only through due process oflaw, --while Calhoun was a Senator, as yet using only legitimate means togain his ends. 

In the compromise which Clay effected, the South had the best of thebargain, and in view of it the culmination of the "irrepressibleconflict" was delayed nearly thirty years. Calhoun himself maintainedthat the Compromise Tariff of 1833 was due to the resistance which hisState had made, but he also felt that the Force Bill with which Congresshad backed up the President was a standing menace, and, as usual withhim, he looked forward to impending dangers. The Compromise Tariff, which reduced duties to twenty per cent in the main, and made provisionfor still further reduction, found great opponents in the Senate, andwas regarded by Webster as anything but a protection bill; nor wasCalhoun altogether satisfied with it. It was received with favor by thecountry generally, however, and South Carolina repealed hernullification ordinance. 

That subject being disposed of for the present, the attention ofCongress and the country was now turned to the President's war on theUnited States Bank. As this most important matter has already beentreated in the lecture on Jackson, I have only to show the course Mr. Calhoun took in reference to it. He was now fifty-three years old, inthe prime of his life and the full vigor of his powers. In the Senate hehad but two peers, Clay and Webster, and was not in sympathy with eitherof them, though not in decided hostility as he was toward Jackson. Hewas now neither Whig nor Democrat, but a South Carolinian, having inview the welfare of the South alone, of whose interests he was therecognized guardian. It was only when questions arose which did notdirectly bear on Southern interests that he was the candid and patrioticstatesman, sometimes voting with one party and sometimes with another. He was opposed to the removal of deposits from the United States Bank, and yet was opposed to a renewal of its charter. His leading idea inreference to the matter was, the necessity of divorcing the governmentaltogether from the banking system, as a dangerous money-power whichmight be perverted to political purposes. In pointing out the dangers, he spoke with great power and astuteness, for he was always on thelook-out for breakers. He therefore argued against the removal ofdeposits as an unwarrantable assumption of power on the part of thePresident, which could not be constitutionally exercised; here heagreed with his great rivals, while he was more moderate than they inhis language. He made war on measures rather than on men personally, regarding the latter as of temporary importance, of passing interest. Sofar as the removal of deposits seemed an arbitrary act on the part ofthe Executive, he severely denounced it, as done with a view to graspunconstitutional power for party purposes, thus corrupting the country, and as a measure to get control of money. Said he: "With money we willget partisans, with partisans votes, and with votes money, is the maximof our political pilferers. " He regarded the measure as a part of the"spoils system" which marked Jackson's departure from the policy of hispredecessors. 

Calhoun detested the system of making politics a game, since it wouldthrow the government into the hands of political adventurers and meremachine-politicians. He was too lofty a man to encourage anything likethis, and here we are compelled to do him honor. Whatever he said or didwas in obedience to his convictions. He was above and beyond all deceitand trickery and personal selfishness. His contempt for politicalwire-pullers amounted almost to loathing. He was incapable of doing amean thing. He might be wrong in his views, and hence might do evilinstead of good, but he was honest. In his severe self-respect and colddignity of character he resembled William Pitt. His integrity waspeerless. He could neither be bought nor seduced from his course. Private considerations had no weight with him, except his aspiration forthe presidency, and even that seems to have passed away when hisdisagreement with Jackson put him out of the Democratic race, and whenthe new crisis arose in Southern interests, to which he ever afterdevoted himself with entire self-abnegation. 

In moral character Calhoun was as reproachless as Washington. He neitherdrank to excess, nor gambled, nor violated the seventh commandment. Hehad no fellowship with either fools or knaves. He believed that theoffice of Senator was the highest to which Americans could ordinarilyattain, and he gave dignity to it, and felt its responsibilities. Hethought that only the best and most capable men should be elevated tothat post. Nor would he seek it by unworthy ends. The office sought him, not he the office. It was this pure and exalted character which gave himsuch an ascendency at the South, as much as his marvellous logicalpowers and his devotion to Southern interests. His constituents believedin him and followed him, perhaps blindly. Therefore, when we considerwhat are generally acknowledged as his mistakes, we should bear in mindthe palliating circumstances. 

Calhoun was the incarnation of Southern public opinion, --bigoted, narrow, prejudiced, but intense in its delusions and loyal to itsdogmas. Hence he enslaved others as he was himself enslaved. He wasalike the idol and the leader of his State, impossible to be dethroned, as Webster was with the people of Massachusetts until he misrepresentedtheir convictions. The consistency of his career was marvellous, --notthat he did not change some of his opinions, for there is nointellectual progress to a man who does not. How can a young man, however gifted, be infallible? But whatever the changes through whichhis mind passed, they did not result from self-interest or ambition, butwere the result of more enlightened views and enlarged experience. Political wisdom is not a natural instinct, but a progressive growth, like that of Burke, --the profoundest of all the intellects of hisgeneration. 

Calhoun made several great speeches in the Senate of the United States, besides those in reference to a banking system connected with thegovernment, which, whether wise or erroneous, contained some importanttruths. But the logical deduction of them all may be summed up in oneidea, --the supremacy of State rights in opposition to a centralgovernment. This, from the time when the diverging interests of theNorth and the South made him feel the dangers in "the unchecked will ofa majority of the whole, " was the dogma of his life, from which henever swerved, and which he pursued to all its legitimate conclusions. Whatever measure tended to the consolidation of central power, whetherin reference to the encroachments of the Executive or the usurpations ofCongress, he denounced with terrible earnestness and sometimes withgreat eloquence. This is the key to the significant portion of hispolitical career. 

In his speech on the Force Bill, in 1834, he says:

"If we now raise our eyes and direct them towards that once beautifulsystem, with all its various, separate, and independent parts blendedinto one harmonious whole, we must be struck with the mighty change! Allhave disappeared, gone, --absorbed, concentrated, and consolidated inthis government, which is left alone in the midst of the desolation ofthe system, the sole and unrestricted representative of an absolute anddespotic majority. .. . In the place of their admirably contrived system, the act proposed to be repealed has erected our great ConsolidatedGovernment. Can it be necessary for me to show what must be theinevitable consequences?. .. It was clearly foreseen and foretold on theformation of the Constitution what these consequences would be. All thecalamities we have experienced, and those which are yet to come, are theresult of the consolidating tendency of this government; and unless thistendency be arrested, all that has been foretold will certainly befallus, --even to the pouring out of the last vial of wrath, militarydespotism. "

That was what Mr. Calhoun feared, --that the consolidation of a centralpower would be fatal to the liberties of the country and the rights ofthe States, and would introduce a system of spoils and the reign ofdemagogues, all in subserviency to a mere military chieftain, utterlyunfit to guide the nation in its complicated interests. But his gloomypredictions fortunately were not fulfilled, in spite of all the misruleand obstinacy of the man he intensely distrusted and disliked. Thetendency has been to usurpations by Congress rather than by theExecutive. 

It is impossible not to admire the lofty tone, free from personalanimus, which is seen in all Calhoun's speeches. They may have beensophistical, but they appealed purely to the intellect of those whom headdressed, without the rhetoric of his great antagonists. His speechesare compact arguments, such as one would address to the Supreme Court onhis side of the question. 

Thus far his speeches in the Senate had been in reference to economictheories and legislation antagonistic to the interests of the South, andthe usurpations of executive power, which threatened directly the rightsof independent States, and indirectly the liberties of the people andthe political degradation of the nation; but now new issues arose fromthe agitation of the slavery question, and his fame chiefly rests on hispersistent efforts to suppress this agitation, as logically leading tothe dissolution of the Union and the destruction of the institutionwith which its prosperity was supposed to be identified. 

The early Abolitionists, as I remember them, were, as a body, of verylittle social or political influence. They were earnest, clear-headed, and uncompromising in denouncing slavery as a great moral evil, indeedas a sin, disgraceful to a free people, and hostile alike to moralityand civilization. But in the general apathy as to an institution withwhich the Constitution did not meddle, and the general government couldnot interfere, except in districts and territories under its exclusivecontrol, the Abolitionists were generally regarded as fanatical andmischievous. They had but few friends and supporters among the upperclasses and none among politicians. The pulpit, the bar, the press, andthe colleges were highly conservative, and did not like the popularagitation much better than the Southerners themselves. But the leadersof the antislavery movement persevered in their denunciations ofslaveholders, and of all who sympathized with them; they held publicmeetings everywhere and gradually became fierce and irritating. 

It was the period of lyceum lectures, when all moral subjects werediscussed before the people with fearlessness, and often with acrimony. Most of the popular lecturers were men of radical sympathies, and wereinclined to view all evils on abstract principles as well as in theirpractical effects. Thus, the advocates of peace believed that war underall circumstances was wicked. The temperance reformers insisted that theuse of alcoholic liquors in all cases was a sin. Learned professors intheological schools attempted to prove that the wines of Palestine wereunfermented, and could not intoxicate. The radical Abolitionists, inlike manner, asserted that it was wicked to hold a man in bondage underany form of government, or under any guarantee of the Constitution. 

At first they were contented to point out the moral evils of slavery, both on the master and the slave; but this did not provoke muchopposition, since the evils were open and confessed, even at the South;only, it was regarded as none of their business, since the evils couldnot be remedied, and had always been lamented. That slavery was simplyan evil, and generally acknowledged to be, both North and South, wastaking rather tame ground, even as peace doctrines were unexciting whenit was allowed that, if we must fight, we must. But there was someexcitement in the questions whether it were allowable to fight at all, or drink wine at any time, or hold a slave under any circumstances. Thelecturers must take stronger grounds if they wished to be heard or toexcite interest. So they next unhesitatingly assumed the ground that warwas a _malum per se_, and wine-drinking also, and all slave-holding, and a host of other things. Their discussions aroused the intellect, aswell as appealed to the moral sense. Even "strong-minded" womenfearlessly went into fierce discussions, and became intolerant. Gradually the whole North and West were aroused, not merely to the moralevils of slavery, which were admitted without discussion, but to theintolerable abomination of holding a slave under any conditions, asagainst reason, against conscience, and against humanity. 

The Southerners themselves felt that the evil was a great one, and madesome attempt to remedy it by colonization societies. They would sendfree blacks to Liberia to Christianize and civilize the natives, sunk inthe lowest abyss of misery and shame. Many were the Christian men andwomen at the South who pitied the hard condition under which theirslaves were born, and desired to do all they could to ameliorate it. 

But when the Abolitionists announced that all slaveholding was a sin, and when public opinion at the North was evidently drifting to thisdoctrine, then the planters grew indignant and enraged. It becameunpleasant for a Northern merchant or traveller to visit a Southerncity, and equally unpleasant for a Southern student to enter a Northerncollege, or a planter to resort to a Northern watering-place. Thecommon-sense of the planter was outraged when told that he was a sinnerabove all others. He was exasperated beyond measure when incendiarypublications were transmitted through Southern mails. He did not believethat he was necessarily immoral because he retained an institutionbequeathed to him by his ancestors, and recognized by the Constitutionof the United States. 

Calhoun was the impersonation of Southern feelings as well as therepresentative of Southern interests. He intensely felt the indignitywhich the Abolitionists cast upon his native State, and upon itspeculiar institution. And he was clear-headed enough to see that ifpublic opinion settled down into the conviction that slavery was a sinas well as an inherited evil, the North and South could not long livetogether in harmony and peace. He saw that any institution would beendangered with the verdict of the civilized world against it. He knewthat public opinion was an amazing power, which might be defied, but notsuccessfully resisted. He saw no way to stop the continually increasingattacks of the antislavery agitators except by adopting an entirely newposition, --a position which should unite all the slaveholding States inthe strongest ties of interest. 

Accordingly he declared, as the leader of Southern opinions andinterests, that slavery was neither an evil nor a sin, but a positivegood and blessing, supported even by the Bible as well as by theConstitution, In assuming these premises he may have argued logically, but he lost the admiration he had gained by twenty years' services inthe national legislature. His premises were wrong, and his argumentswould necessarily be sophistical and fall to the ground. He stepped downfrom the lofty pedestal he had hitherto occupied, to become not merely apartisan, but an unscrupulous politician. He had a right to defend hisbeloved institutions as the leader of interests intrusted to him toguard. His fault was not in being a partisan, for most politicians areparty men; it was in advancing a falsehood as the basis of hisarguments. But, if he had stultified his own magnificent intellect, hecould not impose on the convictions of mankind. From the time he assumeda ground utterly untenable, whatever were his motives or realconvictions, his general influence waned. His arguments did notconvince, since they were deductions from wrong premises, and premiseswhich shocked and insulted the reason. 

Calhoun now became a man of one idea, and that a false one. He was agigantic crank, --an arch-Jesuit, indifferent to means so long as hecould bring about his end; and he became not merely a casuist, but adictatorial and arrogant politician. He defied that patriotic burst ofpublic opinion which had compelled him to change his ground, thatmighty wave of thought, no more to be resisted than a storm upon theocean, and which he saw would gradually sweep away his cherishedinstitution unless his constituents and the whole South should be madeto feel that their cause was right and just; that slavery had not onlymaterially enriched the Southern States, but had converted fetichidolaters to the true worship of God, and widened the domain ofcivilization. The planters, one and all, responded to this sophisticaland seductive plea, and said to one another, "Now we can defy theuniverse on moral grounds. We stand united, --what care we for theravings of fanatics outside our borders, so long as our institution is ablessing to us, planted on the rock of Christianity, and endorsed by thebest men among us!" The theologians took up the cause, both North andSouth, and made their pulpits ring with appeals to Scripture. "Werenot, " they said, "the negroes descendants of Ham, and had not thesedescendants been cursed by the Almighty, and given over to the controlof the children of Shem and Japhet, --not, indeed, to be trodden downlike beasts, but to be elevated and softened by them, and made useful inthe toils which white men could not endure?" Ultra-Calvinists unitedwith politicians in building up a public sentiment in favor of slaveryas the best possible condition for the ignorant, sensuous, andsuperstitious races who, when put under the training and guardianshipof a civilized and Christian people, had escaped the harder lot whichtheir fathers endured in the deserts and the swamps of Africa. 

The agitation at the North had been gradually but constantly increasing. In 1831 William Lloyd Garrison started "The Liberator;" in 1832 the NewEngland Antislavery Society was founded in Boston; in 1833 New York hada corresponding society, and Joshua Leavitt established "TheEmancipator. " Books, tracts, and other publications began to becirculated. By lectures, newspapers, meetings, and all manner of meansthe propagandism was carried on. On the other hand, the most violentopposition had been manifested throughout the North to these so-called"fanatics. " No language was too opprobrious to apply to them. Thechurches and ministry were either dumb on the subject, or defendedslavery from the Scriptures. Mobs broke up antislavery meetings, and insome cases proceeded even to the extreme of attack and murder, --as inthe case of Lovejoy of Illinois. The approach of the political campaignof 1836, when Van Buren was running as the successor of Jackson, involved the Democratic party as the ally of the South for politicalpurposes, and "Harmony and Union" were the offsets to the cry for"Emancipation. "

By 1835 the excitement was at its height, and especially along the lineof the moral and religious argumentation, where the proslavery men mettalk with talk. What could the Abolitionists do now with their Northernsocieties to show that slavery was a wrong and a sin? Their weapons fellharmless on the bucklers of warriors who supposed themselves fightingunder the protection of Almighty power in order to elevate andChristianize a doomed race. Victory seemed to be snatched from victors, and in the moral contest the Southern planters and their Northernsupporters swelled the air with triumphant shouts. They were impregnablein their new defences, since they claimed to be in the right. Bothparties had now alike appealed to reason and Scripture, and where werethe judges who could settle conflicting opinions? The Abolitionists, somewhat discouraged, but undaunted, then changed their mode of attack. They said, "We will waive the moral question, for we talk to men withoutconscience, and we will instead make it a political one. We will appealto majorities. We will attack the hostile forces in a citadel which theycannot hold. The District of Columbia belongs to Congress. Congress canabolish slavery if it chooses in its own territory. Having possession ofthis great fortress, we can extend our political warfare to the vast andindefinite West, and, at least, prevent the further extension ofslave-power. We will trust to time and circumstance and truth to do therest. We will petition Congress itself. "

And from 1835 onward petitions rolled into both Houses from all parts ofthe North and West to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, whichCongress could constitutionally do. The venerable and enlightened JohnQuincy Adams headed the group of petitioners in the House ofrepresentatives. There were now two thousand antislavery societies inthe United States. In 1837 three hundred thousand persons petitioned forthe abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. The legislaturesof Massachusetts and Vermont had gone so far as to censure Congress forits inaction and indifference to the rights of humanity. 

But it was in January, 1836, that John C. Calhoun arose in his wrath anddenied the right of petition. The indignant North responded to such anassumption in flaming words. "What, " said the leaders of public opinion, "cannot the lowest subjects of the Czar or the Shah appeal to ultimateauthority? Has there ever been an empire so despotic as to deny soobvious a right? Did not Caesar and Cyrus, Louis and Napoleon receivepetitions? Shall an enlightened Congress reject the prayers of the mostpowerful of their constituents, and to remove an evil which peoplegenerally regard as an outrage, and all people as a misfortune?"

"We will not allow the reception of petitions at all, " said theSouthern leaders, "for they will lead to discussion on a forbiddensubject. They are only an entrance wedge to disrupt the Union. TheConstitution has guaranteed to us exclusively the preservation of aninstitution on which our welfare rests. You usurp a privilege which youcall a right. Your demands are dangerous to the peace of the Union, andare preposterous. You violate unwritten law. You seek to do what thefounders of our republic never dreamed of. When two of the States cededtheir own slave territory to the central government, it was with theunderstanding that slavery should remain as it was in the district weowned and controlled. You cannot lawfully even discuss the matter. It isnone of your concern. It is an institution which was the basis of thatgreat compromise without which there never could have been a unitednation, --only a league of sovereign States. We have the same right toexclude the discussion of this question from these halls as from thecapitals of our respective States. The right of petition on such asubject is tantamount to consideration and discussion, which would beunlawful interference with our greatest institution, leadinglegitimately and logically to disunion and war. Is it right, is itgenerous, is it patriotic to drive us to such an alternative? We onlyask to be let alone. You assail a sacred ark where dwell the seraphimand cherubim of our liberties, of our honor, of our interests, of ourloyalty itself. To this we never will consent. "

Mr. Clay then came forward in Congress as an advocate for consideringthe question of petitions. He was for free argument on the subject. Headmitted that the Abolitionists were dangerous, but he could not shuthis eyes to an indisputable right. So he went half-way, as was hiscustom, pleasing neither party, and alienating friends; but at the sametime with great tact laying out a middle ground where the opposingparties could still stand together without open conflict. "I am nofriend, " said he, "to slavery. The Searcher of hearts knows that everypulsation of mine beats high and strong in the cause of civil liberty. Wherever it is practicable and safe I desire to see every portion of thehuman family in the enjoyment of it; but I prefer the liberty of my owncountry to that of other people. The liberty of the descendants ofAfrica in the United States is incompatible with the liberty and safetyof the European descendants. " Such were the sentiments of the leadingclasses of the North, not yet educated up to the doctrines whichafterwards prevailed. But the sentiments declared by Clay lost him thepresidency. His political sins, like those of Webster, were sins ofomission rather than of commission. Neither of them saw that the littlecloud in the horizon would soon cover the heavens, and pour down adeluge to sweep away abominations worse than Ahab ever dreamed of. Claydid not go far enough to please the rising party. He did not see thepower or sustain the rightful exercise of this new moral force, but hedid argue on grounds of political expediency for the citizens' right ofpetition, --a right conceded even to the subjects of unlimited despotism. An Ahasuerus could throw petitions into the mire, without reading, butit was customary to accept them. 

The result was a decision on the part of Congress to admit thepetitions, but to pay no further attention to them. 

