These words of Lincoln should be written in every public forum, in every school and college in the land. They should be familiar at every fireside and their substance and spirit should inspire and guide every public officer in the discharge of his public duties.

In some strange way these immortal basic thoughts of Lincoln have been much overlooked. Of all his great sayings which future generations will treasure, at every human hearthstone and every forum for freedom, these words, part of his official message to the Congress of the United States, will stand out among the most immortal of all his immortality.

Lincoln always had an abiding faith in the general judgment of the common people. He once said:

"Our government rests on public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion can change the government practically just so much."

In the first Lincoln-Douglas debate at Ottawa Lincoln said:

"In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed."

In his first inaugural address he used this language: "Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? . . . By the frame of the government under which we live, this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very

short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years."

CHAPTER XIV

LINCOLN ON SLAVERY

MUCH has been spoken and still more written as to Mr. Lincoln's position on slavery from the time of his boyhood to the day of his martyrdom.

A review of what Lincoln himself has said on the matter, what Lincoln himself has done, and why he did it, would seem relevant here.

Some of his biographers have earnestly attempted to give his childhood mind a bent against slavery due to parental inheritance, especially through the father, Thomas Lincoln.

These biographers assign hatred of slavery as a reason for Thomas Lincoln's removal from the slave soil of Kentucky to the free soil of Indiana.

Notwithstanding this highly creditable theory, it is wholly unsupported by fact. He moved, as many another man moved, because it looked better on the other side of the fence, in the next county, in the next State.

It is altogether unlikely that any hatred of slavery in Kentucky would be silenced by the free soil of Indiana and Illinois, and we hear nothing of Thomas Lincoln either favorably for freedom or for his rising son during all his political and legal contests.

The first contact Lincoln had with slavery in the concrete, as agreed by a number of his more reliable biographers, was on a trip he made to New Orleans for Denton Offut.

John Hanks, his cousin, and John Johnston, his

stepbrother, with Lincoln, constructed a boat and launched it within four weeks, for a trip down the Mississippi. After disposing of Offut's cargo at New Orleans they viewed the sights of the Crescent City, and Lincoln for the first time saw "negroes in chains— whipped and scourged."

The following account is given by Herndon in his life of Lincoln.

"One morning in their rambles over the city the trio passed a slave auction. A vigorous and comely mulatto girl was being sold. She underwent a thorough examination at the hands of the bidders; they pinched her flesh and made her trot up and down the room like a horse, to show how she moved, and in order, as the auctioneer said, that 'bidders might satisfy themselves' whether the article they were offering to buy was sound or not. The whole thing was so revolting that Lincoln moved away from the scene with a deep feeling of 'unconquerable hate.' Bidding his companions follow him he said, 'By God, boys, let's get away from this. If ever I get a chance to hit that thing (meaning slavery), I'll hit it hard.'"

Herndon relates, the incident was given to him in 1865 by John Hanks. Herndon also relates that he himself had heard Lincoln refer to the same incident himself. This is confirmed by several other biographers. At this time Lincoln was twenty-two years of age.

The next time slavery was brought to his attention was when he was a member of the State Legislature at Springfield, six years after his visit to New Orleans. The abolitionist had taken his westward way, and New England seed had settled in the soil of Illinois. The majority of the State Legislature, however, greatly

deprecated the agitation against slavery, and as expressing such deprecation the following resolution was passed:

"Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Illinois: That we highly disapprove of the formation of Abolition societies and of the doctrines promulgated by them,

"That the right of property in slaves is sacred to the slave-holding States by the Federal Constitution, and that they cannot be deprived of that right without their consent,

"That the General Government cannot abolish slavery in the District of Columbia against the consent of the citizens of said District, without a manifest breach of good faith,

"That the Governor be requested to transmit to the States of Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, New York, and Connecticut, a copy of the foregoing report and resolutions."

Thereafter, Lincoln endeavored to marshal the minority in support of a resolution of protest against these pro-slavery resolutions. He was unable to find any one save Dan Stone to join him in presenting the minority resolutions.

Lincoln's protest read as follows:

"Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both branches of the General Assembly at its present session, the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of the same.

"They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils.