Seward, however, had no mind to stand aside for Douglas; but the notion then prevalent, that success could not be achieved on the radical platform of 1856, had probably lodged in his brain. Moreover, no lawyer could have the same confidence in the principle of congressional prohibition of slavery in the territories, after the Dred Scott decision, that he had before. It may be that Seward thought he could use Douglas for his own benefit and that of the country. He told Herndon there was no danger of the Republicans taking up Douglas, for they could not "place any reliance on a man so slippery ;" and his personal friend, James Watson Webb, denied in June that Seward was in favor of the return of Douglas to the Senate.'

1

It is nevertheless true that in the spring of 1858, Douglas was the best-known and most popular man at the North, where his popular-sovereignty doctrine was deemed a wonderful political invention that was certain to settle the slavery question in the interest of freedom.'

Chase, who had the preceding year been elected a second time governor of Ohio, protested, in an emphatic letter, against the tendency of the prominent Eastern Republicans. "That Douglas acted boldly, decidedly, effectively, I agree," he wrote; "that he has acted in consistency with his own principle of majority-sovereignty, I also freely admit. For his resistance to the Lecompton bill as a gross violation of his principle, and to the English bill for the same reason, he has my earnest thanks. I cannot forget, however, that he has steadily avowed his equal readiness to vote for the admission of Kansas as a slave or a free State, . . and that he has constantly declared his acquiescence in the Dred Scott decision."

1 This was probably some time in March. See Life of Lincoln, Hern< don, p. 394.

"History of Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay, vol. ii. p. 139.

'As illustrating this, see Political Recollections, Julian, p. 166. Chase to Pike, May 12th, First Blows of the Civil War, p. 419.

believe the report. Many Southerners were of the opinion that Douglas was willing to be the candidate of the Republicans.1

But Douglas was practical. A legislature was to be elected in Illinois this fall to choose a senator in his place, while the presidential contest was two years off. The friendly relations that existed during the winter between him and the Republicans, and their frequent conferences, had for a result that all the leading Eastern Republicans, nearly every senator, and many representatives were anxious that their party should make no opposition to Douglas in Illinois. Wilson, Burlingame, and Colfax were especially active in urging this policy. Israel Washburn, a congressman from Maine, wrote confidentially that he was willing Douglas should be anything else but President.' Greeley and Bowles, with their powerful journals, warmly favored his return to the Senate, unopposed by the Republicans.*

The Times, which had been the New York city organ of Seward, thought the formation of a new party probable. It would be composed of Douglas Democrats and Republicans, who were not abolitionists, and Douglas would be its leader. This journal approved the purpose of Seward to act cordially with Douglas, and maintained that the recognition of the principle of popular sovereignty was all that was needed to allay the slavery agitation."

1 Speeches and writings of Clingman, p. 450.

Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. ii. p. 567; Life of Bowles, Merriam, vol. i. pp. 229 and 232; Life of Lincoln, Herndon, p. 394; Life of Colfax, Hollister, p. 119. See also speech of Kellogg, of Illinois, in the House, March 13th, 1860, Appendix to Congressional Globe, 1st Sess. 36th Cong., cited by Von Holst.

'Washburn to Pike, March 16th, First Blows of the Civil War, p.

403.

• Life of Bowles, Merriam, vol. i. p. 229; Recollections of a Busy Life, Greeley, p. 358; New York Tribune, June 24th; see also Life of J. R. Giddings, Julian, p. 351.

• See New York Times, March 5th, Feb. 9th, and April 27th.

Seward, however, had no mind to stand aside for Douglas; but the notion then prevalent, that success could not be achieved on the radical platform of 1856, had probably lodged in his brain. Moreover, no lawyer could have the same confidence in the principle of congressional prohibition of slavery in the territories, after the Dred Scott decision, that he had before. It may be that Seward thought he could use Douglas for his own benefit and that of the country. He told Herndon there was no danger of the Republicans taking up Douglas, for they could not "place any reliance on a man so slippery ;" and his personal friend, James Watson Webb, denied in June that Seward was in favor of the return of Douglas to the Senate.'

1

It is nevertheless true that in the spring of 1858, Douglas was the best-known and most popular man at the North, where his popular-sovereignty doctrine was deemed a wonderful political invention that was certain to settle the slavery question in the interest of freedom."