The Abolitionists, however, had resorted to less scrupulous measures. They sent incendiary matter through the mails, not with the object ofinciting the slaves to rebellion, --this was hopeless, --but with thedesign of aiding their escape from bondage, and perchance of influencingtraitors in the Southern camp. To this new attack Calhoun responded withdignity and with logic. And we cannot reasonably blame him for repellingit. The Southern cities had as good a right to exclude inflammatorypamphlets as New York or Boston has to prevent the introduction of thecholera. It was the instinct of self-preservation; whatever may be saidof their favorite institution on ethical grounds, they had the legalright to protect it from incendiary matter. 

But what was incendiary matter? Who should determine that point?President Jackson in 1835 had recommended Congress to pass a lawprohibiting under severe penalties the circulation in the SouthernStates, through the mails, of incendiary publications. But this did notsatisfy the Southern dictator. He denied the right of Congress todetermine what publications should be or should not be excluded. Hemaintained that this was a matter for the States alone to decide. Hewould not trust postmasters, for they were officers of the United Statesgovernment. It was not for them to be inquisitors, nor for the Federalgovernment to interfere, even for the protection of a State institution, with its own judgment. He proposed instead a law forbidding Federalpostmasters to deliver publications prohibited by the laws of a State, Territory, or District. In this, as in all other controverted questions, Calhoun found means to argue for the supremacy of the State and thesubordination of the Union. His bill did not pass, but the force of hisargument went forth into the land. 

How far antislavery documents had influence on the slaves themselves, itis difficult to say. They could neither read nor write; but it isremarkable that from this period a large number of slaves made theirescape from the South and fled to the North, protected byphilanthropists, Abolitionists, and kind-hearted-people generally. 

How they contrived to travel a thousand miles without money, withoutsuitable clothing, pursued by blood-hounds and hell-hounds, hiding inthe daytime in swamps, morasses, and forests, walking by night indarkness and gloom, until passed by friendly hands through "undergroundrailroads" until they reached Canada, is a mystery. But these efforts toescape from their hard and cruel masters further intensified theexasperation of the South. 

It was in 1836 that Michigan and Arkansas applied for admission asStates into the Union, --one free and the other with slavery. Discussionson some technicalities concerning the conditions of Michigan's admissiongave Mr. Calhoun a chance for more argumentation about the sovereigntyof a State, which, considering the fact that Michigan had not then beenadmitted but was awaiting the permission of Congress _to be_ a State, showed the weakness of his logic in the falsity of his premise. BesidesArkansas, the slave-power also gained access to a strip of freeterritory north of the compromise line of 36°30' and the Missouri River. In 1837 John Quincy Adams, "the old man eloquent" of the House ofRepresentatives, narrowly escaped censure for introducing a petitionfrom slaves in the District of Columbia. In 1838 Calhoun introducedresolutions declaring that petitions relative to slavery in the Districtwere "a direct and dangerous attack on the institutions of all theslave-holding States. " In 1839 Henry Clay offered a petition for therepression of all agitation respecting slavery in the District. Calhounsaw and constantly denounced the danger. He knew the power of publicopinion, and saw the rising tide. Conservatism heeded the warning, andthe opposition to agitation intensified all over the South and theNorth; but to no avail. New societies were formed; new papers wereestablished; religious bodies began to take position for and against theagitation; the Maine legislature passed in the lower House, and almostin the upper, resolutions denouncing slavery in the District; while theAbolitionists labored incessantly and vigorously to "Blow the trumpet;cry aloud and spare not; show my people their sins, " as to slavery. 

In 1840 Van Buren and Harrison, the Democratic and Whig candidates forthe presidency were both in the hands of the slave-power; and Tyler, whoas Vice-President succeeded to the Executive chair on Harrison's death, was a Virginian slaveholder. The ruling classes and politicians all overthe land were violently opposed to the antislavery cause, and every testof strength gave new securities and pledges to the Southern elements andtheir Northern sympathizers. 

Notwithstanding the frequent triumphs of the South, aided by Whigs andDemocrats from the North, who played into the hands of Southernpoliticians, Mr. Calhoun was not entirely at rest in his mind. He sawwith alarm the increasing immigration into the Western States, whichthreatened to disturb the balance of power which the South had everheld; and with the aid of Southern leaders he now devised a new and boldscheme, which was to annex Texas to the United States and thus enlargeenormously the area of slavery. It was probably his design, not so muchto strengthen the slaveholding interests of South Carolina, as toincrease the political power of the South. By the addition of new slaveStates he could hope for more favorable legislation in Congress. Thearch-conspirator--the haughty and defiant dictator--would not onlyexclude Congress from all legislation over its own territory in thenational District, but he now would make Congress bolster up his cause. He could calculate on a "solid South, " and also upon the aid of theleaders of the political parties at the North, --"Northern men withSouthern principles, "--who were strangely indifferent to the extensionof slavery. 

The Abolitionists were indeed now a power, but the antislavery sentimenthad not reached its culmination, although it had become politicallyorganized. For the campaign of 1840, seeing the futility of petitionand the folly of expecting action on issues foreign to those on whichCongressmen had been elected, the Abolitionists boldly called a NationalConvention, in which six States were represented, and nominatedcandidates for the presidency and vice-presidency. It was a small anddespised beginning, but it was the germ of a mighty growth. From thattime the Liberty Party began to hold State and National Conventions, andto vote directly on the question of representatives. They did not foryears elect anybody, but they defeated many an ultra pro-slavery man, and their influence began to be felt. In 1841 Joshua R. Giddings, fromOhio, and in 1843 John P. Hale from New Hampshire and Hannibal Hamlinfrom Maine brought in fresh Northern air and confronted the slave-powerin Congress, in alliance with grand old John Quincy Adams, --whose lastyears were his best years, and have illumined his name. 

Most of the antislavery men were still denounced as fanatics, meddlingwith what was none of their business. In 1843 they had not enrolled intheir ranks the most influential men in the community. Ministers, professors, lawyers, and merchants generally still held aloof from thecontroversy, and were either hostile or indifferent to it. So, with theaid of the "Dough-Faces, " as they were stigmatized by the progressiveparty, Calhoun was confident of success in the Texan scheme. 

At that time many adventurers had settled in Texas, which was then aprovince of Mexico, and had carried with them their slaves. In 1820Moses Austin, a Connecticut man, long resident in Missouri, obtainedlarge grants of land in Texas from the Mexican government, and his sonStephen carried out after the father's death a scheme of colonization ofsome three hundred families from Missouri and Louisiana. They were arough and lawless population, but self-reliant and enterprising. Theyincreased rapidly, until, in 1833, being twenty thousand in number, theytried to form a State government under Mexico; and, this being deniedthem, declared their independence and made revolution. They were headedby Sam Houston, who had fought under General Jackson, and had beenGovernor of Tennessee. In 1836 the independence of Texas was proclaimed. Soon after followed the battle of San Jacinto, in which Santa Anna, thePresident of the Mexican republic and the commander of the Mexicanforces, was taken prisoner. 

Immediately after this battle Mr. Calhoun tried to have it announced asthe policy of the government to recognize the independence of Texas. When Tyler became President, by the death of Harrison, although electedby Whig votes he entered heart and soul into the schemes of Calhoun, who, to forward them, left the Senate, and became Secretary of State, assuccessor to Mr. Upshur. In 1843 it became apparent that Texas would beannexed to the United States. In that same year Iowa and Florida--onefree, the other slave--were admitted to the Union. 

The Liberty party beheld the proposed annexation of Texas with alarm, and sturdily opposed it as far as they could through their friends inCongress, predicting that it would be tantamount to a war with Mexico. The Mexican minister declared the same result. But "Texas or Disunion!"became the rallying cry of the South. The election of Polk, theannexationist Democrat, in 1844, was seized upon as a "popular mandate"for annexation, although had not the Liberty Party, who like the Whigswere anti-annexationists, divided the vote in New York State, Clay wouldhave been elected. The matter was hurried through Congress; the NorthernDemocrats made no serious opposition, since they saw in this annexationa vast accession of territory around the Gulf of Mexico, of indefiniteextent. Thus, Texas, on March 1, 1845, was offered annexation by a JointResolution of the Senate and House of Representatives, in the face ofprotests from the wisest men of the country, and in spite of certainhostilities with Mexico. On the following fourth of July Texas, accepting annexation, was admitted to the Union as a slave State, to thedismay of Channing, of Garrison, of Phillips, of Sumner, of Adams, andof the whole antislavery party, now aroused to the necessity of moreunited effort, in view of this great victory to the South; for it wasprovided that at any time, by the consent of its own citizens, Texasmight be divided into four States, whenever its population should belarge enough; its territory was four times as large as France. 

The Democratic President Polk took office in March, 1845; the MexicanWar, beginning in May, 1846, was fought to a successful close in a yearand five months, ending September, 1847; the fertile territory ofOregon, purchased from Spain, had been peaceably occupied by rapidimmigration and by settlement of disputed boundaries with Great Britain;California--a Mexican province--had been secured to the Americansettlers of its lovely hills and valleys by the prompt daring of Capt. John C. Frémont; and the result of the war was the formal cession to theUnited States by Mexico of the territories of California and New Mexico, and recognition of the annexation and statehood of Texas. 

Both the North and the South had thus gained large possibilities, and atthe North the spirit of enterprise and the clear perception of theeconomic value of free labor as against slave labor were workingmightily to help men see the moral arguments of the antislavery people. The division of interest was becoming plain; the forces of good senseand the principles of liberty were consolidating the North againstfarther extension of the slave-power. The perils foreseen by Calhoun, which he had striven to avoid by repression of all political discussionof slavery, were nigh at hand. The politicians of the North, too, scented the change, and began to range themselves with their section;and, while there was a long struggle yet ahead before the issues wouldbe made up, to the eye of faith the end was already in sight, and the"Free-Soilers" now redoubled their efforts both in discussion and inpolitical action. 

Thus far, most of the political victories had been with the slave-power, and the South became correspondently arrogant and defiant. The war ofideas against Southern interests now raged with ominous and increasingforce in all the Northern States. Public opinion became more and moreinflamed. Passions became excited in cities and towns and villages whichhad been dormant since the Constitution had been adopted. The decree ofthe North went forth that there should be no more accession of slaveterritory; and, more than this, the population spread with unexampledrapidity toward the Pacific Ocean in consequence of the discovery ofgold in California, in 1848, and attracted by the fertile soil ofOregon. Immigrants from all nations came to seek their fortunes interritories north of 36°30'. 

What Calhoun had anticipated in 1836, when he cast his eyes on Texas, did not take place. Slave territory indeed was increased, but freeterritory increased still more rapidly. The North was becoming richerand richer, and the South scarcely held its own. The balance which hethought would be in favor of the South, he now saw inclining to theNorth. Northern States became more numerous than Southern ones, and morepopulous, more wealthy, and more intelligent. The political power of theUnion, when Mr. Polk closed his inglorious administration, wasperceptibly with the North, and not political power only, but moralpower. The great West was the soil of freemen. 

But the haughty and defiant spirit of Calhoun was not broken. Heprophesied woes. He became sad and dejected, but more and moreuncompromising, more and more dictatorial. He would not yield. "If weyield an inch, " said he, "we are lost. " The slightest concession, in hiseyes, would be fatal. When he declared his nullification doctrines itwas because he thought that State rights were invaded by hostiletariffs. But after the Mexican War slavery was to him a matter of lifeand death. He made many excellent and powerful speeches, which taskedthe intellect of Webster to refute; but, whatever the subject, it wasseen only through his Southern spectacles, and argued from partisangrounds and with partisan zeal. Everything he uttered was with a view ofconsolidating the South, and preparing it for disunion and secession, asthe only way to preserve the beloved institution. In his eyes, slaveryand the Union could not co-exist. This he saw plainly, but if eithermust perish it should be the Union; and this doctrine he so constantlyreiterated that he won over to it nearly the entire South. But inconsolidating the South, he also consolidated the North. He forced onthe issue, believing that even yet the South, united with Northernallies, was the stronger, and that it could establish its independenceon a slavery basis. The Union was no union at all, and its Constitutionwas a worthless parchment. "He proposed a convention of the SouthernStates which should agree that, until full justice was rendered to theSouth, all the Southern ports should be closed to the sea-going vesselsof the North. " He arrogantly would deprive the North even of itsconstitutional rights in reference to the exclusion of slavery from theTerritories. In no way should the North meddle with the slaveryquestion, on penalty of secession; and the sooner this was understoodthe better. "We are, " said he, "relatively stronger than we shall behereafter, politically and morally. "

The great fight arose in 1849. The people in the Northwesternterritories had been encouraged to form governments, and had alreadytasted the delights of self-rule. President Polk had recommended theextension of the old Missouri Compromise line of 36° 30' westward to thePacific, leaving the territory south of that open to slavery. This woulddivide California, and was opposed by all parties. Calhoun now went sofar as to claim the constitutional right to take slaves into anyTerritory, while Webster argued the power of Congress to rule theTerritories until they should become States. So excited was thediscussion that a convention of Southern States was held to frame aseparate government for the "United States South. " The threat ofsecession was ever their most potent argument. The contest in Congresscentred upon the admission of California as a State and the condition ofslavery in the Territories of Utah and New Mexico. 

A great crisis had now arrived. Clay, "the great pacificator, " once morestepped into the arena with a new compromise. To provide for concessionson either side, he proposed the admission of California (whose newconstitution prohibited slavery); the organization of Utah and NewMexico as Territories without mention of slavery (leaving it to thepeople); the arrangement of the boundary of Texas; the abolition ofslavery in the District of Columbia; and the enactment of a morestringent fugitive-slave law, commanding the assistance of people in thefree States to capture runaways, when summoned by the authorities. 

The general excitement over the discussion of this bill will never beforgotten by those who witnessed it. The South raged, and the Northblazed with indignation, --especially over the Fugitive-Slave Bill. 

Meanwhile Calhoun was dying. His figure was bent, his voice was feeble, his face was haggard, but his superb intellect still retained its vigorto the last. Among the multitude of ringing appeals to the reason andmoral sense of the North was a newspaper article from _The Independent_of New York, by a young Congregational minister, Henry Ward Beecher. Itwas entitled "Shall we Compromise?" and made clear and plain the issuebefore the people: "Slavery is right; Slavery is wrong: Slavery shalllive; Slavery shall die: are these conflicts to be settled by any modeof parcelling out certain Territories?" This article was read to Calhounupon his dying bed. "Who wrote that?" he asked. The name was given him. "That man understands the thing. He has gone to the bottom of it. Hewill be heard from again. " It was what the great Southerner hadforeseen and foretold from the first. 

The compromise bill at last became a law. It averted the final outbreakfor ten years longer, but contained elements that were to be potentfactors in insuring the final crisis. 

With the burden of the whole South upon his shoulders Calhoun totteredto the grave a most unhappy man, for though he saw the "irrepressibleconflict" as clearly as Seward had done, he also saw that the South, even if successful, as he hoped, must go through a sea of tribulation. When he was no longer able to address the Senate in person he stillwaged the battle. His last great speech was read to the Senate by Mr. Mason of Virginia, on the 4th of March, 1850. It was not bitter, noracrimonious; it was a doleful lament that the Southern States could notlong remain in the Union with any dignity, now that the equilibrium wasdestroyed. He felt that he had failed, but also that he had done hisduty; and this was his only consolation in view of approachingdisasters. On the last day of March he died, leaving behind him hisprinciples, so full of danger and sophistries, but at the same time anunsullied name, and the memory of earlier public services and of privatevirtues which had secured to him the respect of all who knew him. 

In reviewing the career of Mr. Calhoun it would seem that the greaterror and mistake of his life was his disloyalty to the Union. When headvocated State rights as paramount over those of the general governmenthe merely took the ground which was discussed over and over again at theformation of the Constitution, and which resulted in a compromise that, with control over matters of interest common to all States, the centralgovernment should have no power over the institution of slavery, whichwas a domestic affair in the Southern States. Only these States, it wassettled, had supreme control over their own "peculiar institution. " As apolitician, representing Southern interests, he cannot be severelycondemned for his fear and anger over the discussion of the slaveryquestion, which, politically considered, was out of the range ofCongressional legislation or popular agitation. But when he advocated orthreatened the secession of the Southern States from the Union, unlessthe slavery question was let alone entirely both by Congress and theNorthern States, he was unpatriotic, false in his allegiance, andunconstitutional in his utterances. A State has a right to enter theUnion or not, remaining of course, in either case, United Statesterritory, over which Congress has legislative power. But when once ithas entered into the Union, it must remain there as a part of the whole. Otherwise the States would be a mere league, as in the Revolutionarytimes. 

Mr. Calhoun had a right to bring the whole pressure of the slave Stateson a congressional vote on any question. He could say, as the Irishmembers of Parliament say, "Unless you do this or that we will obstructthe wheels of government, and thus compel the consideration of ourgrievances, so long as we hold the balance of power between contendingparties. " But it is quite another thing for the Irish legislators tosay, "Unless you do this or that, we will secede from the Union, " whichIreland could not do without war and revolution. Mr. Calhoun, in hisonesidedness, entirely overlooked the fact that the discontented Statescould not secede without a terrible war; for if there is one sentimentdear to the American people, it is the preservation of the Union, andfor it they will make any sacrifice. 

And the same may be said in reference to Calhoun's nullificationdoctrines. He would, if he could, have taken his State out of the Union, because he and the South did not like the tariff. He had the right, as aSenator in Congress, to bring all the influence he could command tocompel Congress to modify the tariff, or abolish it altogether. And withthis he ought to have been contented. With a solid South and a dividedNorth, he could have compelled a favorable compromise, or prevented anylegislation at all. It is legitimate legislation for members of Congressto maintain their local and sectional interest at any cost, short ofdisunion; only, it may be neither wise nor patriotic, since men who aresupposed to be statesmen would by so doing acknowledge themselves to bemere politicians, bound hand and foot in subjection to selfishconstituents, and indifferent to the general good. 

Mr. Calhoun became blind to general interests in his zeal to perpetuateslavery, or advance whatever would be desirable to the South, indifferent to the rest of the country; and thus he was a mere partisan, narrow and local. What made him so powerful and popular at the Southequally made him to be feared and distrusted at the North. He was afirebrand, infinitely more dangerous and incendiary than anyAbolitionist whom he denounced. Calhoun's congressional career was theopposite of that of Henry Clay, who was more patriotic and more of astatesman, for he always professed allegiance to the whole Union, anddid all he could to maintain it. His whole soul was devoted to tariffsand internal improvements, but he would yield important points toproduce harmony and ward off dangers. Calhoun, with hisState-sovereignty doctrines, his partisanship, and his unscrupulousdefiance of the Constitution, forfeited his place among great statesmen, and lost the esteem and confidence of a majority of his countrymen, except so far as his abilities and his unsullied private life entitledhim to admiration. 

AUTHORITIES. 

I know of no abler and more candid life of Calhoun than that of VonHolst. Although deficient in incidents, it is no small contribution toAmerican literature, apparently drawn from a careful study of thespeeches of the great Nullifier. If the author had had more material towork upon, he would probably have made a more popular work, such as CarlSchurz has written of Henry Clay, and Henry Cabot Lodge of DanielWebster and Alexander Hamilton. In connection read the biographies ofClay, Webster, and Jackson; see Wilson's History of the Rise and Fall ofthe Slave Power, also Benton's Thirty Years of Congressional History, and Calhoun's Speeches. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

1809-1865. 

CIVIL WAR: PRESERVATION OF THE UNION. 

In the year 1830, or thereabouts, a traveller on the frontiersettlements of Illinois (if a traveller was ever known in those drearyregions) might have seen a tall, gaunt, awkward, homely, sad-lookingyoung man of twenty-one, clothed in a suit of brown jean dyed withwalnut-bark, hard at work near a log cabin on the banks of the riverSangamon, --a small stream emptying into the Illinois River. The man wassplitting rails, which he furnished to a poor woman in exchange for somehomespun cloth to make a pair of trousers, at the rate of four hundredrails per yard. His father, one of the most shiftless of the poor whitesof Kentucky, a carpenter by trade, had migrated to Indiana, and, after ashort residence, had sought another home on a bluff near the SangamonRiver, where he had cleared, with the assistance of his son, aboutfifteen acres of land. From this he gained a miserable andprecarious living. 

