CHAPTER XIX.

THE COMING CONFLICT.

Office Refused-The Missouri Compromise-A Sure Prophecy-Inner Life -Ripening-Death of Tom Lincoln-A Written Confession of Faith.

MR. LINCOLN would willingly have continued in Congress if such a thing had been politically possible; but it was not. Among other obstacles appears to have been some sort of an informal understanding between him and other Whig leaders of central Illinois aiming at a rotation among them of the honor of representing the Sangamon district. The nomination fell to Lincoln's friend, Judge Logan, but he received it only to meet the sure defeat prepared for him by the anti-war and antislavery record of his predecessor. The latter at this juncture of his affairs made an effort to obtain from the new Whig administration the appointment of Commissioner of the General Land Office at Washington. It was probably at that time the one public employment which would have offered him opportunities for furthering his internal-improvement schemes. The national landed property, always large, had been greatly increased by the results of the war with Mexico. It was impossible that Lincoln's mind should not turn with ideas and projects relating to the future use and occupation of areas so vast and so full of all the prophecies of empire.

The coveted post was given to another citizen of Illinois, and Mr. Lincoln was offered in its stead the governorship of Oregon Territory. He was urged by his friends to take the appointment, on the ground that Oregon would soon be a State and would thus send him to the United States Senate. It was a tempting bait, but all the reply he made was that he

would accept if Mrs. Lincoln approved. The question was duly submitted to her, and her refusal was equally absolute and prompt. She would not let her husband bury himself again in the wilds of another new country, and he acted upon her wifely advice, returning with all his accustomed vigor to his sadly run-down and neglected legal practice.

The Eighth Judicial District was territorially large, including fourteen prairie counties. To each of the several countyseats Mr. Lincoln traveled twice in each year. Each circuit required nearly three months, and not much more than half of any year could be spent quietly at home by an active practitioner. In the intervals of these unavoidable absences Lincoln's home grew very dear to him. His habits were simple and domestic to the last degree, and his fondness for his children was one of his most deeply marked characteristics. His wife was utterly devoted to him. His widening circle of friends grew more and more attached and trusting, and his affairs were eminently prosperous. His position was hardly second to that of any other man in the State, and it seemed that he had already won every success in life which could reasonably be aspired to by the son of an Indiana settler, a "poor white" from Kentucky.

He himself was anything but satisfied. He was still aspiring, studying, preparing, growing. He carried with him upon the circuit other books than those which treated of the law. Copies of Shakespeare, historical works, mathematical school text-books, were his frequent companions. He was still pursuing in his ripe manhood the tireless process of education which he had begun with a piece of charcoal and a wooden fire-shovel.

He was much sought after as a "counsel for the defendant" in criminal cases, although his noted power over a jury passed away from him at once if he himself believed his client to be guilty. In one such case that is recorded he remarked to his associate counsel:

"If you can say anything for the man, do it. I can't. If I attempt, the jury will see that I think he is guilty and convict him of course."

The other lawyers followed their chief's example; the case was submitted without argument; and the jury, unassisted by any "confession" from Abraham Lincoln, failed to agree upon a verdict.

In a similar case, years later, in Champaign County, a man was on trial for murder. Mr. Lincoln was employed to defend him, assisted by Leonard Swett. The prosecution was conducted by Ward H. Lamon and Judge Ficklin; and when they had done their duty, the prisoner's leading counsel was convinced of his guilt.

"Swett," said he, "the man is guilty. You defend him. I can't."

Mr. Swett, only less effective before a jury than Mr. Lincoln himself, made the remaining fight so well that his client was acquitted; but his associate refused to take any part of the fee that was paid for the work he had refused to do.

There are many anecdotes told of Lincoln's professional readiness, wit, learning, capacity, eloquence, but few afford any better knowledge of the real life of the man. He was inwardly advancing to a higher stature of mind and soul than was required for the winning of a succession of court-room victories over the arts of opposing counsel and over the minds of petty juries. Not as a mere lawyer, of what rank and power soever, was his name to go down to future generations. Still it is well to be assured that in these duties as in all others he was notably capable and faithful.

Questions of national importance were now beginning to stir more and more powerfully in his conscience and in his heart as the fruits of his Congressional experience slowly ripened. Long before going to Washington, he had been sent to look with open eyes upon some aspects of the slave-life of the Southern States. While in Congress he had studied and

understood the men who excused, defended, or glorified the laws and institutions by which that life was created and continued in existence.

It was not difficult for any thoughtful man to comprehend, in part at least, the purposes and plans of the advocates of slavery, for they were even brutally frank in many of their public declarations. They had to the uttermost the courage of their convictions, and they shrank from no part or issue or consequence of the work to which they had set themselves. Mr. Lincoln understood fully now their courage, their activity, their great intellectual ability. He saw with equal clearness the sluggish cowardice of all the opposition to their will, which had as yet a position to make itself effective. He knew men, and had analyzed the processes through which their slow thoughts and feelings are developed into purposes and pass on into express action. He was watching these processes with intense interest. In the year 1850, in a conversation with his friend and former law-partner, Mr. Stuart, he said:

"The time will come when we must all be Democrats or Abolitionists. When that time comes my mind is made up. The slavery question can't be compromised."

"So is my mind made up," replied Mr. Stuart; but it was that he would be no Abolitionist.

The very thing Mr. Lincoln said could not be done was now attempted. Shallow thinkers said it had been done, by the socalled "Compromise Measures of 1850," whether regarded merely as laws or as a species of social contract. These, it may be well to recall, admitted Missouri without restriction as to Slavery, and at the same time prohibited Slavery forever in the new territory west of Missouri and north of the latitude 36° 30' -the southern boundary line of that State. This "Missouri Compromise" did indeed arise to the dignity of a hollow and fraudulent political truce. So long as the fetters it sought to impose retained their fictitious binding power there was no fitting place in politics for men like Abraham Lincoln. The

condition of his mind with reference to all this matter is admirably set forth by Mr. Herndon :

"Mr. Lincoln and I were going to Petersburg, in 1850, I think. The political world was dead: the compromises of 1850 seemed to have settled the negro's fate. Things were stagnant, and all hope for progress in the line of freedom seemed to be crushed out. Lincoln was speculating with me about the deadness of things and the despair which arose out of it, and deeply regretting that his human strength and power were limited by his nature to rouse and stir up the world. He said gloomily, despairingly, sadly: 'How hard, oh, how hard it is to die and leave one's country no better than if one had never lived for it! The world is dead to hope, deaf to its own death-struggle, made known by a universal cry. What is to be done? Is anything to be done? Who can do anything? And how is it to be done? Did you ever think of these things?""

It was a grand utterance; and the world can understand it now, and can also understand by help of it what forces were at work behind the sad face of the man who was yet to answer effectively the fierce questionings of his own despairing cry. The world of 1850 was not the world of to-day. There have been vast convulsions and wonderful changes in every part of it since then, and every change and every convulsion which has taken place began in the hearts of men who had in some measure received, like Lincoln, the priceless gifts of thinking and seeing and suffering.

Men who heard him at times-men like Herndon, who was a sincere Abolitionist-could and did wonder why the man who felt so deeply and spoke so strongly did not at once break out into some species of agitation. Other men were so doing here and there, and were bravely performing the work of pioneers in the cause of freedom. Lincoln also was doing the work allotted him, and his zealous friends were unable to see that his time for something different had not yet come.

He