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lin, Roger, and James, for instance, and we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few, not omitting even scaffolding-or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in-in such a case we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck."

That was a heroic thing to say. But Lincoln felt that he had demonstrated it as conclusively as any political policy was capable of demonstration, and suffice it to say, there never was any serious and successful attempt made to answer it. Of course it was categorically denied. The opposition undertook to laugh it out of court, but the charge stuck. It had all the earmarks of truth in it and the people believed it.

Note the concrete noun that he uses as the base of every thought and then he hitches up to the concrete noun the active verb, so that you get a sort of picture upon the mental screen. In this paragraph you can see the President of the United States, James Buchanan, and his predecessor, Franklin Pierce, confer with the judge of the Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney, and the Democratic legislative leader, Stephen A. Douglas, colaboring on a policy to nationalize slavery throughout North and South, East and West.

In paragraph 14 Lincoln then attacks the Dred Scott

decision, which was a part of this political conspiracy to fasten slavery upon the people against their will.

The 15th paragraph anticipates another decision to fill "the niche" considerately left open to complete the conspiracy announced in paragraph 13.

Again, here comes political generalship. Lincoln realized, as no other man did, that great effort would be made in behalf of Senator Douglas, because of his having taken a stand against the Lecompton Constitution and against the administration's effort to have that constitution ratified by the people of Kansas. Therefore, some would say that Senator Douglas was "the aptest instrument to overthrow the power of that dynasty," though, as Lincoln charged, he was one of the conspirators to extend and perpetuate the slave power.

Lincoln aptly asks:

"How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don't care anything about it. (Douglas had frequently said he didn't care whether it was voted up or voted down.) His avowed mission is impressing the 'public heart' to care nothing about it. . . . For years he has labored to prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves into the new Territories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest? And unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of property."

Lincoln was determined that the issue should not be misunderstood by the people; that the claim made that Senator Douglas had changed his political views and that he was entitled to change them should not fool

the people, and upon that proposition he said, in paragraph 17:

"Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday—that he may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong. But clearly, he is not now with us he does not pretend to be he does not promise ever to be."

Lincoln then closes with paragraph 18, which is so important in public leadership on great questions today that it cannot be too often repeated. He says:

"Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends-those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do care for the result. . . . Did we brave all then (two years ago) to falter now?-now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail-if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come."

CHAPTER XVIII

LINCOLN AT COOPER UNION

WHEN is a defeat not a defeat?

Lincoln's fight for the faith of the fathers in "arresting the further spread of slavery," in placing slavery where it was “in the course of ultimate extinction," had only begun.

Temporarily it was in abeyance, but as we shall soon see, the smouldering fires would inevitably break forth in the great contest that was unavoidable-the campaign of 1860.

The real disaster was not to Lincoln's political prospects, but really to his financial. In a letter to Chairman Judd of the Republican State Committee, written at the close of that campaign in 1858, Lincoln said:

"I have been on expense so long, without earning anything, that I am absolutely without money now for even household expenses. Still, if you can put in $250 for me towards discharging the debt of the committee, I will allow it when you and I settle the private matter between us. This, with what I have already paid, with an outstanding note of mine, will exceed my subscription of $500. This, too, is exclusive of my ordinary expenses during the campaign, all of which, being added to my loss of time and business, bears pretty heavily upon one no better off than I am. But as I had the post of honor, it is not for me to be overnice."

Herndon, in speaking of his financial situation at this time, says:

"At the time this letter was written his property consisted of the house and lot on which he lived, a few law books and some household furniture. He owned a small tract of land in Iowa which yielded him nothing, and the annual income from his law practice did not exceed $3,000."

During the following winter Lincoln prepared a lecture on "inventions." After delivering it two or three times it proved such a flat failure that he abandoned the lecture platform.

Mr. Henry C. Whitney writes:

"I read in the paper that he had come to either Bloomington or Clinton to lecture, and no one turned out. The paper added 'that doesn't look much like his being President.' I once joked him about it; he said good naturedly, 'Don't, that plagues me.""

In October, 1859, he received an invitation to go to New York City to deliver a lecture. He accepted the invitation from New York with the suggestion that he would deliver a speech on the political questions of the day some time in the following February. The original plan contemplated a lecture in Mr. Beecher's church in Brooklyn. The change of subject and the change in the spirit of the times led to a choice of Cooper Institute, where the speech was finally given under the auspices of the Young Men's Republican Club.

As was Lincoln's habit in the preparation of all his public addresses, he devoted himself enthusiastically and painstakingly to the preparation of this speech. He was, in a popular phrase, to invade the "enemy's country."

* Vol. II, page 157.

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