The young rail-splitter had also a knack of slaughtering hogs, forwhich he received thirty cents a day. Physically he had extraordinarystrength, and no one could beat him in wrestling and other athleticexercises. Mentally, he was bright, inquiring, and not whollyilliterate. He had learned, during his various peregrinations, to read, write, and cipher. He was reliable and honest, and had in 1828 beenemployed, when his father lived in Indiana, by a Mr. Gentry, toaccompany his son to New Orleans, with a flat-boat of produce, which hesold successfully. 

It is not my object to dwell on the early life of Abraham Lincoln. Ithas been made familiar by every historian who has written about him, inaccordance with the natural curiosity to know the beginnings ofillustrious men; and the more humble, the more interesting these are tomost people. It is quite enough to say that no man in the United Statesever reached eminence from a more obscure origin. 

Rail-splitting did not achieve the results to which the ambition ofyoung Lincoln aspired, so he contrived to go into the grocery business;but in this he was unsuccessful, owing to an inherent deficiency inbusiness habits and aptitude. He was, however, gifted with shrewd sense, a quick sense of humor with keen wit, and a marked steadiness ofcharacter, which gained him both friends and popularity in the miserablelittle community where he lived; and in 1832 he was elected captain ofa military company to fight Indians in the Black Hawk War. There is noevidence that he ever saw the enemy. He probably would have fought wellhad he been so fortunate as to encounter the foe; for he was cool, fearless, strong, agile, and active without rashness. In 1833 he wasmade postmaster of a small village; but the office paid nothing, and hisprincipal profit from it was the opportunity to read newspapers and somemagazine trash. He was still very poor, and was surrounded with roughpeople who lived chiefly on corn bread and salt pork, who slept incabins without windows, and who drank whiskey to excess, yet who weremore intelligent than they seemed. 

Such was Abraham Lincoln at the age of twenty-four, --obscure, unknown, poverty-stricken, and without a calling. Suppose at that time somesupernatural being had appeared to him in a dream, and announced that hewould some day be President of the United States; and not merely this, but that he would rule the nation in a great crisis, and save it fromdismemberment and anarchy by force of wisdom and character, and leavebehind him when he died a fame second only to that of Washington! Wouldhe not have felt, on awaking from his dream, pretty much as did the agedpatriarch whose name he bore, when the angel of the Lord assured himthat he would be the father of many nations, that his seed wouldoutnumber the sands of the sea, and that through him all humanity wouldbe blessed from generation to generation? Would he not have felt as thestripling David, among the sheep and the goats of his father's flocks, when the prophet Samuel announced to him that he should be king overIsrael, and rule with such success and splendor that the greatness andprosperity of the Jewish nation would be forever dated from hismatchless reign?

The obscure postmaster, without a dollar in his pocket, and carrying themail in his hat, had indeed no intimation of his future elevation: buthis career was just as mysterious as that of David, and an old-fashionedreligious man would say that it was equally providential; for of all theleading men of this great nation it would seem that he turned out to bethe fittest for the work assigned to him, --chosen, not because he waslearned or cultivated or experienced or famous, or even interesting, butbecause his steps were so ordered that he fell into the paths whichnaturally led to his great position, although no genius could haveforeseen the events which logically controlled the result. If Lincolnhad not been gifted with innate greatness, though unknown to himself andall the world, to be developed as occasions should arise, no fortunatecircumstances could have produced so extraordinary a career. If Lincolnhad not the germs of greatness in him, --certain qualities which werenecessary for the guidance of a nation in an emergency, --to be developedsubsequently as the need came, then his career is utterly insolubleaccording to any known laws of human success; and when history cannotsolve the mysteries of human success, --in other words, "justify the waysof Providence to man, "--then it loses half its charm, and more than halfits moral force. It ceases to be the great teacher which all nationsclaim it to be. 

However obscure the birth of Lincoln, and untoward as were all thecircumstances which environed him, he was doubtless born ambitious, thatis, with a strong and unceasing desire to "better his condition. " Thatat the age of twenty-four he ever dreamed of reaching an exaltedposition is improbable. But when he saw the ascendency that his wit andcharacter had gained for him among rude and uncultivated settlers on theborders of civilization, then, being a born leader of men, as Jacksonwas, it was perfectly natural that he should aspire to be a politician. Politics ever have been the passion of Western men with more thanaverage ability, and it required but little learning and culture underthe sovereignty of "squatters" to become a member of the Statelegislature, especially in the border States, where population wassparse, and the people mostly poor and ignorant. 

Hence, "smart" young men, in rude villages, early learned to makespeeches in social and political meetings. Every village had itsfavorite stump orator, who knew all the affairs of the nation, and alittle more, and who, with windy declamation, amused and delighted hisrustic hearers. Lincoln was one of these. There was never a time, evenin his early career, when he could not make a speech in which there wasmore wit than knowledge; although as he increased in knowledge he alsogrew in wisdom, and his good sense, with his habit of patient thinking, gave him the power of clear and convincing statement. Moreover, attwenty-four, he was already tolerably intelligent, and had devoured allthe books he could lay his hand upon. Indeed, it was to the reading ofbooks that Lincoln, like Henry Clay, owed pretty much all his schooling. Beginning with Weems's "Life of Washington" when a mere lad, heperseveringly read, through all his fortunes, all manner of books, --notonly during leisure hours by day, when tending mill or store, but forlong months by the light of pine shavings from the cooper's shop atnight, and in later times when traversing the country in his variouscallings. And his persistent reading gave him new ideas andbroader views. 

With his growing thoughts his aspirations grew. So, like others, he tookthe stump, and as early as 1832 offered himself a candidate for theState legislature. His maiden speech in an obscure village is thusreported: "Fellow citizens, I am humble Abraham Lincoln. My politics areshort and sweet, like the old woman's dance. I am in favor of a NationalBank, of internal improvements, and a high protective tariff. These aremy sentiments. If elected, I shall be thankful; if not, it will be allthe same. "

Lincoln was not elected, although supported by the citizens of NewSalem, where he lived, and to whom he had promised the improvement ofthe Sangamon River. Disappointed, he went into the grocery business onceagain, and again failed, partly because he had no capital, and partlybecause he had no business talents in that line; although from his knownintegrity he was able to raise what money he needed. He then set aboutthe study of the law, as a step to political success, read books, andthe occasional newspapers, told stories, and kept his soul inpatience, --which was easier to him than to keep his body indecent clothes. 

It was necessary for him to do something for a living while he studiedlaw, since the grocery business had failed, and hence he became anassistant to John Calhoun, the county surveyor, who was overburdenedwith work. Just as he had patiently worked through an English Grammar, to enable him to speak correctly, he took up a work on surveying andprepared himself for his new employment in six weeks. He was soonenabled to live more decently, and to make valuable acquaintances, meanwhile diligently pursuing his law studies, not only during hisleisure, but even as he travelled about the country to and from hiswork; on foot or on horseback, his companion was sure to be a law-book. 

In 1834 a new election of representatives for the State legislature tookplace, and Lincoln became a candidate, --this time with more success, owing to the assistance of influential friends. He went to Vandalia, theState capital, as a Whig, and a great admirer of Henry Clay. He wasplaced on the Committee of Public Accounts and Expenditures, but made nomark; yet that he gained respect was obvious from the fact that he wasre-elected by a very large vote. He served a second term, and madehimself popular by advocating schemes to "gridiron" every county withrailroads, straighten out the courses of rivers, dig canals, and cut upthe State into towns, cities, and house-lots. One might suppose that aman so cool and sensible as he afterwards proved himself to be must haveseen the absurdity of these wild schemes, and hence only fell in withthem from policy as a rising member of the legislature, to gain favorwith his constituents. Yet he and his colleagues were all crude andinexperienced legislators, and it is no discredit to Lincoln that he wasborne along with the rest in an enthusiasm for "developing the country. "The mania for speculation was nearly universal, especially in the newWestern States. Illinois alone projected 1, 350 miles of railroad, without money and without credit to carry out this Bedlam legislation, and in almost every village there were "corner lots" enough to be soldto make a great city. Aside from this participation in a bubble destinedto burst, and to be followed by disasters, bankruptcies, and universaldistress, Lincoln was credited with steadiness, and gained greatinfluence. He was prominent in securing the passage of a bill whichremoved the seat of government to Springfield, and was regarded as agood debater. In this session, too, he and Daniel Stone, the tworepresentatives from Sangamon County, introduced a resolution declaringthat the institution of slavery was "founded on both injustice and badpolicy;" that the Congress had no power to interfere with slavery in theStates; that it had power in the District of Columbia, but should notexercise it unless at the request of the people of the District. Therewere no votes for these resolutions, but it is interesting to see howearly Lincoln took both moral and constitutional ground concerningnational action on this vexed question. 

In March, 1837, Lincoln, then twenty-eight years old, was admitted tothe bar, and made choice of Springfield, the new capital, as aresidence, then a thriving village of one or two thousand inhabitants, with some pretension to culture and refinement. It was certainly apolitical, if not a social, centre. The following year he was againelected to the legislature, and came within a few votes of being madeSpeaker of the House. He carried on the practice of the law with hisduties as a legislator. Indeed, law and politics went hand in hand; as alawyer he gained influence in the House of Representatives, and as amember of the legislature he increased his practice in the courts. Hehad for a partner a Major Stuart, who in 1841 left him, having beenelected Representative in Congress, and was succeeded in the firm byStephen T. Logan. Lincoln's law practice was far from lucrative, and hewas compelled to live in the strictest economy. Litigation was verysimple, and it required but little legal learning to conduct cases. Thelawyers' fees were small among a people who were mostly poor. Considering, however, his defective education and other disadvantages, Lincoln's success as a lawyer was certainly respectable, if not great, in his small sphere. 

In 1840, three years after his admission to the bar, Lincoln was chosenas an elector in the Harrison presidential contest, and he stumped theState, frequently encountering Stephen A. Douglas in debate, with greatcredit to himself, for Douglas was the most prominent political oratorof the day. The heart of Lincoln, from the start, was in politics ratherthan the law, for which he had no especial liking. He was born to makespeeches in political gatherings, and not to argue complicated legalquestions in the courts. All his aspirations were political. As early as1843 he aspired to be a member of Congress, but was defeated by ColonelBaker. In 1846, however, his political ambition was gratified by anelection to the House of Representatives. His record in Congress was afair one; but he was not distinguished, although great questions werebeing discussed in connection with the Mexican War. He made but threespeeches during his term, in the last of which he ridiculed GeneralCass's aspiration for the presidency with considerable humor and wit, which was not lost on his constituents. His career in Congressterminated in 1848, he not being re-elected. 

In the meantime Lincoln married, in 1842, Miss Mary Todd, fromLexington, Kentucky, a lady of good education and higher social positionthan his own, whom he had known for two or three years. As everybodyknows, this marriage did not prove a happy one, and domestic troublesaccount, in a measure, for Lincoln's sad and melancholy countenance. Biographers have devoted more space than is wise to this marriage sincethe sorrows of a great man claim but small attention compared with hispublic services. Had Lincoln not been an honorable man, it is probablethat the marriage would never have taken place, in view ofincompatibilities of temper which no one saw more clearly than hehimself, and which disenchanted him. The engagement was broken, andrenewed, for, as the matter stood, --the lady being determined and thelover uncertain, --the only course consistent with Lincoln's honor was totake the risk of marriage, and devote himself with renewed ardor to hisprofession, --to bury his domestic troubles in work, and persistentlyavoid all quarrels. And this is all the world need know of this sadaffair, which, though a matter of gossip, never was a scandal. It isunfortunate for the fame of many great men that we know too much oftheir private lives. Mr. Froude, in his desire for historicalimpartiality, did no good to the memory of his friend Carlyle. Had thehero's peculiarities been vices, like those of Byron, the biographermight have cited them as warnings to abate the ardor of popular idolatryof genius. If we knew no more of the private failings of Webster than wedo of those of Calhoun or Jefferson Davis, he might never have beendethroned from the lofty position he occupied, which, as a publicbenefactor, he did not deserve to lose. 

After his marriage, Lincoln was more devoted to his profession, andgradually became a good lawyer; but I doubt if he was ever a great one, like his friend Judge Davis. His law partner and biographer, William H. Herndon, who became associated with him in 1845, is not particularlyeulogistic as to his legal abilities, although he concedes that he hadmany of the qualities of a great lawyer, such as the ability to seeimportant points, lucidity of statement, and extraordinary logicalpower. He did not like to undertake the management of a case which hadnot justice and right on its side. He had no method in his business, anddetested mechanical drudgery. He rarely studied law-books, unless inreference to a case in which he was employed. He was not learned in thedecisions of the higher courts. He was a poor defender of a wrong cause, but was unappalled by the difficulties of an intricate case; was patientand painstaking, and not imposed upon by sophistries. 

Lincoln's love of truth, for truth's sake, even in such a technicalmatter as the law, was remarkable. No important error ever wentundetected by him. His intellectual vision was clear, since he wasrarely swayed by his feelings. As an advocate he was lucid, cold, andlogical, rather than rhetorical or passionate. He had no taste forplatitudes and "glittering generalities. " There was nothing mercenary inhis practice, and with rare conscientiousness he measured his chargesby the services rendered, contented if the fees were small. He carriedthe strictest honesty into his calling, which greatly added to hisinfluence. If there was ever an honest lawyer he was doubtless one. Evenin arguing a case, he never misrepresented the evidence of a witness, and was always candid and fair. He would frequently, against his owninterest, persuade a litigant of the injustice of his case, and inducehim to throw it up. If not the undisputed leader of his circuit, he wasthe most beloved. Sometimes he disturbed the court by his droll andhumorous illustrations, which called out irrepressible laughter butgenerally he was grave and earnest in matters of importance; and he wasalways at home in the courtroom, quiet, collected, and dignified, awkward as was his figure and his gesticulation. 

But it was not as a lawyer that Lincoln was famous. Nor as a publicspeaker would he compare with Douglas in eloquence or renown. As amember of Congress it is not probable that he would ever have taken acommanding rank, like Clay or Webster or Calhoun, or even like Seward. His great fame rests on his moral character, his identification with agreat cause, his marvellous ability as a conservative defender ofradical principles, and his no less wonderful tact as a leader of men. 

The cause for which he stands was the Antislavery movement, as it grewinto a political necessity rather than as a protest against moral evil. Although from his youth an antislavery man, Lincoln was not anAbolitionist in the early days of the slavery agitation. He rather keptaloof from the discussion, although such writers as Theodore Parker, Dr. Channing, and Horace Greeley had great charm for him. He was apolitician, and therefore discreet in the avowal of opinions. His turnof mind was conservative and moderate, and therefore he thought that allpolitical action should be along the lines established by law under theConstitution. 

But when the Southern leaders, not content with non-interference byCongress with their favorite institution in their own States, sought tocompel Congress to allow the extension of slavery in the Territories itcontrolled, then the indignation of Lincoln burst the bounds, and hebecame the leader in his State in opposition to any movement toestablish in national territory that institution "founded on bothinjustice and bad policy. " Although he was in Congress in 1847-8, hispolitical career really began about the year 1854, four years after thedeath of Calhoun. 

As has been shown in previous chapters, the great slavery agitation of1850, when the whole country was convulsed by discussions and ominousthreats of disunion, was laid at rest for a while by the celebratedcompromise bill which Henry Clay succeeded in passing through Congress. By the terms of this compromise California was admitted to the Union asa free State; the Territories of New Mexico and Utah were organized tocome in as States, with or without slavery as their people mightdetermine when the time should arrive; the domestic slave-trade in theDistrict of Columbia was abolished; a more stringent fugitive-slave lawwas passed; and for the adjustment of State boundaries, which reducedthe positive slave-area in Texas and threw it into the debatableterritory of New Mexico, Texas received ten millions of dollars. Although this adjustment was not entirely satisfactory to either theNorth or the South, the nation settled itself for a period of quiet torepair the waste and utilize the conquests of the Mexican War. It becameabsorbed in the expansion of its commerce, the development of itsmanufactures, and the growth of its emigration, all quickened by therichness of its marvellous new gold-fields, --until, unexpectedly andsuddenly, it found itself once again plunged into political controversymore distracting and more ominous than the worst it had yet experienced. 

For, while calmly accepting the divers political arrangements made fordistant States and Territories, the men of the North, who had fumed andargued against the passage of the Fugitive-Slave Law, when itsenforcement was attempted in their very presence were altogetheroutraged. When the "man-hunters" chased and caught negroes in theirvillage market-places and city streets, when free men were summoned toobey that law by helping to seize trembling fugitives and send them backto worse than death, then they burst forth in a fierce storm of ragethat could not be quieted. The agitation rose and spread; lecturersthundered; newspapers denounced; great meetings were held; politicianstrembled. And even yet the conservatism of the North was not whollyinflamed; for political partisanship is in itself a kind of slavery, andwhile the Northern Democrats stood squarely with the South, the NorthernWhigs, fearing division and defeat, made strenuous efforts to stand onboth sides, and, admitting slavery to be an "evil, " to uphold theFugitive-Slave Law because it was a part of the "great compromise. " InCongress and out, in national conventions, and with all the power of theparty press, this view was strenuously advocated; but in 1852 theDemocrats elected Franklin Pierce as President, while the compromisingWhigs were cast out. Webster, the leader of the compromisers, had noteven secured a nomination, but General Scott was the Whig candidate;while William H. Seward, at the head of the Antislavery Whigs, had atleast the satisfaction of seeing that, amid the dissolving elements ofthe Whig party, the antislavery sentiment was gaining strength day byday. The old issues of tariffs and internal improvements were losingtheir vitality, while _Freedom_ and _Slavery_ were the new poles aboutwhich new crystallizations were beginning to form. 

But the Compromise of 1850 had loosed from its Pandora's box anotherfomenter of trouble, in the idea of leaving to the people of theTerritories the settlement of whether their incoming States should beslave or free, --the doctrine of "popular sovereignty" as it was called. The nation had accepted that theory as a makeshift for the emergency ofthat day; but slave cultivation had already exhausted much of theSouthern land, and, not content with Utah and New Mexico for theirpropagandism, the slaveholders cast envious eyes upon the greatterritory of the Northwest, stretching out from the Missouri border, although it was north of the prohibited line of 36° 30'. And so it cameabout that, within four short years after the compromise of 1850, theunrest of the North under the Fugitive-Slave Law, followed by theefforts of the South to break down the earlier compromise of 1821, awokeagain with renewed fierceness the slavery agitation, in discussing thebill for the organization of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, --animmense area, extending from the borders of Missouri, Iowa, andMinnesota, west to the Rocky Mountains, and from the line of 36° 30'north to British America. 

The mover of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, Stephen A. Douglas, Senator fromIllinois, a Democrat and a man of remarkable abilities, now came intoprominent notice. He wanted to be President of the United States, andhis popularity, his legal attainments, his congressional services, hisattractive eloquence and skill in debate, marked him out as the risingman of his party, He was a Vermonter by birth, and like Lincoln hadarisen from nothing, --a self-made man, so talented that the peoplecalled him "the little giant, " but nevertheless inferior to the giantswho had led the Senate for twenty years, while equal to them inambition, and superior as a wire-pulling politician. He was among thosewho at first supposed that the Missouri Compromise of 1821 was a finalsettlement, and was hostile to the further agitation of the slaveryquestion. He was a great believer in "American Destiny, " and theabsorption of all North America in one grand confederation, in certainportions of which slavery should be tolerated. As chairman of the SenateCommittee on Territories he had great influence in opening new routes oftravel, and favored the extension of white settlements, even interritory which had been given to the Indians. 

To further his ambitious aspirations, Douglas began now to court thefavor of Southern leaders, and introduced his famous Kansas-NebraskaBill, which was virtually the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, inasmuch as it opened the vast territories to the north of 36° 30' tothe introduction of slavery if their people should so elect. This theSouth needed, to secure what they called the balance of power, but whatwas really the preponderance of the Slave States, or at least thecurtailment of the political power of the Free States. In 1854, duringthe administration of Franklin Pierce, and under the domination of theDemocratic party, which played into the hands of the Southern leaders, the compromise which Clay had effected in 1821 was repealed under theinfluence of his compromise of 1850, and the slavery question was thusreopened for political discussion in every State of the Union, --showinghow dangerous it is to compromise principle in shaping a policy. 