Chase, who had the preceding year been elected a second time governor of Ohio, protested, in an emphatic letter, against the tendency of the prominent Eastern Republicans. "That Douglas acted boldly, decidedly, effectively, I agree," he wrote; "that he has acted in consistency with his own principle of majority-sovereignty, I also freely admit. For his resistance to the Lecompton bill as a gross violation of his principle, and to the English bill for the same reason, he has my earnest thanks. I cannot forget, however, that he has steadily avowed his equal readiness to vote for the admission of Kansas as a slave or a free State, and that he has constantly declared his acquiescence in the Dred Scott decision."

1 This was probably some time in March. See Life of Lincoln, Herndon, p. 394.

2 History of Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay, vol. ii. p. 139.

'As illustrating this, see Political Recollections, Julian, p. 166.

• Chase to Pike, May 12th, First Blows of the Civil War, p. 419.

But more important still, the Republicans of Illinois, under the lead of Abraham Lincoln, their candidate for senator, protested.

We have already had glimpses of Lincoln; it is now time to describe him more fully. His mother, a daughter of a Virginia and Kentucky planter, was a woman of strong intellect. Herndon reports a conversation, in which Lincoln said that she was a natural child and he had inherited from her his mental power; but there is good reason for believing that she was born in wedlock. His father was a shiftless, poor white of Kentucky, who was taught by his wife to read painfully and write clumsily. Abraham Lincoln's family moved to Indiana when he was seven; when he had just passed his twentyfirst birthday, they forsook Indiana and settled in Illinois.

When he was nominated for President, a Chicago journalist, desiring to write a campaign biography, asked him for facts concerning his early life. "It can all be condensed," he replied, "into a single sentence, and that sentence you will find in Gray's 'Elegy':

"The short and simple annals of the poor." "2

His school education was meagre, his business ventures unprofitable. He neglected his shop to read Shakespeare and Burns, and preferred discussing politics with his customers to selling them goods; but he had a fine sense of honor in money matters, and was scrupulous in discharging debts which the mismanagement and misfortune of others threw upon him. He studied law, and at the age of twenty-eight began practice; but he loved politics better than law. In his study of the one and his devotion to the other may be seen the efforts at self-education that made up in some degree his lack of scholastic training.

Lincoln was not a reader of wide range, but he studied thoroughly the Bible and Shakespeare. The moral, philosophic, and literary quality of these works so permeated his

1 Nancy Hanks, Hitchcock,

2 Herndon, p. 2.

soul and gave such vigor to his speech that it might be said of him," Beware of the man of one book." Learning the surveyor's art as a means of livelihood, he nurtured at the same time his innate love of mathematics, and later, in private study, he mastered the six books of Euclid. The Bible, Shakespeare, and Euclid furnished strong mental discipline, and were perhaps the best of all books for self-education. Lincoln's emotional nature was touched by the poems of Burns, and by others written in his own day. He delighted in the physical sciences, and liked fiction, but cared little for history, and thought biographies were lies.

"The life of the streets" taught Lincoln, as it did Socrates.' He loved and believed in the common people, but the common people whom he amused with his anecdotes were American-born and country and village residents. Thinking that the finest humor could be found among the lower orders of the country people, he garnered up their jokes for use on a larger stage. The stories he told to the admiring and gaping crowd of the tavern were of the bar-room order; if witty, it mattered not to him that they were broad. Loving leisure, he might have been called in those days (1830– 1835) a loafer; but his personal morals remained unscathed. He used neither liquor nor tobacco, although he took pleasure in a horse-race and a cock-fight.

Lincoln, like Socrates, was odd in his personal appearance, though with a different grotesqueness of exterior. And to Lincoln, as to Socrates, were denied the felicity of domestic life and the pleasures of a quiet home. He loved the practice of law on the circuit, where he had the constant and congenial society of brother attorneys; and when Sunday came, instead of going home as did his companions, he lingered to pursue his Socratic studies among the loungers of the tavern. But after beginning the study of law and interesting himself in politics, he found that while he had

1 This comparison is suggested by a thoughtful review in the Nation of the Life of Lincoln by Herndon, vol. xlix. p. 173.