CHAPTER VI. THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT. SLAVERY AT THE ADOPTION OF THE Constitution.- EFFORTS FOR one of prepara- THE life of Lincoln had thus far been tion. He had hardly begun his great work. by study and experience, fitted and armed for the great career upon which he was now about to enter. His life may be considered as divided into three distinct periods, which may be thus characterized. The first period, that of preparation, embraces his life from his birth in 1809, to 1849-50; the second covers the birth, growth, and triumph of the republican party from 1850 to 1860; the third includes his administration and re-election, his triumph in the abolition of slavery and the suppression of the rebellion, closing with his death in 1865. When he entered upon his life-work, he was, like Moses, the deliverer of the Jews, about forty years of age. Before entering upon the narrative of the second period of his life, let us pause to consider his surroundings. To understand and fully appreciate his work, we must first sketch in brief outline, the history of African slavery in the republic. The antagonism between freedom and slavery 4 has never been more strikingly exhibited than in the United States. From the beginning, slavery was the only serious cause of division in the republic. The people of our country were substantially one. They had to a great extent a common lineage, the same religion, literature, laws, and history. That portion of the earth known as the United States is adapted by its physical conformation to be the home of one great national family, and not of many. Without slavery the people would naturally have gravitated into one homogeneous nation. But the antagonism between free and slave labor produced a great conflict of ideas, growing more and more earnest and fierce, until it ended in a tremendous conflict of arms. Let us briefly sketch the history of this anomaly of slavery in a nation, which, in the words of Lincoln, was "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal," and embodying in its Declaration of Independence, the great charter of human rights. Slavery was introduced into the English Colonies in America, against the protests of the early settlers. As early as 1772, the Assembly of Virginia petitioned the British Government to stop the importation of slaves. To which petition the King replied that "upon pain of his highest displeasure, the importation of slaves should not be, in any respect, obstructed." The fathers of the revolution tolerated slavery as a temporary evil, which they justly regarded as incompatible with the principles of liberty embraced in the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States. They never intended that it should be a permanent institution, much less, that it should extend beyond the states in which it then existed. They confidently hoped that it would soon disappear before the moral agencies then operating against it. They believed that public opinion, finding expression. through the press, public discussion, and religious organizations, would secure such state and national legislation, as would at an early day, secure liberty to all, throughout the republic.' At the first general Congress of the colonies, held in Philadelphia, in 1774, Jefferson presented a bill of rights, in which it is declared that "the abolition of slavery is the greatest object of desire of these colonies." In October, 1774, Congress declared: "We will neither import, nor purchase any slave imported after the 1st of December next." On the 14th of April, 1775, there was organized at the Sun Tavern, on Second Street, in Philadelphia, the first antislavery society ever formed. Patrick Henry, in a letter dated January 18th, 1773, and addressed to Robert Pleasant, afterwards president of the Virginia Abolition Society, says: "I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil." General Washington, in a letter to Robert Morris, speaking of slavery, says: "There is not a man living, who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it." In 1787, Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush, both signers of the Declaration of Independence, were president and secretary of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. In 1787, a society was formed in New York, of which John Jay,who had presided over the Continental Congress, was president, "for promoting the manumission of slaves." Alexander Hamilton was a member, and afterwards president. The Maryland Society for the promotion of the abolition of slavery was formed in 1789, and in the same year, a society for the same purpose was organized in Rhode Island. The Connecticut Society was organized in 1790, and of this, Dr. Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College, was president. The Virginia Society was 1. There is nowhere to be found in American literature, an exposition of the opinions of the fathers on the subject of slavery, and the power of the Federal Gov. ernment to control and prohibit its extension in the territories, as full as that contained in Mr. Lincoln's Cooper Institute speech. It is thorough, exhaustive and accurate. 2. See a very carefully prepared and learned tract by William F. Poole, entitled "Anti-Slavery Opinions before 1800." P. 43. formed in 1791, and that of New Jersey in 1792.1 The officers of these anti-slavery societies were the most eminent men of the time. In 1780, Pennsylvania passed a law for gradual emancipation, Rhode Island and Connecticut did the same in 1784, and New York in 1799. In 1784, Mr. Jefferson drew up an ordinance for the government of the western territories, prohibiting slavery after 1800. Had this been adopted, there would have been no slave state added to the original thirteen, for there would have been no slave territories out of which to form new slave states. The original thirteen were, state after state, abolishing slavery. The institution was thus, in the language of Lincoln, in "the way of ultimate extinction." The ordinance of 1787, by which freedom was forever secured to the Northwest, to the territory out of which were formed the important states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, was by far the most important antislavery measure from the organization of the government down to the proclamation of emancipation by Abraham Lincoln. Its influence has been decisive, both on the moral and martial conflict which was then a thing of the future. Without the votes and influence of the Northwest, slavery would probably have triumphed. It is true, that the love of freedom nurtured by the free schools and literature of New England, beginning like the source of her great rivers among her granite hills, expanded like those rivers, until it became a mighty stream, but it was the broad and majestic torrent from the Northwest, which, like its own Mississippi, gave to the current of freedom, volume and power and irresistible strength, until it broke down all opposition and swept away all resistance. While the principles of the Revolution seemed likely by peaceful agencies to destroy slavery, new elements entered into the conflict. The most important of these was the 1. See "Anti-Slavery Opinions before 1800," by William F. Poole. invention by Whitney of the cotton gin, and the rapid increase in the production of cotton, thereby making slave labor far more profitable. This was followed soon after, by a vast addition to the domain of the Union of new territory, adapted to the cultivation by negro labor of the cotton plant. Then there soon arose also a gigantic pecuniary interest which found rapidly acquired wealth in slave labor. powerful cotton and slave aristocracy was with consummate skill soon organized, and, with an immense property invested in lands and negroes, soon dominated over the cotton states, and by and by in its arrogance proclaimed "Cotton is King." In sympathy with this, there grew up in the more northern slave states a powerful interest which sought wealth in rearing negroes for sale. And simultaneously with these, there grew up in the North a strong cotton manufacturing interest hostile to any interference with slavery. Knowing their own weakness, feeling the insecurity of property founded upon wrong and injustice, the slaveholders, relatively few in numbers, combined and united into a compact, active, bold, unscrupulous, and determined political power. They became skillful politicians. They selected their ablest men for leaders, and kept them in office and power. They carefully educated their most talented young men for public life. In the free states they bought up, and subsidised, by the rewards of official position, many of the most talented and ambitious public men. The masses of the people in the free states, absorbed in material pursuits, engrossed with the labor of subduing the forests, and in opening their farms, in building towns, cities, schools, churches, colleges, canals, and railways, were skillfully kept divided, and were for many years ruled by the more adroit and experienced politicians of the slave states. A great change in public sentiment soon became apparent. The abolition societies, which not long after the organization of the government were very generally formed, and embraced among their members the most prominent and influential citizens, gradually disappeared, while the religious |