Popular indignation at the North knew no bounds at this new retrogrademovement. The Whigs uttered protests, while the Free-Soil party, justcoming into notice, composed mainly of moderate antislavery men fromboth the old parties, were loud in their denunciations of theencroachments of the South. Even some leading Democrats opened theireyes, and joined the rising party. The newspapers, the pulpits, and theplatforms sent forth a united cry of wrath. The Whigs and theAbolitionists were plainly approaching each other. The year 1854 saw acontinuous and solid political campaign to repress the further spread ofslavery. The Territories being then thrown open, there now began anintense emulation to people them, on the one hand, with advocates ofslavery, and on the other, with free-soilers. Emigration societies werefounded to assist _bona fide_ settlers, and a great tide of familiespoured into Kansas from the Northern States; while the Southern States, and chiefly Missouri, sent also large numbers of men. 

At the South the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was universallywelcomed, and the Southern leaders felt encouragement and exultation. The South had gained a great victory, aided by Northern Democrats, andboldly denounced Chase, Hale, Sumner, Seward, and Giddings in theCongress as incendiaries, plotting to destroy precious rights. Amemorable contest took place in the House of Representatives to preventthe election of Banks of Massachusetts as Speaker. But the tide wasbeginning to turn, and Banks, by a vote of 113 against 104, obtained theSpeakership. 

Then followed "border ruffianism" in Kansas, when armed invaders fromMissouri, casting thousands of illegal votes, elected, by fraud andviolence, a legislature favorable to slavery, accompanied with civilwar, in which the most disgraceful outrages were perpetrated, thecentral government at Washington being blind and deaf and dumb to itall. The _bona fide_ settlers in Kansas who were opposed to slavery thenassembled at Topeka, refused to recognize the bogus laws, and framed aconstitution which President Pierce--"a Northern man with Southernprinciples, " gentlemanly and cultivated, but not strong--pronounced tobe revolutionary. Nor was ruffianism confined to Kansas. In 1856 CharlesSumner of Massachusetts, one of the most eloquent and forcefuldenunciators of all the pro-slavery lawlessness, was attacked at hisdesk in the Senate chamber, after an adjournment, and unmercifullybeaten with a heavy cane by Preston Brooks, a member of the House ofRepresentatives, and nephew of Senator Butler of South Carolina. It tookyears for Sumner to recover, while the aristocratic ruffian wasunmolested, and went unpunished; for, though censured by the House andcompelled to resign his seat, he was immediately re-elected by hisconstituents. 

But this was not all. In that same year the Supreme Court came to theaid of the South, already supported by the Executive and the Senate. Sixjudges out of nine, headed by Chief Justice Taney, pronounced judgmentthat slaves, whether fugitive or taken by their masters into the freeStates, should be returned to their owners. This celebrated case arosein Missouri, where a negro named Dred Scott--who had been taken by hismaster to States where slavery was prohibited by law, who had, with hismaster's consent, married and had children in the free States, and beenbrought back to Missouri--sued for his freedom. The local court grantedit; the highest court of the State reversed the decision; and on appealto the Supreme Court of the United States the case was twice arguedthere, and excited a wide and deep interest. The court might have simplysent it back, as a matter belonging to the State court to decide; but itpermitted itself to argue the question throughout, and pronounced on thenatural inferiority of the negro, and his legal condition as property, the competence of the State courts to decide his freedom or slavery, andthe right of slaveholders under the Constitution to control theirproperty in the free States or Territories, any legislation by Congressor local legislatures to the contrary notwithstanding. This was theclimax of slavery triumphs. The North and West, at last aroused, declared in conventions and legislative halls that slavery shouldadvance no further. The conflict now indeed became "irrepressible. "

At this crisis, Abraham Lincoln stepped upon the political stage, andhis great career began. 

As a local lawyer, even as a local politician, his work was practicallydone. He came forth as an avowed antagonist of Douglas, who was thestrongest man in Illinois, and the leader of the Democratic party inCongress. He came forth as the champion of the antislavery cause in hisnative State, and soon attracted the eyes of the whole nation. Hismemorable controversy with Douglas was the turning-point of his life. Hebecame a statesman, as well as a patriot, broad, lofty, and indignant atwrongs. Theretofore he had been a conservative Whig, a devoted followerof Clay. But as soon as the Missouri Compromise was repealed he putforth his noblest energies in behalf of justice, of right, andof humanity. 

As he was driving one day from a little town in which court had beenheld, a brother lawyer said to him, "Lincoln, the time is coming when weshall either be Abolitionists or Democrats;" to which he replied, musingly, "When that time comes, my mind is made up, for I believe theslavery question can never be successfully compromised. " And when hismind was made up, after earnest deliberation, he rarely changed it, andbecame as firm as a rock. His convictions were exceedingly strong, andfew influences could shake them. That quiet conversation in his buggy, in a retired road, with a brother lawyer, was a political baptism. Hehad taken his stand on one side of a great question which would rend intwain the whole country, and make a mighty conflagration, out of whosefires the truth should come victorious. 

The Whig party was now politically dead, and the Republican partyarose, composed of conscientious and independent-minded men from all theold organizations, not afraid to put principle before party, conservative and law-abiding, yet deeply aroused on the greatissue of the day, and united against the further extension ofslavery, --organizing with great enthusiasm for a first presidentialcampaign in 1856, under Frémont, "the Pathfinder, " as their candidate. They were defeated, and James Buchanan, the Democratic candidate, becamePresident; but, accepting defeat as a lesson toward victory, they grewstronger and stronger every day, until at last they swept the countryand secured to the principle "non-extension of slavery" completerepresentation in the national government. 

Lincoln, who was in 1857 the Republican candidate for United StatesSenator from Illinois, while Douglas sought the votes of the Democracy, first entered the lists against his rival at Springfield, in a speechattacking that wily politician's position as to the Dred-Scott decision. He tried to force Douglas to a declaration of the logical consequence ofhis position, namely, that, while he upheld the decision as a wiseinterpretation of the rights of the slave-owners to hold slaves in theTerritories, yet the people of a Territory, under "the great principleof Popular Sovereignty" (which was Douglas's chief stock in trade), could exclude slavery from its limits even before it had formed a Stateconstitution. "If we succeed in bringing him to this point, " he wrote afriend, "he will say that slavery cannot actually exist in theTerritories unless the people desire it, which will offend the South. "If Douglas did not answer Lincoln's question he would jeopardize hiselection as Senator; if he did answer he would offend the South, for hisdoctrine of "squatter sovereignty" conflicted not only with theinterests of slavery, but with his defence of the Dred-Scottdecision, --a fact which Lincoln was not slow to point out. Douglas didanswer, and the result was as Lincoln predicted. 

The position taken by Lincoln himself in the debate was bold and clear. Said he, "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe thisgovernment cannot endure half-slave and half-free. Either the opponentsof slavery will avert the further spread of it, and place it where thepublic mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course ofultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shallbecome alike lawful in all the States, --old as well as new, North aswell as South. " When his friends objected that this kind of talk woulddefeat him for senatorship, he replied, "But it is _true_ . .. I wouldrather be defeated with these expressions in my speech held up anddiscussed before the people than be victorious without it. " He wasdefeated: but the debates made his fame national and resulted in hisbeing president; while the politic Douglas gained the senatorship andlost the greater prize. 

In these famous debates between the leaders, Lincoln proved himselfquite the equal of his antagonist, who was already famous as a trainedand prompt debater. Lincoln canvassed the State. He made in one campaignas many as fifty speeches. It is impossible, within my narrow limits, togo into the details of those great debates. In them Lincoln rose aboveall technicalities and sophistries, and not only planted himself oneternal right, but showed marvellous political wisdom. The keynote ofall his utterances was that "a house divided against itself could notstand. " Yet he did not pass beyond the constitutional limit in hisargument: he admitted the right of the South to a fugitive-slave law, and the right of a Territory to enact slavery for itself on becoming aState; he favored abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia onlyon the request of its inhabitants, and would forward the colonization ofthe negroes in Liberia if they wished it and their masters consented. Hewas a pronounced antislavery man, but not an Abolitionist, and took withthe great mass of the Northerners a firm stand against the _extension_of slavery. It was this intuitive perception of the common-sense of thesituation that made him and kept him the remarkable representative ofthe Northern people that he was to the very end. 

Lincoln gained so much fame from his contest with Douglas that he was, during the spring of the following year, invited to speak in the EasternStates; and in the great hall of the Cooper Institute in New York, inFebruary, 1860, he addressed a magnificent audience presided over byBryant the poet. He had made elaborate preparation for this speech, which was a careful review of the slavery question from the foundationof the republic to that time, and a masterly analysis of the relativepositions of political parties to it. The address made a deepimpression. The speaker was simply introduced as a distinguishedpolitician from the West. The speech was a surprise to those who werefamiliar with Western oratory. There was no attempt at rhetoric, but theaddress was pure logic from beginning to end, like an argument beforethe Supreme Court, and exceedingly forcible. The chief point made wasthe political necessity of excluding slavery from the Territories. Theorator did not dwell on slavery as a crime, but as a wrong which hadgradually been forced upon the nation, the remedy for which was not inviolent denunciations. He did not abuse the South; he simply pleaded forharmony in the Republican ranks, and avoided giving offence to extremepartisans on any side, contending that if slavery could be excludedfrom the Territories it would gradually become extinct, as bothunprofitable and unjust. He would tolerate slavery within its presentlimits, and even return fugitive slaves to their owners, according tothe laws, but would not extend the evil where it did not at presentexist. As it was a wrong, it must not be perpetuated. 

The moderation of this speech, coming from an Illinois politician, didmuch to draw attention to him as a possible future candidate for thepresidency, to which, by this time, he undoubtedly aspired. And why not?He was the leader of his party in Illinois, a great speech-maker, whohad defeated Douglas himself in debate, a shrewd, cool, far-sighted man, looking to the future rather than the present; and political friends hadalready gathered about him as a strong political factor. 

Mr. Lincoln after his great speech in New York returned to his home. Hehad a few years before given some political speeches in Boston and theadjacent towns, which were well received, but made no deepimpression, --from no fault of his, but simply because he had not theright material to work upon, where culture was more in demand than vigorof intellect. 

Indeed, one result of the election of Lincoln, and of the war whichfollowed, was to open the eyes of Eastern people to the intellect andintelligence of the West. Western lawyers and politicians might not havethe culture of Sumner, the polished elocution of Everett, the urbanityof Van Buren, and the courtly manners of Winthrop, but they hadbrain-power, a faculty for speech-making, and great political sagacity. And they were generally more in sympathy with the people, having mostlysprung from their ranks. Their hard and rugged intellects _told_ on thefloor of Congress, where every one is soon judged according to hismerits, and not according to his clothes. And the East saw thatthereafter political power would centre in the West, and dominate thewhole country, --against which it was useless to complain or rebel, since, according to all political axioms, the majority will rule, andought to rule. And the more the East saw of the leading men of the West, the more it respected their force of mind, their broad and comprehensiveviews, and their fitness for high place under the government. 

It was not the people of the United States who called for the nominationof Lincoln, as in the case of General Jackson. He was not much knownoutside of Illinois, except as a skilful debater and stump orator. Hehad filled no high office to bring him before the eyes of the nation. Hewas not a general covered with military laurels, nor a Senator inCongress, nor governor of a large State, nor a cabinet officer. No manhad thus far been nominated for President unless he was a militarysuccess, or was in the line of party promotion. Though a party leader inIllinois, Lincoln was simply a private citizen, with no antecedentswhich marked him out for such exalted position. But he was"available, "--a man who could be trusted, moderate in his views, a Whigand yet committed to antislavery views, of great logical powers, andwell-informed on all the political issues of the day. He was not likelyto be rash, or impulsive, or hasty, or to stand in the way of politicalaspirants. He was eminently a safe man in an approaching crisis, with ajudicial intellect, and above all a man without enemies, whom fewenvied, and some laughed at for his grotesque humor and awkward manners. He was also modest and unpretending, and had the tact to veil hisambition. In his own State he was exceedingly popular. It was notstrange, therefore, that the Illinois Republican State Conventionnominated him as their presidential candidate, to be supported in thelarger national convention about to assemble. 

In May, 1860, the memorable National Republican Convention met inChicago, in an immense building called the Wigwam, to select a candidatefor the presidency. Among the prominent Republican leaders were Seward, Chase, Cameron, Dayton, and Bates. The Eastern people supposed thatSeward would receive the nomination, from his conceded ability, hispolitical experience, his prominence as an antislavery Whig, and theprestige of office; but he had enemies, and an unconciliatorydisposition. It soon became evident that he could not carry all theStates. The contest was between Seward, Chase, and Lincoln; and when, onthe third ballot, Lincoln received within a vote and a-half of themajority, Ohio gave him four votes from Chase, and then delegation afterdelegation changed its vote for the victor, and amid great enthusiasmthe nomination became unanimous. 

The election followed, and Lincoln, the Republican, received one hundredand eighty electoral votes; Breckinridge, the Southern Democrat, seventy-two; Bell, of the Union ticket--the last fragment of the oldWhig party--thirty-nine; and Douglas, of the Northern Democracy, buttwelve. The rail-splitter became President of the United States, andSenator Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, Vice President. It was a victory ofideas. It was the triumph of the North over the South, --of the arousedconscience and intelligence of the people against bigotry, arrogance, and wrong. Men and measures in that great contest paled before thegrandeur of everlasting principles. It was not for Lincoln that bonfireswere kindled and cannons roared and bells were rung and huzzas ascendedto heaven, but for the great check given to the slave-power, which, since the formation of the Constitution, had dominated the nation. TheRepublicans did not gain a majority of the popular vote, as the combinedopposing tickets cast 930, 170 votes more than they; but their vote wasmuch larger than that for any other ticket, and gave them a handsomemajority in the electoral college. 

Between the election in November, 1860, and the following March, whenLincoln took the reins of government, several of the Southern States hadalready seceded from the Union and had organized a government atMontgomery. Making the excuse of the election of a "sectional andminority president, " they had put into effect the action for which theirleaders during several months had been secretly preparing. They hadseized nearly all the Federal forts, arsenals, dock-yards, custom-houses, and post-offices within their limits, while a largenumber of the officers of the United States army and navy had resigned, and entered into their service, on the principle that the authority oftheir States was paramount to the Federal power. 

Amid all these preparations for war on the part of the seceding States, and the seizure of Federal property, Buchanan was irresolute andperplexed. He was doubtless patriotic and honest, but he did not knowwhat to do. The state of things was much more serious than when SouthCarolina threatened to secede in the time of General Jackson. The wantof firmness and decision on the part of the President has been severelycriticised, but it seems to me to have been not without excuse in theperplexing conditions of the time, while it was certainly fortunate thathe did not precipitate the crisis by sending troops to reinforce FortSumter, in Charleston harbor, which was invested and threatened by SouthCarolina troops. The contest was inevitable anyway, and the managementof the war was better in the hands of Lincoln than it could have been inthose of Buchanan, with traitors in his cabinet, or even after they hadleft and a new and loyal cabinet was summoned, but with an undecided manat the head. There was needed a new and stronger government whenhostilities should actually break out. 

On the 4th of March, 1861, the inauguration of Lincoln took place, andwell do I remember the ceremony. The day was warm and beautiful, andnature smiled in mockery of the bloody tragedy which was so soon tofollow. I mingled with the crowd at the eastern portico of the Capitol, and was so fortunate as to hear and see all that took place, --the highofficials who surrounded the President, his own sad and pensive face, his awkward but not undignified person arrayed in a faultless suit ofblack, the long address he made, the oath of office administered byChief Justice Taney, and the dispersion of the civil and militaryfunctionaries to their homes. It was not a great pageant, but was animpressive gathering. Society, in which the Southern elementpredominated, sneered at the tall ruler who had learned so few of itsgraces and insincerities, and took but little note of the thunder-cloudsin the political atmosphere, --the distant rumblings which heralded theapproaching storm so soon to break with satanic force. 

The inaugural address was not only an earnest appeal for peace, but acalm and steadfast announcement of the law-abiding policy of thegovernment, and a putting of the responsibility for any bloodshed uponthose who should resist the law. Two brief paragraphs containthe whole:--

"The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess theproperty and places belonging to the government, and to collect theduties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objectsthere will be no invasion, no use of force among the people anywhere. 

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, isthe momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. "

This was the original chart of the course which the President followed, and his final justification when by use of "the power confided to him"he had accomplished the complete restoration of the authority of theFederal Union over all the vast territory which the seceded States hadseized and so desperately tried to control. 

Lincoln was judicious and fortunate in his cabinet. Seward, the ablestand most experienced statesman of the day, accepted the office ofSecretary of State; Salmon P. Chase, who had been governor of Ohio, andUnited States Senator, was made Secretary of the Treasury; GideonWelles, of great executive ability and untiring energy, became Secretaryof the Navy; Simon Cameron, an influential politician of Pennsylvania, held the post of Secretary of War for a time, when he was succeeded byEdwin M. Stanton, a man of immense capacity for work; Montgomery Blair, a noted antislavery leader, was made Postmaster-General; Caleb B. Smithbecame Secretary of the Interior; and Edward Bates, of Missouri, Attorney-General. Every one of these cabinet ministers was a strong man, and was found to be greater than he had seemed. 

Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, an old-time Democrat, was electedPresident of the Southern Confederacy, and Alexander H. Stephens, aprominent Whig of Georgia, Vice-President. Davis was born in Kentucky in1808, and was a graduate of West Point. He was a Congressman on theoutbreak of the Mexican War, resigned his seat, entered the army, anddistinguished himself, rising to the rank of colonel. He was Secretaryof War in President Pierce's cabinet, and Senator from Mississippi onthe accession of President Buchanan, --a position which he held until thesecession of his State. He thus had had considerable military andpolitical experience. He was a man of great ability, but was proud, reserved, and cold, "a Democrat by party name, an autocrat in feelingand sentiment, --a type of the highest Southern culture, and exclusiveSouthern caste. " To his friends--and they were many, in spite of hisreserve--there was a peculiar charm in his social intercourse; he wasbeloved in his family, and his private life was irreproachable. Heselected an able cabinet, among whom were Walker of Alabama, Toombs ofGeorgia, and Benjamin of Louisiana. The Provisional Congress authorizeda regular army of ten thousand men, one hundred thousand volunteers, anda loan of fifteen millions of dollars. 

But actual hostilities had not as yet commenced. The Confederates, during the close of Buchanan's administration, were not without hopes ofa peaceful settlement and recognition of secession, and severalconferences had taken place, --one overture being made even to the newadministration, but of course in vain. 

The spark which kindled the conflagration--but little more than a monthafter Lincoln's inauguration, April 12, 1861--was the firing on FortSumter, and its surrender to the South Carolinians. This aroused boththe indignation and the military enthusiasm of the North, which in asingle day was, as by a lightning flash, fused in a white heat ofpatriotism and a desire to avenge the dishonored flag. For the time allparty lines disappeared, and the whole population were united and solidin defence of the Union. Both sides now prepared to fight in goodearnest. The sword was drawn, the scabbard thrown away. Both sides wereconfident of victory. The Southern leaders were under the delusion thatthe Yankees would not fight, and that they cared more for dollars thanfor their country. Moreover, the Southern States had long been trainingtheir young men in the military schools, and had for months beencollecting materials of war. As cotton was an acknowledged "king, " theplanters calculated on the support of England, which could not dowithout their bales. Lastly, they knew that the North had been dividedagainst itself, and that the Democratic politicians sympathized withthem in reference to slavery. The Federal leaders, on the other hand, relied on the force of numbers, of wealth, and national prestige. Veryfew supposed that the contest would be protracted. Seward thought thatit would not last over three months. Nor did the South think ofconquering the North, but supposed it could secure its ownindependence. It certainly was resolved on making a desperate fight todefend its peculiar institution. As it was generally thought in Englandthat this attempt would succeed, as England had no special love for theUnion, and as the Union, and not opposition to slavery, was the rallyingcry of the North, England gave to the South its moral support. 

Lincoln assumed his burden with great modesty, but with a steadyfirmness and determination, and surprised his cabinet by his force ofwill. Nicolay and Hay relate an anecdote of great significance. Seward, who occupied the first place in the cabinet, which he deserved onaccount of his experience and abilities, was not altogether pleased withthe slow progress of things, and wrote to Lincoln an extraordinaryletter in less than a month after his inauguration, suggesting moreactive operations, with specific memoranda of a proposed policy. "Whatever policy we adopt, " said he, "there must be an energeticprosecution of it. For this purpose it must be somebody's business topursue and direct it incessantly. Either the President must do ithimself, or devolve it on some member of his cabinet. It is not myespecial province; but I neither seek to evade nor assumeresponsibility. " In brief, it was an intimation, "If you feel not equalto the emergency, perhaps you can find a man not a thousand miles awaywho is equal to it. "

Lincoln, in his reply, showed transcendent tact. Although aninexperienced local politician, suddenly placed at the head of a greatnation, in a tremendous crisis, and surrounded in his cabinet and inCongress by men of acknowledged expert ability in statecraft, he had hisown ideas, but he needed the counsel and help of these men as well. Hecould not afford to part with the services of a man like Seward, norwould he offend him by any assumption of dignity or resentment at hisunasked advice. He good-naturedly replied, in substance: "The policylaid down in my inaugural met your distinct approval, and it has thusfar been exactly followed. As to attending to its prosecution, if thismust be done, I must do it, and I wish, and suppose I am entitled tohave, the advice of all the cabinet. "

After this, no member of the cabinet dared to attempt to usurp anyauthority which belonged to the elected Commander-in-chief of the armyand navy, --unless it were Chase, at a later time. As the head of thegovernment in whom supreme Federal power was invested in time of war, Lincoln was willing and eager to consult his cabinet, but reserved hisdecisions and assumed all responsibilities. He probably made mistakes, but who could have done better on the whole? The choice of the nationwas justified by results. 

It is not my object in this paper to attempt to compress the politicaland military history of the United States during the memorableadministration of Mr. Lincoln. If one wishes to know the details he mustgo to the ten octavo biographical volumes of Lincoln's privatesecretaries, to the huge and voluminous quarto reports of thegovernment, to the multifarious books on the war and its actors. I canonly glance at salient points, and even here I must confine myself tothose movements which are intimately connected with the agency andinfluence of Lincoln himself. It is his life, and not a history of thewar, that it is my business to present. Nor has the time come for animpartial and luminous account of the greatest event of modern times. The jealousy and dissensions of generals, the prejudices of the peopleboth North and South, the uncertainty and inconsistency of much of thematerial published, and the conceit of politicians, alike prevent ahistory which will be satisfactory, no matter how gifted and learned maybe the historian. When all the actors of that famous tragedy, both greatand small, have passed away, new light will appear, and poetry will addher charms to what is now too hideous a reality, glorious as were theachievements of heroes and statesmen. 

After the Battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861, won by the ConfederateGeneral Beauregard over General McDowell, against all expectation, tothe dismay and indignation of the whole North, --the result ofover-confidence on the part of the Union troops, and a wretchedlymismanaged affair, --the attention of the Federal government was mainlydirected to the defence of Washington, which might have fallen into thehands of the enemy had the victors been confident and quick enough topursue the advantage they had gained; for nothing could exceed the panicat the capital after the disastrous defeat of McDowell. Thedemoralization of the Union forces was awful. Happily, the condition ofthe Confederate troops was not much better. 

But the country rallied after the crisis had passed. Lincoln issued hisproclamation for five hundred thousand additional men. Congressauthorized as large a loan as was needed. The governors of the variousStates raised regiment after regiment, and sent them to Washington, asthe way through Maryland, at first obstructed by local secessionists, was now clear, General Butler having intrenched himself at Baltimore. Most fortunately the governor of Maryland was a Union man, and with theaid of the Northern forces had repressed the rebellious tendency inMaryland, which State afterward remained permanently in the Union, andoffered no further resistance to the passage of Federal troops. Arlington Heights in Virginia, opposite Washington, had already beenfortified by General Scott; but additional defences were made, and thecapital was out of danger. 

With the rapid concentration of troops at Washington, the governmentagain assumed the offensive. General George B. McClellan, havingdistinguished himself in West Virginia, was called to Washington, at therecommendation of the best military authorities, and intrusted with thecommand of the Army of the Potomac; and soon after, on the retirement ofGeneral Scott, now aged and infirm, and unable to mount a horse, McClellan took his place as commander of all the forces of theUnited States. 

At the beginning of the rebellion McClellan was simply a captain, butwas regarded as one of the most able and accomplished officers of thearmy. His promotion was rapid beyond precedent; but his head was turnedby his elevation, and he became arrogant and opinionated, and beforelong even insulted the President, and assumed the airs of a nationalliberator on whose shoulders was laid the burden of the war. Heconsequently estranged Congress, offended Scott, became distrusted bythe President, and provoked the jealousies of the other generals. But hewas popular with the army and his subordinates, and if he offended hissuperiors his soldiers were devoted to him, and looked upon him as asecond Napoleon. 

The best thing that can be said of this general is that he was a greatorganizer, and admirably disciplined for their future encounters the rawtroops which were placed under his command. And he was too prudent torisk the lives of his men until his preparations were made, althoughconstantly urged to attempt, if not impossibilities, at least what wasexceedingly hazardous. 

It was expected by the President, the Secretary of War, and Congress, that he would hasten his preparations, and advance upon the enemy, as hehad over one hundred thousand men; and he made grand promises and gaveassurances that he would march speedily upon Richmond. But he did notmarch. Delay succeeded delay, under various pretences, to thedisappointment of the country, and the indignation of the responsiblegovernment. It was not till April, 1862, after five months of inaction, that he was ready to move upon Richmond, and then not according topre-arranged plans, but by a longer route, by the way of FortressMonroe, up the Peninsula between the York and James rivers, and notdirectly across Virginia by Manassas Junction, which had been evacuatedin view of his superior forces, --the largest army theretofore seen onthis continent. 

It is not for me, utterly ignorant of military matters, to make anycriticism of the plan of operations, in which the President andMcClellan were at issue, or to censure the general in command for thelong delay, against the expostulations of the Executive and of Congress. He maintained that his army was not sufficiently drilled, or largeenough for an immediate advance, that the Confederate forces weregreater than his own, and were posted in impregnable positions. He wasalways calling for reinforcements, until his army comprised over twohundred thousand men, and when at last imperatively commanded to move, some-whither, --at any rate to move, --he left Washington not sufficientlydefended, which necessitated the withdrawal of McDowell's corps from himto secure the safety of the capital. Without enumerating or describingthe terrible battles on the Peninsula, and the "change of base, " whichpractically was a retreat, and virtually the confession of failure, itmay be said in defence or palliation of McClellan that it afterwardstook Grant, with still greater forces, and when the Confederates wereweakened and demoralized, a year to do what McClellan was expected to doin three months. 

The war had now been going on for more than a year, without any decisiveresults so far as the Army of the Potomac was concerned, but on thecontrary with great disasters and bitter humiliations. The mostprodigious efforts had been made by the Union troops without success, and thus far the Confederates had the best of it, and were filled withtriumph. As yet no Union generals could be compared with Lee, orJohnston, or Longstreet, or Stonewall Jackson, while the men under theircommand were quite equal to the Northern soldiers in bravery anddiscipline. 

The times were dark and gloomy at the North, and especially so to thePresident, as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, after all theenergies he put forth in the general direction of affairs. He wasmaligned and misrepresented and ridiculed; yet he opened not his mouth, and kept his soul in patience, --magnanimous, forbearing, and modest. Inhis manners and conduct, though intrusted with greater powers than anyAmerican before him had ever exercised, he showed no haughtiness, noresentments, no disdain, but was accessible to everybody who had anyclaim on his time, and was as simple and courteous as he had been in aprivate station. But what anxieties, what silent grief, what a burden, had he to bear! And here was his greatness, which endeared him to theAmerican heart, --that he usurped no authority, offended no one, andclaimed nothing, when most men, armed as he was with almost unlimitedauthority, would have been reserved, arrogant, and dictatorial. He didnot even assume the cold dignity which Washington felt it necessary toput on, but shook hands, told stories, and uttered jokes, as if he werewithout office on the prairies of Illinois; yet all the while resolutein purpose and invincible in spirit, --an impersonation of logicalintellect before which everybody succumbed, as firm, when he saw his wayclear, as Bismarck himself. 

His tact in managing men showed his native shrewdness and kindliness, aswell as the value of all his early training in the arts of thepolitician. Always ready to listen, and to give men free chance torelieve their minds in talk, he never directly antagonized theiropinions, but, deftly embodying an argument in an apt joke or story, would manage to switch them off from their track to his own withouttheir exactly perceiving the process. His innate courtesy often made himseem uncertain of his ground, but he probably had his own way quite asfrequently as Andrew Jackson, and without that irascible oldfighter's friction. 

But darker days were yet to come, and more perplexing duties had yet tobe discharged. The President was obliged to retire McClellan from hiscommand when, in August, 1862, that general's procrastination could nolonger be endured. McClellan had made no fatal blunders, was endeared tohis men, and when it was obvious that he could not take Richmond, although within four miles of it at one time, he had made a successfuland masterly retreat to Harrison's Landing; yet the campaign against theConfederate capital had been a failure, as many believed, by reason ofunnecessary delays on the part of the commander, and the President hadto take the responsibility of sustaining or removing him. He chosethe latter. 

What general would Lincoln select to succeed McClellan? He chose GeneralJohn Pope, but not with the powers which had been conferred onMcClellan. Pope had been graduated at West Point in 1842, had servedwith distinction in the Mexican War, and had also done good service inthe West. But it was his misfortune at this time to lose the secondbattle of Bull Run, or Manassas, when there was no necessity oflighting. He himself attributed his disaster to the inaction anddisobedience of General Porter, who was cashiered for it, --a verdictwhich was reversed by a careful military inquiry after the war. Pope'sdefeat was followed, although against the advice of the cabinet, by therestoration of McClellan, since Washington was again in danger. After hehad put the capital in safety, McClellan advanced slowly against Lee, who had crossed the Potomac into Maryland with designs on Pennsylvania. He made his usual complaint of inadequate forces, and exaggerated theforces of the enemy. He won, however, the battle of Antietam, --for, although the Confederates afterwards claimed that it was a drawn battle, they immediately retired, --but even then failed to pursue his advantage, and allowed Lee to recross the Potomac and escape, to the deep disgustof everybody and the grief of Lincoln. Encouraged by McClellan'scontinued inaction, Lee sent his cavalry under Stuart, who with twothousand men encircled the Federal army, and made a raid intoPennsylvania, gathering supplies, and retired again into Virginia, unhindered and unharmed. The President now deprived McClellan again ofhis command, and that general's military career ended. He retired toprivate life, emerging again only as an unsuccessful Democraticcandidate for the presidency against Lincoln in 1864. 

It was a difficult matter for Lincoln to decide upon a new general tocommand the Army of the Potomac. He made choice of Ambrose E. Burnside, the next in rank, --a man of pleasing address and a gallant soldier, butnot of sufficient abilities for the task imposed upon him. The resultwas the greatest military blunder of the whole war. With the idea ofadvancing directly upon Richmond through Fredericksburg, Burnside madethe sad error of attacking equal forces strongly intrenched on theFredericksburg Heights, while he advanced from the valley of theRappahannock below, crossing the river under a plunging fire, andattacking the enemy on the hill. It was a dismal slaughter, but Burnsidemagnanimously took the whole blame upon himself, and was not disgraced, although removed from his command. He did good service afterwards as acorps-commander. 

It was soon after Burnside's unfortunate failure at Fredericksburg, perhaps the gloomiest period of the war, when military reverses saddenedthe whole North, and dissensions in the cabinet itself added to theembarrassments of the President, that Lincoln performed the mostmomentous act of his life, and probably the most important act of thewhole war, in his final proclamation emancipating the slaves, andutilizing them in the Union service, as a military necessity. 

Ever since the beginning of hostilities had this act been urged upon thePresident by the antislavery men of the North, --a body growing moreintense and larger in numbers as the war advanced. But Lincoln remainedsteady to his original purpose of _saving the Union, _---whether with orwithout slavery. Naturally, and always opposed to slavery, he did notbelieve that he had any right to indulge his private feeling inviolation of the Constitutional limitations of his civil power, unless, as he said, "measures otherwise unconstitutional might become lawful bybecoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution throughthe preservation of the nation. "

Thus when in 1861 Frémont in Missouri proclaimed emancipation to theslaves of persistent rebels, although this was hailed with delight byvast numbers at the North, the President countermanded it as not yet anindispensable necessity. In March, 1862, he approved Acts of Congresslegalizing General B. F. Butler's shrewd device of declaring all slavesof rebels in arms as "contraband of war, " and thus, when they camewithin the army lines, to be freed and used by the Northern armies. InMarch, May, and July, 1862, he made earnest appeals to the Border Statesto favor compensated emancipation, because he foresaw that militaryemancipation would become necessary before long. When Lee was inMaryland and Pennsylvania, he felt that the time had arrived, andawaited only some marked military success, so that the measure shouldseem a mightier blow to the rebels and not a cry for help. And this wasa necessary condition, for, while hundreds of thousands of Democrats hadjoined the armies and had become Republicans for the war, --in fact, allthe best generals and a large proportion of the soldiers of the Northhad been Democrats before the flag was fired on, --yet the Democraticpoliticians of the proslavery type were still alive and activethroughout the North, doing all they could to discredit the nationalcause, and hinder the government; and Lincoln intuitively knew that thisact must commend itself to the great mass of the Northern people, or itwould be a colossal blunder. 

Therefore, when Lee had been driven back, on September 22, 1862, thePresident issued a preliminary proclamation, stating that he shouldagain recommend Congress to favor an Act tendering pecuniary aid toslaveholders in States not in rebellion, who would adopt immediate orgradual abolishment of slavery within their limits; but that on thefirst day of January, 1863, "all persons held as slaves within anyState, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall be inrebellion against the United States, shall be thenceforward and foreverfree. " And accordingly, --in spite of Burnside's dreadful disaster beforeFredericksburg on December 13, unfavorable results in the fall electionsthroughout the North, much criticism of his course in thenewly-assembled Congress, and the unpopular necessity of more men andmore money to be drawn from the loyal States, --on January 1, 1863, thecourageous leader sent forth his final and peremptory Decree ofEmancipation. He issued it, "by virtue of the power in me vested ascommander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States in time ofactual armed rebellion against the authority and government of theUnited States, and as a fit and necessary war-measure for suppressingsaid rebellion. "

Of course such an edict would have no immediate force in the remoterStates controlled by the Confederate government, nor at the time did itproduce any remarkable sensation except to arouse bitter animadversionat the North and renewed desperation of effort at the South; but itimmediately began to reduce the workers on intrenchments andfortifications along the Confederate front and to increase those of theFederal forces, while soon also providing actual troops for the Unionarmies; and, since it was subsequently indorsed by all the States, through an amendment to the Constitution by which slavery was foreverprohibited in the States and Territories of the United States, and inview of its immense consequences, the Emancipation Proclamation ofLincoln must be regarded as perhaps the culminating event in the war. Itwas his own act; and he accepted all the responsibilities. The abolitionof slavery is therefore forever identified with the administrationof Lincoln. 

In the early part of 1863 Lincoln relieved Burnside of his command, andappointed General Joseph Hooker to succeed him. This officer haddistinguished himself as a brilliant tactician; he was known as"fighting Joe;" but he was rash. He made a bold and successful march, crossed the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers and advanced upon the enemy, but early in May, 1863, was defeated at Chancellorsville, in one of thebloodiest battles of the war. The Confederates were now exceedinglyelated; and Lee, with a largely increased army of ninety thousandsplendid fighting men, resolved on invading Pennsylvania in force. Evading Hooker, he passed through the Shenandoah Valley, and about themiddle of June was in Pennsylvania before the Union forces could begathered to oppose him. He took York and Carlisle and threatenedHarrisburg. The invasion filled the North with dismay. Hooker, feelinghis incompetency, and on bad terms with Halleck, the general-in-chief, asked to be relieved, and his request was at once granted. 

General George C. Meade was appointed his successor on June 28. Strikingdue north with all speed, ably supported by a remarkable group ofcorps-commanders and the veteran Army of the Potomac handsomelyreinforced and keenly eager to fight, Meade brought Lee to bay near thevillage of Gettysburg, and after three days of terrific fighting, inwhich the losses of the two armies aggregated over forty-five thousandmen, on the 3d of July he defeated Lee's army and turned it rapidlysouthward. This was the most decisive battle of the war, and the mostbloody, finally lost by Lee through his making the same mistake thatBurnside did at Fredericksburg, in attacking equal forces intrenched ona hill. Nothing was left to Lee but retreat across the Potomac, andMeade--an able but not a great captain--made the mistake that McClellanhad made at Antietam in not following up his advantage, but allowing Leeto escape into Virginia. 

To cap the climax of Union success, on the 4th of July General UlyssesS. Grant, who had been operating against Vicksburg on the Mississippiduring four months, captured that city, with thirty-two thousandprisoners, and a few days later Port Hudson with its garrison fell intohis hands. The signal combination of victories filled the North withenthusiasm and the President with profoundest gratitude. It is true, Meade's failure to follow and capture Lee was a bitter disappointment toLincoln. The Confederate commander might have been compelled tosurrender to a flushed and conquering army a third larger than his own, had Meade pursued and attacked him, and the war might perhaps virtuallyhave ended. Yet Lee's army was by no means routed, and was in dangerousmood, while Meade's losses had been really larger than his; so that theFederal general's caution does not lack military defenders. Nevertheless, he evidently was not the man that had been sought for. 

More than two years had now elapsed since the Army of the Potomac hadbeen organized by McClellan, and yet it was no nearer the end which thePresident, the war minister, the cabinet, and the generals had inview, --the capture of Richmond. Thus far, more than one hundred thousandmen had been lost in the contest which the politicians had supposed wasto be so brief. Not a single general had arisen at the East equal to theoccasion. Only a few of the generals had seen important military servicebefore the war, and not one had evinced remarkable abilities, althoughmany had distinguished themselves for bravery and capacity to managewell an army corps. Each army commander had failed when greatresponsibilities had been imposed upon him. Not one came up to popularexpectation. The great soldier must be "born" as well as "made. "

It must be observed that up to this time, in the autumn of 1863, thePresident had not only superintended the Army of the Potomac, but hadborne the chief burden of the government and the war at large. Cabinetmeetings, reports of generals, quarrels of generals, dissensions ofpolitical leaders, impertinence of editors, the premature pressure toemancipate slaves, Western campaigns, the affairs of the navy, and athousand other things pressed upon his attention. It was his custom tofollow the movements of every army with the map before him, and to beperfectly familiar with all the general, and many of the detailed, problems in every part of the vast field of the war. No man was evermore overworked. It may be a question how far he was wise in himselfattending to so many details, and in giving directions to generals inhigh command, and sometimes against the advice of men more experiencedin military matters. That is not for me to settle. He seemed to bear thegovernment and all the armies on head and heart, as if theresponsibility for everything was imposed upon him. What had been thehistory? In the East, two years clouded by disasters, mistakes, andnational disappointments, with at last a breaking of the day, --and that, in the West. 

Was ever a man more severely tried! And yet, in view of fatal errors onthe part of generals, the disobedience of orders, and the unfriendlydetractions of Chase, --his able, but self-important Secretary of theTreasury, --not a word of reproach had fallen from him; he was stillgentle, conciliatory, patient, forgiving on all occasions, andmarvellously reticent and self-sustained. His transcendent moralqualities stood out before the world unquestioned, whatever criticismsmay be made as to the wisdom of all his acts. 

But a brighter day was at hand. The disasters of the East--forGettysburg was but the retrieving of a desperate situation--werecompensated by great success in the West. Fort Donelson and Columbus in1862, Vicksburg and Port Hudson in 1863, had been great achievements. The Mississippi was cleared of hostile forts upon its banks, and wasopened to its mouth. New Orleans was occupied by Union troops. Thefinances were in good condition, for Chase had managed that greatproblem with brilliant effect. The national credit was restored. Thenavy had done wonders, and the southern coast was effectually blockaded. A war with England had been averted by the tact of Lincoln rather thanthe diplomacy of Seward. 

Lincoln cordially sustained in his messages to Congress the financialschemes of the Secretary of the Treasury, and while he carefullywatched, he did not interfere with, the orders of the Secretary of theNavy. To Farragut, Foote, and Porter was great glory due for opening theMississippi, as much as to Grant and Sherman for cutting the ConfederateStates in twain. Too much praise cannot be given to Chase for therestoration of the national credit, and Lincoln bore patiently hisadverse criticism in view of his transcendent services. 

At this stage of public affairs, in the latter part of 1863, GeneralGrant was called from the West to take command of the Army of thePotomac. His great military abilities were known to the whole nation. Although a graduate of West Point, who had, when young, done goodservice under General Scott, his mature life had been a failure; andwhen the war broke out he was engaged in the tanning business at Galena, Illinois, at a salary of $800. He offered his services to the governorof Illinois, and was made a colonel of volunteers. Shortly afterentering active service he was made brigadier-general, and his abilityas a commander was soon apparent. He gradually rose to the command ofthe military district of Southeast Missouri; then to the command of thegreat military rendezvous and depot at Cairo. Then followed hisexpedition, assisted by Commodore Foote, against Fort Henry on theTennessee River, in the early part of 1862, with no encouragement fromHalleck, the commanding-general at St. Louis. The capture of FortDonelson on the Cumberland River came next, to the amazement and chagrinof the Confederate generals; for which he was made a major-general ofvolunteers. This was a great service, which resulted in the surrender ofGenerals Buckner and Johnston with 15, 000 Confederate soldiers, 20, 000stands of arms, 48 pieces of artillery, and 3, 000 horses. But this greatsuccess was nothing to the siege and capture of Vicksburg, July 4, 1863, which opened the Mississippi and divided the Confederacy, to say nothingof the surrender of nearly 30, 000 men, 172 cannon, and 60, 000 muskets. Then followed the great battle of Chattanooga, which shed glory onThomas, Sherman, Burnside, and Hooker, and raised still higher themilitary fame of Grant, who had planned and directed it. No general inthe war had approached him in success and ability. The eyes of thenation were now upon him. Congress revived for him the grade oflieutenant-general, and the conqueror of Vicksburg and Chattanoogareceived the honor on March 3, 1864, the first on whom the full rank hadbeen conferred since Washington. The lieutenant-generalcy conferred onWinfield Scott after the Mexican War was a special brevet title ofhonor, that rank not existing in our army. 

On the 8th of March the President met the successful and fortunategeneral for the first time, and was delighted with his quiet modesty; onthe next day he gave him command of all the armies of the United States. Grant was given to understand that the work assigned to him personallywas the capture of Richmond. But he was left to follow out his ownplans, and march to the Confederate capital by any route he saw fit. Henceforth the President, feeling full confidence, ceased to concernhimself with the plans of the general commanding the Army of thePotomac. He did not even ask to know them. All he and the Secretary ofWar could do was to forward the plans of the Lieutenant-General, andprovide all the troops he wanted. Lincoln's anxieties of courseremained, and he watched eagerly for news, and was seen often at the wardepartment till late at night, waiting to learn what Grant was doing;but Grant was left with the whole military responsibility, because hewas evidently competent for it; the relief to Lincoln must have beenimmense. The history of the war, from this time, belongs to the life ofGrant rather than of Lincoln. Suggestions to that successful soldierfrom civilians now were like those of the Dutch Deputies when theyundertook to lecture the great Marlborough on the art of war. To bringthe war to a speedy close required the brain and the will and the energyof a military genius, and the rapid and concentrated efforts of veteransoldiers, disciplined by experience, and inured to the toils anddangers of war. 

The only great obstacle was the difficulty of enlisting men in what wasnow more than ever to be dangerous work. When Grant began his march toRichmond probably half-a-million of soldiers had perished on each side, and a national debt had been contracted of over two thousand millions ofdollars. In spite of patriotic calls, in spite of bounties, it becamenecessary to draft men into the service, --a compulsory act of power tobe justified only by the exigencies of the country. In no other waycould the requisite number of troops be secured. Multitudes of thesurvivors have been subsequently rewarded, at least partially, bypensions. The pension list, at the close of Harrison's administration in1892, amounted to a sum greater than Germany annually expends on itsgigantic army. So far as the pensioners are genuinely disabled veterans, the people make no complaint, appreciating the sacrifices which thesoldiers were compelled to make in the dreadful contest. But so vast afund for distribution attracted the inevitable horde of small lawyersand pension agents, who swelled the lists with multitudes of shamveterans and able-bodied "cripples, " until many eminent ex-soldierscried out for a purgation of that which should be a list of honor. 

Nor is it disloyal or unpatriotic to shed a tear for the brave butmisguided men whom the Southern leaders led to destruction without anysuch recompense for their wounds and hardships, --for the loss of theirproperty, loss of military prestige, loss of political power, loss ofeverything but honor. At first we called them Rebels, and no penaltieswere deemed too severe for them to suffer; but later we called themConfederates, waging war for a cause which they honestly deemed sacred, and for which they cheerfully offered up their lives, --a monstrousdelusion, indeed, but one for which we ceased to curse them, and soonlearned to forgive, after their cause was lost. Resentment gave place topity, and they became like erring brothers, whom it was our duty toforgive, and in many respects our impulse to admire, --not for theircause, but for their devotion to it. All this was foreseen and foretoldby Edward Everett during the war, yet there were but few who agreedwith him. 

I can devote but little space to the military movements of General Grantin Virginia until Richmond surrendered and the rebellion collapsed. There was among the Southerners no contempt of this leader, fresh fromthe laurels of Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga; and theConfederates put forth almost superhuman efforts to defend their capitalagainst the scientific strategy of the most successful general of thewar, supported as he was by almost unlimited forces, and the unreservedconfidence of his government. 

The new general-in-chief established his headquarters at Culpeper CourtHouse near the end of March, 1864. His plan of operations wassimple, --to advance against Lee, before proceeding to Richmond, anddefeat his army if possible. Richmond, even if taken, would becomparatively valueless unless Lee were previously defeated. Grant'sforces were about one hundred and fifty thousand men, and Lee's littlemore than half that number, but the latter were intrenched in strongpositions on the interior line. It was Grant's plan to fight whenever anopportunity was presented, --since he could afford to lose two men to oneof the enemy, and was thus sure to beat in the long run; as achess-player, having a superiority of pieces, freely exchanges as hegets opportunity. There was nothing particularly brilliant in thispolicy adopted by Grant, except the great fact that he chose the coursemost likely to succeed, whatever might be his losses. Lee at first wasalso ready to fight, but after the dreadful slaughter on both sides inthe battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and Cold Harbor, heapparently changed his plans. One-third of his forces had melted away;he saw that he could not afford to take risks, and retreated behind hisdefences. Grant, too, had changed his operations, at first directedagainst Richmond on the northwest; and, since he found every hill andwood and morass strongly fortified, he concluded to march on Lee's flankto the James River, and attack Richmond from the south, after reducingPetersburg, and destroying the southern railroads by which theConfederates received most of their supplies. 

The Federal commander had all the men he wanted. A large force was underButler near Petersburg, and Sheridan had driven out the enemy from theValley of the Shenandoah with his magnificent cavalry. Lee was nowcooped up between Fredericksburg and Richmond. He was too great ageneral to lead his army into either of these strongholds, where theymight be taken as Pemberton's army was at Vicksburg. He wisely kept thefield, although he would not fight except behind his intrenchments, whenhe was absolutely forced by the aggressive foe. 

Henceforth, from June, 1864, to the close of the war the operations ofGrant resembled a siege rather than a series of battles. He had lostover fifty thousand men thus far in his march, and he, too, now becameeconomical of his soldiers' blood. He complained not, but doggedlycarried out his plans without consulting the government at Washington, or his own generals. His work was hard and discouraging. He had to fighthis way, step by step, against strong intrenchments, --the only thing todo, but he had the will and patience to do it. He had ordered an attackon Petersburg, which must be reduced before he could advance toRichmond; but the attack had failed, and he now sat down to a regularsiege of that strong and important position. The siege lasted tenmonths, when Lee was driven within his inner line of defences, and, seeing that all was lost, on April 2, 1865, evacuated his position, andbegan his retreat to the west, hoping to reach Lynchburg, and after thateffect a junction with Johnston coming up from the south. But hisretreat was cut off near Appomattox, and being entirely surrounded hehad nothing to do but surrender to Grant with his entire army, April 9. With his surrender, Richmond, of course, fell, and the war wasvirtually closed. 

Out of the 2, 200, 000 men who had enlisted on the Union side, 110, 000were killed or mortally wounded, and 250, 000 died from other causes. Theexpense of the war was $3, 250, 000, 000. The losses of the Confederateswere about three-quarters as much. Of the millions who had enlisted onboth sides, nearly a million of men perished, and over five thousandmillions of dollars were expended, probably a quarter of the wholecapital of the country at that time. So great were the sacrifices madeto preserve the Union, --at the cost of more blood and treasure than havebeen spent in any other war in modern times. 

I am compelled to omit notices of military movements in other parts ofthe Union, especially in the West, where some of the most gallantactions of the war took place, --the brilliant strategy of Rosecrans, thesignal achievements of Thomas, Sherman's march to the sea, Sheridan'sraids, the naval exploits of Farragut, Porter, and Foote, and other actsof heroism, as not bearing directly on the life of Lincoln. Of course, he felt the intensest interest in all the military operations, and borean unceasing burden of study and of anxiety, which of itself was a greatstrain on all his powers. If anything had gone wrong which he couldremedy, his voice and his hand would have been heard and seen. Buttoward the last other things demanded his personal attention, and thesewere of great importance. There never had been a time since hisinauguration when he was free from embarrassments, and when his burdenshad not been oppressive. 

Among other things, the misunderstanding between him and SecretaryChase was anything but pleasant, Chase had proved himself the ablestfinance minister that this country had produced after AlexanderHamilton. He was a man of remarkable dignity, integrity, and patriotism. He was not vain, but he was conscious both of his services and hisabilities. And he was always inclined to underrate Lincoln, whom hemisunderstood. He also had presidential aspirations. After three years'successful service he did not like to have his suggestions disregarded, and was impatient under any interference with his appointments. To saythe least, his relations with the President were strained. Annoyed andvexed with some appointments of importance, he sent in his resignation, accompanied with a petulant letter. Lincoln, on its receipt, drove tothe Secretary's house, handed back to him his letter, and persuaded himto reconsider his resignation. But it is difficult to mend a broken jar. The same trouble soon again occurred in reference to the appointment inNew York of an assistant-treasurer by Mr. Chase, which the President, having no confidence in the appointee, could not accept; on which theSecretary again resigned, and Lincoln at once accepted his resignation, with these words: "Of all I have said in commendation of your abilityand fidelity, I have nothing to unsay; and yet you and I have reached apoint of mutual embarrassment in our official relations, which it seemscannot be overcome or longer sustained consistently with thepublic service. "

Mr. Chase, however, did not long remain unemployed. On the death ofChief Justice Taney, in October, 1864, Mr. Lincoln appointed him to thehead of the Supreme Court, --showing how little he cherished resentment, and how desirous he was to select the best men for all responsiblepositions, whether he personally liked them or not. Even when an ableman had failed in one place, Lincoln generally found use for hisservices in another, --witness the gallant exploits of Burnside, Hooker, and Meade, after they had retired from the head of the Army of thePotomac. As a successor to Mr. Chase in the Treasury, the President, tothe amazement of the country, selected Governor Tod of Ohio, who wiselydeclined the office. The next choice fell on Senator Wm. Pitt Fessenden, who reluctantly assumed an office which entailed such heavyresponsibilities and hard work, but who made in it a fine record forefficiency. It was no slight thing to be obliged to raise one hundredmillions of dollars every month for the expense of the war. 

While General Grant lay apparently idle in his trenches beforePetersburg, the presidential election of 1864 took place, and in spiteof the unpopular draft of five hundred thousand men in July, and asummer and Autumn of severe fighting both East and West, Mr. Lincolnwas elected. There had been active and even acrimonious opposition, butwho could compete with him? At this time his extraordinary fitness forthe highest office in the gift of the nation was generally acknowledged, and the early prejudices against him had mostly passed away. He neithersought nor declined the re-election. 

His second inaugural address has become historical for its loftysentiments and political wisdom. It was universally admired, and hismemorable words sunk into every true American heart. Said he:--

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge ofwar may soon pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all thewealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequitedtoil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lashshall be paid with another drawn by the sword, --as was said threethousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lordare true and righteous altogether. '" And, as showing his earnestconscientiousness, these familiar words: "With malice toward none, withcharity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see theright, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up thenation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, andfor his widow and orphans; to do all which may achieve and cherish ajust and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. " Theeloquence of this is surpassed only by his own short speech at thededication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863, which threw into the shade the rhetoric of the greatest orator of histime, and stands--unstudied as it was--probably the most complete andeffective utterance known in this century. 

That immortal inaugural address, in March, 1865;--so simple and yet soeloquent, expresses two things in Mr. Lincoln's character to beespecially noted: first, the tenderness and compassion, blended withstern energy and iron firmness of will, which shrank from bloodshed andviolence, yet counted any sacrifice of blood and treasure as of littleaccount in comparison with the transcendent blessing of national unionand liberty; and, secondly, the change which it would appear graduallytook place in his mind in reference to Divine supervision in the affairsof men and nations. 

I need not dwell on the first, since nothing is more unquestionable thanhis abhorrence of all unnecessary bloodshed, or of anything likevengeance, or punishment of enemies, whether personal or political. Hisleniency and forgiveness were so great as to be denounced by some of hisbest friends, and by all political fanatics. And this leniency andforgiveness were the more remarkable, since he was not demonstrative inhis affections and friendships. From his judicial temper, and theascendency of his intellectual faculties over passion and interest, hewas apparently cold in his nature, and impassive in view of all passingevents, to such a degree that his humanity seemed to be based on aphilosophy very much akin to that of Marcus Aurelius. His sympathieswere keen, however, and many a distressed woman had cause for gratitudeto him for interference with the stern processes of army discipline intime of war, much to the indignation of the civil or military martinets. 

In regard to the change in his religious views, this fact is morequestionable, but attested by all who knew him, and by most of hisbiographers. As a lawyer in Springfield his religious views, accordingto his partner and biographer Herndon, were extremely liberal, vergingupon those advanced theories which Volney and Thomas Paine advocated, even upon atheism itself. As he grew older he became more discreet as tothe expression of his religious opinions. Judge Davis, who knew himwell, affirms that he had no faith, in the Christian sense, but only inlaws, principles, cause and effect, --that is, he had no belief in apersonal God. No religion seemed to find favor with him except that of apractical and rationalistic order. He never joined a church, and wassceptical of the divine origin of the Bible, still more of what iscalled providential agency in this world. But when the tremendousresponsibilities of his office began to press upon his mind, and theterrible calamities he deplored, but could not avert, stirred up hissoul in anguish and sadness, then the recognition of the need ofassistance higher than that of man, for the guidance of this greatnation in its unparalleled trials, became apparent in all hisutterances. When he said, "as God gives us to see the right, " he meant, if he meant anything, that wisdom to act in trying circumstances is agift, distinct from what is ordinarily learned from experience or study. This gift, we believe, he earnestly sought. 

It must have been a profound satisfaction to Mr. Lincoln that he livedto see the total collapse of the rebellion, --the fall of Richmond, thesurrender of Lee, and the flight of Jefferson Davis, --the completetriumph of the cause which it was intrusted to him to guard. How happyhe must have been to see that the choice he made of a general-in-chiefin the person of Ulysses Grant had brought the war to a successfulclose, whatever the sacrifices which this great general found itnecessary to make to win ultimate success! What a wonder it is that Mr. Lincoln, surrounded with so many dangers and so many enemies, shouldhave lived to see the completion of the work for which he was raised up!No life of ease or luxury or exultation did he lead after he wasinaugurated, --having not even time to visit the places where his earlierlife was passed; for him there were no triumphal visits to New York andBoston, --no great ovations anywhere; his great office brought him onlyhard and unceasing toil, which taxed all his energies. 

It was while seeking a momentary relaxation from his cares and duties, but a few weeks after his second inauguration, that he met his fate atthe hands of the assassin, from peril of whose murderous designs nogreat actor on the scene of mortal strife and labor can be said to befree. All that a grateful and sorrowing nation could do was done inhonor of his services and character. His remains were carried across theland to their last resting-place in Illinois, through our largestcities, with a funeral pageantry unexampled in the history of nations;and ever since, orators have exhausted language in their encomiums ofhis greatness and glory. 

Some think that Lincoln died fortunately for his fame, --that had helived he might have made mistakes, especially in the work ofreconstruction, which would have seriously affected his claim as a greatnational benefactor. 

On the other hand, had he lived, he might have put the work ofreconstruction on a basis which would have added to his great servicesto the country. The South had no better friend than he, and he wasincapable of animosity or revenge. Certain it is that this work ofreconstruction requires even yet the greatest patriotism and amarvellous political wisdom. The terrible fact that five millions offree negroes are yet doomed to ignorance, while even the moreintelligent and industrious have failed to realize the ideals ofcitizenship, makes the negro question still one of paramount importancein the South. The great question whether they shall enjoy the right ofsuffrage seems to be disposed of for the present; but the greaterproblem of their education must be solved. The subject is receiving mostserious consideration, and encouraging progress is already making in thedirection of their general and industrial training: but they are fastincreasing; their labor is a necessity; and they must be educated tocitizenship, both in mind and in morals, or the fairest portion of ourcountry will find their presence a continuous menace to peace andprosperity. 

These questions it was not given to Mr. Lincoln to consider. He diedprematurely as a martyr. Nothing consecrates a human memory likemartyrdom. Nothing so effectually ends all jealousies, animosities, andprejudices as the assassin's dagger. If Caesar had not been assassinatedit is doubtful if even he, the greatest man of all antiquity, could havebequeathed universal empire to his heirs. Lincoln's death unnerved thestrongest mind, and touched the heart of the nation with undissembledsadness and pity. From that time no one has dared to write anythingderogatory to his greatness. That he was a very great man no one nowquestions. 

It is impossible, however, for any one yet to set him in the historicalplace, which, as an immortal benefactor, he is destined to occupy. Allspeculation as to his comparative rank is worse than useless. Timeeffects wonderful changes in human opinions. There are some people inthese days who affect to regard Washington as commonplace, as thelawyers of Edinburgh at one time regarded Sir Walter Scott, because hemade no effort to be brilliant in after-dinner speeches. There areothers who, in the warmth of their innocent enthusiasm, think thatLincoln's fame will go on increasing until, in the whole Eastern world, among the mountains of Thibet, on the shores of China and Japan, amongthe jungles of India, in the wilds of darkest Africa, in the furthermostislands of the sea, his praises will be sung as second to no politicalbenefactor that the world has seen. As all exaggerations provokeantagonism, it is wisest not to compare him with any national idols, butleave him to the undisputed verdict of the best judges, that lie was oneof the few immortals who will live in a nation's heart and the world'sesteem from age to age. Is this not fame enough for a modest man, whofelt his inferiority, in many respects, to those to whom he himselfintrusted power?

Lincoln's character is difficult to read, from its many-sided aspects. He rarely revealed to the same person more than a single side. Hisindividuality was marvellous. "Let us take him, " in the words of hislatest good biographer, "as simply Abraham Lincoln, singular andsolitary as we all see that he was. Let us be thankful if we can make aniche big enough for him among the world's heroes without worryingourselves about the proportion it may bear to other niches; and therelet him remain forever, lonely, as in his strong lifetime, impressive, mysterious, unmeasured, and unsolved. "

One thing may be confidently affirmed of this man, --that he stands as anotable exemplar, in the highest grade, of the American of thiscentury, --the natural development of the self-reliant English stock uponour continent. Lowell, in his "Commemoration Ode, " has set forthLincoln's greatness and this fine representative quality of his, inwords that may well conclude our study of the man and of the first fullepoch of American life:--

 "Here was a type of the true elder race, And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. I praise him not; it were too late; And some innative weakness there must be In him who condescends to victory Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, Safe in himself as in a fate. So always firmly he: He knew to bide his time, And can his fame abide, Still patient in his simple faith sublime, Till the wise years decide. Great captains, with their guns and drums, Disturb our judgment for the hour, But at last silence comes; These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, Our children shall behold his fame, The kindly earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, New birth of our new soil, the first American. "

AUTHORITIES. 

The most voluminous of the Lives of Abraham Lincoln is that of Nicolayand Hay, which seems to be fair and candid without great exaggerations;but it is more a political and military history of the United Statesthan a Life of Lincoln himself. Herndon's Life is probably the mostsatisfactory of the period before Lincoln's inauguration. Holland, Lamar, Stoddard, Arnold, and Morse have all written interestingbiographies. See also Ford's History of Illinois, Greeley's AmericanConflict, Lincoln and Douglas Debates, Lincoln's Speeches, published bythe Century Co. , Secretary Chase's Diary, Swinton's Army of the Potomac, Lives of Seward, McClellan, Garrison, and Grant, Grant's Autobiography, McClure's Lincoln and Men of War Times, Wilson's History of the Rise andFall of the Slave Power. 

ROBERT EDWARD LEE. 

1807-1870. 

THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY. 

BY E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS, LL. D. 

Robert Edward Lee had perhaps a more illustrious traceable lineage thanany American not of his family. His ancestor, Lionel Lee, crossed theEnglish Channel with William the Conqueror. Another scion of the clanfought beside Richard the Lion-hearted at Acre in the Third Crusade. ToRichard Lee, the great landowner on Northern Neck, the Virginia Colonywas much indebted for royal recognition. His grandson, Henry Lee, wasthe grandfather of "Light-horse Harry" Lee, of Revolutionary fame, whowas the father of Robert Edward Lee. 

Robert E. Lee was born on Jan. 19, 1807, in Westmoreland County, Va. , thesame county that gave to the world George Washington and James Monroe. Though he was fatherless at eleven, the father's blood in him inclinedhim to the profession of arms, and when eighteen, --in 1825, --on anappointment obtained for him by General Andrew Jackson, he entered theMilitary Academy at West Point. He graduated in 1829, being second inrank in a class of forty-six. Among his classmates were two men whom onedelights to name with him, --Ormsby M. Mitchell, later a general in theFederal army, and Joseph E. Johnston, the famous Confederate. Lee was atonce made Lieutenant of Engineers, but, till the Mexican War, attainedonly a captaincy. This was conferred on him in 1838. 

In 1831, Lee had been married to Miss Mary Randolph Custis, thegrand-daughter of Mrs. George Washington. By this marriage he becamepossessor of the beautiful estate at Arlington, opposite Washington, hishome till the Civil War. The union, blessed by seven children, was inall respects most happy. 

In his prime, Lee was spoken of as the handsomest man in the army. Hewas about six feet tall, perfectly built, healthy, fond of outdoor life, enthusiastic in his profession, gentle, dignified, studious, broad-minded, and positively, though unobtrusively, religious. If he hadfaults, which those nearest him doubted, they were excess of modesty andexcess of tenderness. 

During the Mexican War, Captain Lee directed all the most importantengineering operations of the American army, --a work vital to itswonderful success. Already, at the siege of Vera Cruz, General Scottmentioned him as having "greatly distinguished himself. " He wasprominent in all the operations thence to Cerro Gordo, where, in April, 1847, he was brevetted Major. Both at Contreras and at Churubusco he wascredited with gallant and meritorious services. At the charge upChapultepec, in which Joseph E. Johnston, George B. McClellan, George E. Pickett, and Thomas J. Jackson participated, Lee bore Scott's orders toall points until from loss of blood by a wound, and from the loss of twonights' sleep at the batteries, he actually fainted away in thedischarge of his duty. Such ability and devotion brought him home fromMexico bearing the brevet rank of Colonel. General Scott had learned tothink of him as "the greatest military genius in America. "

In 1852 Lee was made Superintendent of the West Point Military Academy. In 1855 he was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of Col. Albert SidneyJohnston's new cavalry regiment, just raised to serve in Texas. March, 1861, saw him Colonel of the First United States Cavalry. With thepossible exception of the two Johnstons, he was now the most promisingcandidate for General Scott's position whenever that venerable herovacated it, as he was sure to do soon. 

On the initiative of Mississippi, a provisional Congress had met atMontgomery on Feb. 4, 1861, and created a provisional constitution forthe Confederate States of America. By March 11 a permanent constitutionwas drafted, reproducing that of the United States, with certainmodifications. Slavery and State-sovereignty received elaborateguarantees. Bounties and protective tariffs were absolutely forbidden. Cabinet members had seats in Congress. Parts of appropriation billscould be vetoed. The presidential term was six years, and a presidentcould not be re-elected. This constitution, having been ratified by fiveor more legislatures, was set in play by the provisional Congress. Virginia on seceding was taken into the Confederacy, and the Confederatecapital changed from Montgomery to Richmond. 

Lee was a Virginian, and Virginia, about to secede and at lengthseceding, in most earnest tones besought her distinguished son to joinher. It seemed to him the call of duty, and that call, as he understoodit, was one which it was not in him to disobey. President Lincoln knewthe value of the man, and sent Frank Blair to him to say that if hewould abide by the Union he should soon command the whole active army. That would probably have meant his election, in due time, to thepresidency of his country. "For God's sake, don't resign, Lee!" GeneralScott--himself a Virginian--is said to have pleaded. He replied: "I amcompelled to; I cannot consult my own feelings in the matter. "Accordingly, on April 20, 1861, three days after Virginia passed itsordinance of secession, Lee sent to Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, his resignation as an officer in the United States army. 

Few at the North were able to understand the Secession movement, mostdenying that a man at once thoughtful and honorable could join in it. Socentralized had the North by 1861 become in all social and economicparticulars, that centrality in government was taken as a matter ofcourse. Representing this, the Nation was deemed paramount to any State. Governmental sovereignty, like travel and trade, had come to ignoreState lines. The whole idea and feeling of State-sovereignty, once aspotent North as South, had vanished and been forgotten. 

Far otherwise at the South, where, owing to the great size of States andto the paucity of railways and telegraphs, interstate association wasnot yet a force. Each State, being in square miles ample enough for anempire, retained to a great extent the consciousness of an independentnation. The State was near and palpable; the central government seemed avague and distant thing. Loyalty was conceived as binding one primarilyto one's own State. 

It is a misconception to explain this feeling--for in most cases it wasfeeling rather than reasoned conviction--by Calhoun's teaching. Itresulted from geography and history, and, these factors working as theydid, would have been what it was had Calhoun never lived. 

With reflecting Southerners Calhoun's message no doubt had someconfirmatory effect, because, historically and also in a certain legalaspect, Calhoun's view was very impressive. That the overwhelmingmajority of the early Americans who voted to ratify the nationalConstitution supposed it to be simply a compact between the Statescannot be questioned, nor could ratification ever have been effected hadany considerable number believed otherwise. The view that a Statewishing to withdraw from the Union might for good cause do so was theprevalent one till long after the War of 1812, yielding, thereafter, atthe North, less to Webster's logic than to the social and economicdevelopment just mentioned. 

At the South it did not thus give way. There the propriety of secessionwas never aught but a question of sufficient grievance, to be settled byeach State for itself, speaking through a majority of its voters. Whenthe Secession ordinances actually passed, many individual voters in eachState opposed on the ground that the occasion was insufficient; but suchopponents, of whom Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia was one, nearly to aman felt bound, as good citizens, to acquiesce in the decision of theirStates and even to uphold this in arms. 

Whether voting secession or accepting it on State mandate, Southern mennaturally resented being called traitors or rebels. By the Websterianconception of the nature of our government they were so, but byCalhoun's they were simply acting out the Constitution in the best offaith. No recognized arbiter or criterion existed to determine betweenthe two views. Massachusetts denounced seceding South Carolina as atraitor: South Carolina berated Massachusetts, seeking to impose theUnion on the South against its will, as a criminal aggressor. Anintelligent referee with no bias for either must have pronounced thejudgments equally just. 

These considerations explain how Colonel Lee, certainly one of the mostconscientious men who ever lived, felt bound in duty and honor to sidewith seceding Virginia, though he doubted the wisdom of her course. 

Lee was from the first Virginia's military hero and hope, but he did notat once become such to the Confederacy at large. He did not immediatelytake the field. Till after Bull Run he remained in Richmond, PresidentJefferson Davis's adviser and right hand man in organizing the forcesincessantly arriving and pushing to the front. 

In his brief West Virginia campaign, where he first came in contact withMcClellan, being looked upon as an invader rather than a friend, Lee hadscant success. Some therefore called him a "mere historic name, ""Letcher's pet, " a "West Pointer, " no fighting general. He went to SouthCarolina to supervise the repair and building of coast fortificationsthere, and it was no doubt in large part owing to his engineering skillthen applied that Charleston, whose sea-door the Federals incessantlypounded from the beginning, probably wasting there more powder and ironthan at all other points together, was captured only at the end of thewar and then from the land side. In March, 1862, General Lee againbecame President Davis's military adviser. 

But though thus in relative obscurity, Lee was not forgotten. PresidentDavis knew his man and knew that his hour would come. When, in May, 1862, the vast Federal army stood almost at Richmond's gates, AlbertSidney Johnston being dead and Joseph E. Johnston lying wounded, theConfederacy lifted up its voice and called Robert E. Lee to assumecommand upon the Chickahominy front. This he did on June 1, 1862. 

The Confederates' ill-success on the second day of the Fair Oaks battlewas to them a blessing in disguise. It put McClellan at his ease, givingLee time to accomplish three extremely important ends. He could rest andrecruit his army, fortify the south of Richmond with stout works, adetail which had not been attended to before, and send Stonewall Jacksondown the valley of Virginia, so frightening the authorities inWashington that they dared not re-enforce McClellan. 

Brilliant victory resulted. Leaving only 25, 000 men between his capitaland his foe, Lee, on June 26, threw the rest across the upperChickahominy and attacked the Federal right. Fighting terribly atMechanicsville and Gaines's Mill, A. P. Hill and Jackson, the latterhaving made forced marches from the Shenandoah to join in the movement, pushed back Fitz-John Porter's corps across the Chickahominy, sunderingMcClellan entirely from his York River base. The Union army was nownearer Richmond than the bulk of Lee's, which was beyond theChickahominy, at that time none too easily crossed. Had McClellan beenLee or Grant or Sherman he would have made a dash for Richmond. But hewas McClellan, and Lee knew perfectly well that he would attempt nothingso bold. Retreat was the Northerner's thought, and he did retreat--ingood order, and hitting back venomously from White Oak Swamp and MalvernHill--till he had reached Harrison's Landing upon the James, wheregunboats sheltered and supply-ships fed his men. 

Lee felt disappointed with the seven days' fighting in that he had notcrushed McClellan. He had, however, forced him to raise the siege ofRichmond and to retreat thirty or forty miles. The Confederacy breathedfreely again, and its gallant chieftain began to be famous. 

The new leader had thus far given only hints of his fertile strategy. McClellan's army was still but two days' march from Richmond. Its frontwas perfectly fortified, --McClellan was an engineer; gunboats protectedits flanks. Lee--an engineer, too--knew that to attack McClellan therewould be too costly; yet McClellan must be removed, and this before hecould be re-enforced for an advance. His removal was accomplished. 

General Pope was threatening Richmond from the North. The governmentexpected great things of him. In a pompous manifesto he had given outthat retreating days were over, that his headquarters were to be in thesaddle, and, that, as he swept on to Richmond, where he evidentlyexpected to arrive in the course of a few days, his difficulty was goingto be not to whip his enemy but to get at him in order to do so. 

When Pope wrote that manifesto he knew many men, but there was one manwhom he did not yet know. It was Stonewall Jackson, the most unique andinteresting character rolled into notice by those tempestuous years, unless Nathan Bedford Forrest is the exception. Like the greatMoslem warrior, "Terrible he rode, alone, With his Yemen sword for aid; Ornament it carried none Save the notches on its blade. "

Jackson was an intensely religious man. Unlike many good soldiers hewore his piety into camp and on to the battlefield, and would not havehesitated to offer prayer to the God of battles where every one of histhirty thousand men could see and hear. And all those soldiers believedin the efficacy of their commander's prayers. Jackson was also a sterndisciplinarian. If men in any way sought to evade duty, provost-marshalswere ordered to bring them into line, if necessary at the pistol'spoint. In consequence, when the day of battle came, there was not a manin the corps who did not feel sure that if he shirked duty StonewallJackson would shoot him and God Almighty would damn him. This helped torender Jackson's thirty thousand perhaps the most efficientfighting-machine which had appeared upon the battlefield since theIronsides of Oliver Cromwell. 

Pope was destined to make Jackson's acquaintance speedily--and ratherunceremoniously, for Jackson was ill-mannered enough, instead of passingin his card at Pope's front door, as etiquette required, to present itat the kitchen-gate. Before Pope was aware, his enterprising opponent, whose war motto was that one man behind your enemy is worth ten in hisfront, had gone around through Thoroughfare Gap to Manassas Junction andplanted himself (August 26, 1862) square across the only railroad thatran between Pope's army and Washington. Pope should have volted andstruck Jackson like lightning before the rest of Lee's army could comeup; but two considerations made him slow. One was that Longstreet's wingof Lee's army was now rather close in his front, and the other, mortification at turning back after having started southward with such ablare of trumpets. 

Brave Confederate soldiers who were at Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, and Chantilly, bear witness that the blood Pope's men shed in thosebattles ran red. But dazed, tired, lacking confidence, and at last onshort rations, and faced or flanked by Lee's whole army, while but partof McClellan's was at hand, they fought either to fall or toretreat again. 

No one witnessing it can ever forget the consternation which prevailedin the fortifications about Washington the night after the battle ofChantilly. The writer's own troop, manning Fort Ward, a few miles outfrom Alexandria, stood to its heavy guns every moment of that dismalnight, gazing frontwards for a foe. The name "Stonewall Jackson" was oneach lip. At the break of dawn, when to weary soldiers trees and fenceseasily look "pokerish, " brave artillerists swore that they could see thedreaded warrior charging down yonder hill heading a division, and inalmost agonizing tones begged leave to "load for action. "

Lee probably made a mistake in entering Maryland after the battle ofChantilly, and his report implies that he would not at this time havedone so for merely military reasons. But, having crossed the Potomac, hedid well to fight at Sharpsburg (Antietam, Sept. 17, 1862) beforerecrossing. This was well, because it was bold. Moreover, by bruisingthe Federals there he delayed them, getting ample time for ensconcinghis army on the Rappahannock front for the winter. 

Also for the battle of Fredericksburg (Dec. 13, 1862) Lee deserves nospecial praise. Doubtless his unerring engineer eye picked thefighting-line, and his already great prestige inspired his brave army. But that was all. The pluck of his officers and men and Burnside'sincapacity did the rest. 

Never did a general carry to battle a better plan of battle thanFighting Joe Hooker's at Chancellorsville (May 2-3, 1863), and rarelyhas one marched from a battle that had proved for his own side a morelamentable fiasco. Taking the offensive with vast advantage in numbers, he proposed to hold Lee in place with one of his wings while he thrustthe other behind Lee's left, between the Confederate army and Richmond. But he had started a game at which two could play and had challenged amore deft and daring gamester than himself. Early divining his purpose, Lee, leaving a small part of his force to engage Hooker's left, with therest vigorously assumed the counter-offensive, sending Jackson, asusual, around Hooker's extreme right. Both movements completelysucceeded. 

Now appeared the folly of promoting a general to the headship of a greatarmy simply because of his fighting-quality and his success with adivision or a corps. Attacked in front and routed on his flank, Hookerdid exactly what all who knew him would have taken oath that he wouldnever do. Instead of going straight ahead with vengeance and bidding hisfar left do the same, he ordered and executed a retreat to his oldposition north of the Rappahannock. 

There were those who laid this disaster to Hooker's intemperance. President Lincoln probably had such a suspicion, when, sending GeneralHooker west to join General Sherman, he admonished him in passingthrough Kentucky "to steer clear of Bourbon County. " Though Hooker wasnot a total-abstainer, Chancellorsville is not to be explained by thatfact any more than Jubal A. Early's defeat by Sheridan in the ShenandoahValley is referrible to his use of apple-brandy. 

Hooker did not create his own defeat, as Burnside may, with littleexaggeration, be said to have done at Fredericksburg. Lee defeated him, and deserved the immense fame which the victory brought. No wonder hebegan to plan for the offensive again. Soon the ever-memorableGettysburg campaign was begun. 

The details of this campaign, even those of the battle itself (July1-3, 1863), we cannot give here. Nor need we. The world knows them:--thefirst day, with Hill's and Ewell's success, costing the Union the lifeof its gallant General Reynolds, commanding the First Corps; the secondday, when, back and forth by the Devil's Den, Hood on one side and DanSickles on the other, fought their men as soldiers had never fought onthe American continent before; and the third day, when for an hour ahundred cannon on Seminary Ridge belched hell-fire at a hundred cannonon Cemetery Ridge, prelude, in the natural key, to Pickett'sdeath-defying charge. 

 "A thousand fell where Kemper led, A thousand died where Garnett bled. In blinding flame and strangling smoke The remnant through the batteries broke And crossed the works with Armistead. "

The Union army was for the first time fighting a great battle on Unionsoil. The homes of many who were engaged stood within sound of theGettysburg cannon. As the Confederates did in many other engagements, the Federals here felt that they were repelling an invader, and theyfought accordingly, with a grim iron resisting power which they hadnever displayed before. 

Great praise was due to General Hancock, and perhaps still more toGeneral Howard, for early perceiving the strength of Cemetery Hill as adefensible position. On the first day, after General Reynolds hadfallen at his post of duty with the First Corps, General Doubleday, nextin command, was on the point of ordering a retreat, the attack seemingtoo fearful to be withstood. But Howard, coming up with the EleventhCorps and assuming command of the field, overruled Doubleday, and, byenforcing a most stubborn resistance against Hill's and Ewell'sdesperate onsets, probably saved Cemetery Hill from capturethat evening. 

So far as has ever yet been made apparent, every plan which Lee formedfor the battle of Gettysburg, every order which he gave, was wise andright. We do not except even his management on the third day. It is easyto find fault with dispositions when they have failed of happy results. Men have said that instead of attacking in front on that day Lee shouldhave drawn Ewell from the left and thrown him to Longstreet's right, manoeuvring Meade out of his position. But in this matter, too, Lee'sjudgment was probably good. Changing his plan of attack would have beena partial confession of defeat, to some extent disheartening his men. The Union Sixth Corps, fresh and free, General John Sedgwick at itshead, was sure to have pounced on any troops seeking to trouble Meade'sleft, and, had Meade been successfully flanked and forced back, he wouldhave retired to Pipe Creek and been stronger than ever. 

Of course, Pickett should never have been sent forward alone. You couldwade the Atlantic as easily as he, unsupported, could go beyond thatstone wall. But, from all one can learn, Lee was in fact not responsiblefor Pickett's lack of support, although in almost guilty nobleness ofspirit he assumed the responsibility, and silently rested under theimputation of it till his death. 

Had Lee's great subordinates, Ewell at nightfall on the first day, andLongstreet on the other two days, seconded him with the alacrity anddevotion usually displayed by them, or had Stonewall Jackson been stillalive and in the place of either of these generals, the issue of thebattle would almost to a certainty have been very different from what itwas. A soldier who had often followed to victory the enterprising Grahamof Claverhouse, but, under a weaker leader, saw a battle wavering, criedout, "O for one hour of Dundee!" So must Lee often have sighed forStonewall, the loss of whom at Chancellorsville made that, for theConfederacy, a sort of Pyrrhic victory. 

Lee's skill at Gettysburg has been questioned in that he fought his armyupon the longer line, the big fishhook described by his position lyingoutside the little one formed by the Federal army. But Lee fought on theouter line also at Second Bull Run, winning one of the neatest victoriesin modern warfare. 

John Codman Ropes, the well-known military critic, says of this battle:"It would be hard to find a better instance of that masterlycomprehension of the actual condition of things which marks a greatgeneral than was exhibited in General Lee's allowing our formidableattack, in which more than half the Federal army was taking part, to befully developed and to burst upon the exhausted troops of StonewallJackson, while Lee, relying upon the ability of that able soldier tomaintain his position, was maturing and arranging for the great attackon our left flank by the powerful corps of Longstreet. "

In Prussia's war with Austria in 1866, Von Moltke's plan at the battleof Sadowa, where he splendidly triumphed, was in the same respect aclose imitation of Lee's at Gettysburg. The Prussians occupied the outerfish-hook line, the Austrians the inner. When the pickets closed in themorning Von Moltke saluted King William and said: "Your Majesty willto-day win not only the battle but the campaign. " At noon this did notappear possible. Prince Frederick Charles's corps were withering underthe hottest artillery fire of the century, save that at Gettysburg, justthree years earlier to the hour. It seemed as if in fifteen minutes theymust give way. But, hark! What means that cheering on the left? Newcannons boom and the Austrian fire slackens! Von Moltke knows perfectlywell what it means. The Crown-Prince has arrived with his fresh corps. He has stormed the Heights of Chlum--the Culp's Hill of thatbattlefield. He enfilades the whole Austrian line. Benedek is beaten; onto Vienna; the war is ended!

It was with a heavy heart that General Lee ordered his brave mensouthward again--a heart made heavier by many a stinging criticismagainst him in the Southern press. The resolution that bore him up atthis crisis was morally sublime. He could not hope to strengthen hisarmy more. For a time he had to weaken it by sending Longstreet west toassist Bragg in fighting the battle of Chickamauga. Clothing, rations, animals, and forage, as well as men, were increasingly scarce. The Southwas exhausted much sooner than any expected, having greatlyoverestimated its wealth by taking exports and imports for gauge. Doubtful if ever before was so large and populous a region so far fromself-sustaining. The force against Lee, on the other hand, was dailybecoming stronger. 

Till Gettysburg, Lee had toyed with the Army of the Potomac--not becausethe rank and file of that army was at fault, and not mainly because ofits generals' inability, but mostly because of political interferencewith its operations. The great and revered President Lincoln, with allhis powers, was not a military man. No more was Secretary Stanton. Theysecured the best military aid they could. From an early period GeneralHalleck--"Old Brains, " men called him because of his immense militaryinformation--was their constant adviser; and though he was a scholarrather than a genius, he could doubtless have saved them many an errorhad they heeded his counsel instead of civilian clamor. 

How impressively did not the Civil War teach that fine militaryscholarship alone, while it may greatly add to a general's efficiency, cannot make a true military leader! Compare Halleck with Grant orSherman! The Creoles of Louisiana considered their Beauregard the _neplus ultra_ military genius of the South. One of them was once asked hisopinion of General Lee. He replied in his broken English: "O, Gen Lee ave'y good gen'l, ve'y good gen'l indeed; Gen Beaugar speak ve'y fav'bleof Gen Lee. " So, at last, did Halleck speak "ve'y fav'ble" of Grant. 

But Gettysburg convinced Lee that he could toy with the Potomac army nolonger, and this was more than ever impossible after Grant took command. Then Greek met Greek, and the death grapple began. At the Wilderness, atSpottsylvania, and most mercilessly of all at Cold Harbor, Grant drovehis colossal battering-ram against Lee's gray wall, only to find itsolid as Gibraltar. 

This struggle tested both commanders' mettle to the utmost. At the endof the hammering campaign, after losing men enough to form an army aslarge as Lee's, Grant's van was full twice as far from Richmond asMcClellan's had been two years before. Not once was Lee flanked, duped, or surprised. As always hitherto, so now, his darling mode of defencewas offence, --to fight, --Grant's every blow being met with anotherbefore it hit. Only once were Lee's lines forced straight back to stay. Even then, at the Spottsylvania "bloody angle, " the ground he losthardly sufficed to graveyard the Union men killed in getting it. Inswinging round to Petersburg, and again at the springing of thePetersburg Mine, Grant thought himself sure to make enormous gains; butLee's insight into his purposes, and lightning celerity in checkmatingthese, foiled both movements, giving the mine operation, moreover, theeffect of a deadly boomerang. 

Spite of all this, the end of the Confederacy was in sight from themoment of Grant's arrival at Petersburg. During the three years that Leeand his indomitable aides and soldiers had been holding at bay brave andperfectly appointed armies vastly outnumbering them, and twice boldlyassuming the offensive, with disaster indeed, yet with glory, two othergrand campaigns had been going on wherein the Confederacy had fared muchworse. The capture of New Orleans, of Island No. Ten, and of Vicksburg, had let the Father of Waters again run "unvexed to the sea. " A secondline of operations _via_ Murfreesborough, Chattanooga, Atlanta, andSavannah, had divided the Confederacy afresh. Sherman's army, which hadachieved this, began on Feb. 1, 1865, to march northward from Savannah. 

Bravery in camp and field and deathless endurance at home could not takethe place of bread. The blockade was, to be sure, for some timeextensively evaded, admitting English wares of all sorts in greatquantities. But in no long time the blockade tightened. Moreover, comparatively little cotton was raised which could in any event havebeen exported. Credit failing, imports, if any, had to be paid for inmoney. This, of course, was soon spent, and then importation ceased. Privateers destroyed but could bring nothing home. 

As the war progressed, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Louisiana, andwith the fall of Vicksburg the whole immense Trans-Mississippi tract, were lost to the Confederacy. Sherman's march isolated also Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. 

The dearth of necessaries, save corn and bacon, became desperate. Saltand wheat bread were rare luxuries. In 1864 a suit of jean cost $600, aspool of cotton $30, a pound of bacon $15. It should, of course, beborne in mind that these high prices in part represented thedepreciation of Confederate paper money. Drastic drafting and the armingof negroes could avail little for lack of accoutrements and food. ThusLee's capitulation at Appomattox (April 9, 1865) represents less adefeat of his army than the breakdown of the Confederacy at large. Sotrue and impressive is this that reflection upon it makes the last yearof Lee's commandership seem peculiarly glorious. Only by rarest genius, surely, were those dazzling tactics, that lynx-eyed, sleeplesswatchfulness, that superhuman patience and superhuman valor, protracted, incessant for a whole year, keeping intact, victorious, and full ofinspiration that gray line, ever longer, ever thinner, of menoutnumbered two, then three, and at last five to one, whose food andclothing grew scantier with the days, while the bounties of a continentreplenished their opponents, --keeping that tenuous line unbroken tillvery starvation unfitted soldiers to handle muskets which must be usedempty if at all, because ammunition was spent! And when we recall thatall this was accomplished not because the Union army was cowardly, ill-led, or asleep, but in spite of Grant's relentless push and an ablyled army as brave, wary, and determined as ever marched: let us askcritics versed in the history of war, if books tell of generalship morecomplete than this!

Lee's military conduct revealed, it must be admitted, one weakness, thatof undue leniency toward slack, dilatory, and opinionated subordinates. This was, however, only in part Lee's personal fault. Mainly it was themilitary counterpart of the rope-of-sand infirmity inherent in aConfederacy which in every possible way deified the individual State andsnubbed the central power. Without jeopardizing the Confederacy, Leecould not at Gettysburg deal with Longstreet as Grant did with Warren atFive Forks, or as Sherman did with Palmer in North Carolina. It seemsthat Lee's orders to his main subordinates were habitually of the natureof requests. Yet what obedience was not accorded him in spite of this!

Most striking among the characteristics of General Lee which made him sosuccessful was his exalted and unmatched excellence as a man, hisunselfishness, sweetness, gentleness, patience, love of justice, andgeneral elevation of soul. Lee much loved to quote Sir WilliamHamilton's words: "On earth nothing great but man: in man nothing greatbut mind. " He always added, however: "In mind nothing great savedevotion to truth and duty. " Though a soldier, and at last very eminentas a soldier, he retained from the beginning to the end of his careerthe entire temper and character of an ideal civilian. He did not sinkthe man in the military man. He had all a soldier's virtues, the"chevalier without fear and without reproach, " but he was glorified by awhole galaxy of excellences which soldiers too often lack. He was pureof speech and of habit, never intemperate, never obscene, never profane, never irreverent. In domestic life he was an absolute model. Loftycommand did not make him vain. 

The Southern army had one prominent officer with a high ecclesiasticaltitle, the Rt. Rev. Lieutenant-General Leonidas Polk, D. D. , LL. D. , Bishop of Louisiana, commanding a corps in Bragg's army. He was killedin battle at Pine Mountain, Ga. , during Sherman's advance on Atlanta. Stonewall Jackson was so famed for his rather obtrusive though awfullyreal piety that men named him the Havelock of the army. But none whoknew the three will call Lee less a Christian than either of the others. He prayed daily for his enemies in arms, and no word of hate toward theNorth ever escaped his tongue or his pen. He had the faith and devotionof a true crusader. His letters breathe the spirit of a better earththan this. Collected into a volume, they would make an invaluable bookof devotional literature. No wonder officers and men passionately lovedsuch a commander, glad, at his bidding, to crowd where the fight wasthickest and death the surest. 

Sir Thomas Malory's words are not inaptly applied to Lee: "Ah, SirLancelot, thou wert head of all Christian knights; thou wert nevermatched of earthly knight's hand; and thou wert the courtliest knightthat ever bare shield; and thou wert the kindest man that ever strakewith sword; and thou wert the goodliest person that ever came amongpress of knights; and thou wert the meekest man and the gentliest thatever ate in hall among ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thymortal foe that ever put spear in rest. "

Exquisitely appropriate is also Professor Trent's comparison of Lee"with Belisarius and Turenne and Marlborough and Moltke, on the onehand, and on the other with Callicratidas, and Saint Louis, with theChevalier Bayard and Sir Philip Sidney. "

A remarkable trait of General Lee's military character was his tirelessand irresistible energy. While one whom he deemed a foe of his Stateremained on her soil, he could not rest. From the moment he took commandof the Army of Northern Virginia, all was action in that army. Duringthe nine weeks after A. P. Hill struck Mechanicsville that earthquakeshock, how did not the war-map change! Richmond was set free; Washingtonwas threatened. Lee whipped McClellan before Pope could help, then Popebefore McClellan could help. The first evening at Gettysburg, Longstreethaving impressively pointed out the strength of Meade's position onCemetery Hill, Lee instantly replied, "If he is there in the morning, Ishall attack him. " The second morning of the Wilderness battle, Grant, obviously expecting to anticipate all movement upon the other side, ordered charge at five o'clock. Lee charged at half-past four. Grant wasdetermined to reach Spottsylvania first, but there, too, Lee awaitedhim, having had some hours to rest. Prostrate and half-delirious in histent one day during Grant's effort to flank him, he kept murmuring: "Wemust strike them; we must not let them pass without striking them. "Longstreet was too slow for him, and so was even the ever-ready A. P. Hill. Years later, Lee's dying words were: "Tell Hill he _must_come up. "

To appreciate his cat-like agility, one must remember that Lee was theoldest general made famous by the war. It is thought that yearsaccounted for Napoleon's refusal to fight the Old Guard at Borodino, ashis ablest generals urged. Napoleon was then forty-three, eleven yearsyounger than Lee was when our war began. It is to young Napoleon we mustturn to find parallels for Lee's celerity. Second Bull Run andChancellorsville may fitly be compared to Arcola and Rivoli. It has beenobserved that, like Napoleon, Lee avoided passive defence, seeming theassailant even when on the defensive. Like him, he was swift andterrible in availing himself of an enemy's mistakes. It can hardly bedoubted that Lee's campaigns furnished more or less inspiration anddirection for Von Moltke's immortal movements in 1866 and in 1870-71. 

That Lee was brave need not be said. He was not as rash as Hood andCleburne sometimes were. He knew the value of his life to the greatcause, and, usually at least, did not expose himself needlessly. Prudence he had, but no fear. His resolution to lead the charge at theBloody Angle--rashness for once--shows fearlessness. Tender-hearted ashe was, Lee felt battle frenzy as hardly another great commander everdid. From him it spread like magnetism to his officers and men, thrilling all as if the chief himself were close by in the fray, shouting, "Now fight, my good fellows, fight!" Yet such was Lee'sself-command that this dreadful ardor never carried him too far. Once, namely, at Fredericksburg, recovery from the fighting mood perhapsoccurred too promptly. Some have thought this, suggesting that had theleash not been applied to the dogs of war so early, Burnside's retreatmight have been made a rout. 

But Lee possessed another order of courage infinitely higher and rarerthan this, --the sort so often lacking even in generals who have servedwith utmost distinction in high subordinate places, when they are calledto the sole and decisive direction of armies: he had that royal mettle, that preternatural decision of character, ever tempered with caution andwisdom, which leads a great commander, when true occasion arises, resolutely to give general battle, or to swing out away from his baseupon a precarious but promising campaign. Here you have moral heroism;ordinary valor is more impulsive. A weaker man, albeit total stranger tofear, ready to lead his division or his corps into the very mouth ofhell, if commanded, being set himself to direct an army, will be eitherrash or else too timid, or fidget from one extreme to the other, losing all. 

Hooker began bravely at Chancellorsville, but soon grew faint andafraid. Hood says that Hardee's timidity lost him a great victory atDecatur, Ga. , the day the Union General McPherson fell; and thatCheatham's, at Spring Hill, during his northward pursuit of Thomas, losthim another. Yet Hooker, Hardee, and Cheatham were men to whom personalfear was a meaningless phrase. Stonewall Jackson was personally nobraver than they; it was his bravery of the higher sort that set him asa general so incomparably above them. The same high quality belonged toGrant and Sherman, and to Washington and Greene in the Revolutionary War. 

It was in this supreme kind of boldness that Robert Lee pre-eminentlyexcelled. Cautious always, he still took risks and responsibilitieswhich common generals would not have dared to take; and when he hadassumed these, his mighty will forbade him to sink under the load. Thebraying of bitter critics, the obloquy of men who should have supportedhim, the shots from behind, dismayed him no more than did Burnside'scannon at Fredericksburg. On he pressed, stout as a Titan, relentless asfate. What time bravest hearts failed at victory's delay, thisDreadnaught rose to his best, and furnished courage for the wholeConfederacy. 

Lee's campaigns and battles "exhibit the triumph of profoundintelligence, of calculation, and of well-employed force over numbersand disunited counsels. "

Lee always manoeuvred; he never merely "pitched in. " As he right-flankedMcClellan, so both at Manassas and at Chantilly he right-flankedPope, --all three times using for the work Jackson, the tireless and theterrible. At Second Bull Run, to show that he was no slave to one formof strategy, he muffled up Pope's left instead of his right, here usingLongstreet. His tactics were as masterful as his strategy. At SecondBull Run, fearfully hammered by the noble Fifth Corps, that had foughtlike so many tigers at Gaines's Mill and Malvern Hill, even StonewallJackson cried to Lee for aid. Aid came, but not in men. Longstreet'scannon, cunningly planted to enfilade the Fifth Corps' front, shatteredthe Federals' attacking column and placed Stonewall at his ease. 

Considering everything, his paucity of men and means, the necessityalways upon him of reckoning with political as well as with militarysituations, and his success in holding even Grant at bay so long, Lee'smasterful campaigns of 1862, 1863, 1864, and 1865 not only constitutehim the foremost military virtuoso of his own land, but write his namehigh on the scroll of the greatest captains of history, beside those ofGustavus Adolphus, William of Orange, Tilly, Frederic the Great, PrinceEugene, Napoleon, Wellington, and Von Moltke. 

In a sense, of course, the cause for which Lee fought was "lost;" yet avery great part of what he and his _confrères_ sought, the war actuallysecured and assured. His cause was not "lost" as Hannibal's was, whosecountry, with its institutions, spite of his genius and devotion, utterly perished from the earth. Yet Hannibal is remembered more widelythan Scipio. Were Lee in the same case with Hannibal, men would magnifyhis name as long as history is read. "Of illustrious men, " saysThucydides, "the whole earth is the sepulchre. They are immortalized notalone by columns and inscriptions in their own lands; memorials to themrise in foreign countries as well, --not of stone, it may be, butunwritten, in the thoughts of posterity. "

Lee's case resembles Cromwell's much more than Hannibal's. The _régime_against which Cromwell warred returned in spite of him; but it returnedmodified, involving all the reforms for which the chieftain had bled. Sothe best of what Lee drew sword for is here in our actual America, and, please God, shall remain here forever. 

Decisions of the United States Supreme Court since Secession give asweep and a certainty to the rights of States and limit the centralpower in this Republic as had never been done before. The wild doctrinesof Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens on these points are not our law. If theUnion is perpetual, equally so is each State. The Republic is "anindestructible Union of indestructible States. " If this part of our lawhad in 1861 received its present definition and emphasis, and if theSouthern States had then been sure, come what might, of the freedom theyactually now enjoy each to govern itself in its own way, even SouthCarolina might never have voted secession. And inasmuch as the war, better than aught else could have done, forced this phase of theConstitution out into clear expression, General Lee did not fight invain. The essential good he wished has come, while the Republic, withits priceless benedictions to us all, remains intact. All Americans thushave part in Robert Lee, not only as a peerless man and soldier, but asthe sturdy miner, sledge-hammering the rock of our liberties till itgave forth its gold. None are prouder of his record than those whofought against him, who, while recognizing the purity of his motive, thought him in error in going from under the Stars and Stripes. It islikely that more American hearts day by day think lovingly of Lee thanof any other Civil War celebrity, save Lincoln alone. And his praisewill increase. 

It was thoroughly characteristic of Lee that he would not after the warleave the country, as a few eminent Confederates did, and also that herefused all mere titular positions with high salaries, several of whichwere urged on him out of consideration for his character and fame. Hewas, however, persuaded to accept in 1865 the presidency of WashingtonCollege, at Lexington, Va. , an institution founded on gifts made byWashington, and at present known as Washington and Lee University. Inthis position the great man spent his remaining years, joiningrefinement and dignity to usefulness, and revered by all who came withinthe charmed circle of his influence. Since 1863 he had suffered more orless with rheumatism of the heart, and from the middle of 1869 was neverquite strong. Spite of this, with the exception of brief holidays, heperformed all his duties till Sept. 28, 1870, when, at his familytea-table as he stood to say grace;--it was his wont to say grace beforemeat and to stand in doing so, --he was stricken, had to sit, then behelped to his bed. He never rose, though languishing a number of days. He died at nine in the morning, Oct. 12, 1870. _Ave, pia anima!_

AUTHORITIES. 

E. Lee Child, "Life and Campaigns of Robert Edward Lee. " London, 1875. 

Edward A. Pollard, "Life and Times of Robert Edward Lee. " New York, 1871. 

John William Jones, "Personal Reminiscences of Robert E. Lee. "New York, 1874. 

Walter II. Taylor, "Four Years with General Lee. " New York, 1878. 

A. L. Long, "Memoirs of Robert E. Lee. " New York, 1887. 

Charles Marshall, "Life of Lee. "

W. P. Trent, "Robert E. Lee. " Boston, 1899. 

William Allan, "The Army of Northern Virginia in 1862. " Boston, 1892. 

"Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. " New York, 1887.