Mr. Lincoln has shown, is in like manner curiously coincident in thought with the first sentence of another still more famous speech—Daniel Webster's reply to Hayne. Mr. Webster said:
"When the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate that prudence, and before we float further, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now are."
That is a stately and sonorous opening, majestic and poetical. Now compare it with Mr. Lincoln's synonym: "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it." The thing could not have been said more shortly, more directly, more clearly, more strongly in English. As the writer observes from whom this parallel is taken, "Mr. Webster used eighty-two words, nearly a quarter of them having over one syllable; Mr. Lincoln only twenty-five, of which only three, or less than one-eighth, have more than one syllable. Counting still more closely, we find that Mr. Webster used 347 letters, to Mr. Lincoln's 88." In less than one-third the words, in just over one-fourth the letters, and without the least approach to a figure of speech, Mr. Lincoln said what Mr. Webster did. "This," to quote once more, "may seem a petty method of comparing orators; but it reveals a great secret of directness, clearness, simplicity and force of style; it goes far to explain how Mr. Lincoln convinced an audience."
"This speech," says Mr. Arnold, "was the text of the great debate between Lincoln and Douglas." It states the question in the United States as between slavery and freedom, with very great strength and plainness, and lays down the principles that apply to it with equal power. It had been carefully prepared beforehand, as a manifesto for which the times were ripe. For the first time it placed the speaker publicly upon advanced anti-slavery ground; and it is by no means improbable that in taking that ground, Mr. Lincoln had some secret conscious or half conscious feeling not only that he was marking out the place that his party must occupy in the coming struggle, but that in doing so he assumed the place of standard-bearer. He explained the doctrines of the Nebraska Act, and the Dred Scott decision; showed how the Democratic party had become ranged on the side of slavery; explained how the result of the Dred Scott decision, together with the indifferent policy so jauntily vaunted by Douglas, of "not caring whether slavery were voted up or down," must result in a final victory of slavery; and showed how Mr. Douglas' doctrines permitted and invited that final victory. And having thus showed "where we are, and whither we are tending," he ended with a solemn but cheering exhortation, "what to do and how to do it." "The result," he said, "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."
That is the language, not of a party politician, recommending expedient nostrums, but of a statesman who feels profoundly that his people are sound at heart, and will assuredly one day do full justice; who proclaims in advance the eternal victory of the right side, and boldly calls on all who hear him to advance up to the line of their own consciences.
Before delivering this speech, Mr. Lincoln locked himself into a room with his partner, Mr. Herndon, and read him the first paragraph of the speech. "What do you think of it?" said he. Herndon answered, "I think it is all true, but I doubt whether it is good policy to say it now." Mr. Lincoln replied, "That makes no difference; it is the truth, and the nation is entitled to it." This was both honest and politic; for if the ground of principle as against expediency had not been taken, there was none left to oppose the reasonings of Mr. Douglas, which were extremely adroit, and so far as expediency admitted, indeed unanswerable.
In the conduct of that remarkable campaign of 1858, Mr. Douglas was the advocate of expediency, Mr. Lincoln of principle. Mr. Douglas appealed to the prejudices of the white race against the black, and argued in favor of present ease and selfish indifference to justice in our conduct as a nation. Mr. Lincoln incessantly appealed to the consciences of his audience, to all that part of human nature which is kindly, which is just, which is noble; to the broad doctrines upon which our national freedom was originally based. It is true that along with these main currents of debate numerous minor questions and side issues came up; but such was the pervading color, the chief drift of the discussion. Over and over and over again, there sounds out among the words of Douglas, "This is a white man's government; the negro ought not to vote." And even more constant is the lofty reply, "I stand by the Declaration of Independence, and the everlasting rights of humanity. The negro is a man, and he ought to have all the rights of a man!"
Mr. Lincoln's speech at Springfield, on June 17th, has been briefly described. Mr. Douglas, coming home to his own State, to justify his course, and receive his re-election, answered him in his Chicago speech of July 9th, and Mr. Lincoln rejoined next day. Douglas spoke again, at Bloomington on the 16th, and at Springfield on the 17th, and on the latter day Mr. Lincoln spoke also at Springfield. In this speech he set forth a curious and characteristic contrast between himself and his opponent, in a grotesque and sarcastic manner that must have told sharply upon his western audience, while its comic surface is underlaid with the usual solid basis of conscious adherence to justice and principle. Mr. Lincoln said:
"Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land-offices, marshalships and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charming hope; but with greedier anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions beyond what even in the days of his highest prosperity they could have brought about in his favor. On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out. These are disadvantages, all taken together, that the Republicans labor under. We have to fight this battle upon principle, and upon principle alone. I am, in a certain sense, made the standard-bearer in behalf of the Republicans. I was made so merely because there had to be some one so placed—I being in no wise preferable to any other one of the twenty-five—perhaps a hundred, we have in the Republican ranks. Then I say I wish it to be distinctly understood and borne in mind, that we have to fight this battle without many—perhaps without any—of the external aids which are brought to bear against us. So I hope those with whom I am surrounded have principle enough to nerve themselves for the task and leave nothing undone that can be fairly done, to bring about the right result."
Two years before, Mr. Lincoln had used even stronger terms in contrasting himself and his antagonist. In 1856 he said: "Twenty-two years ago, Judge Douglas and I first became acquainted; we were both young men—he a trifle younger than I. Even then we were both ambitious, I perhaps quite as much as he. With me, the race of ambition has been a failure—a flat failure. With him, it has been one of splendid success. His name fills the nation, and it is not unknown in foreign lands. I affect no contempt for the high eminence he has reached. So reached that the oppressed of my species might have shared with me in the elevation, I would rather stand on that eminence than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch's brow."
Mr. Lincoln's exact position on the emancipation question at this time, is an interesting illustration of his firm adherence to principle, and at the same time of his extreme caution in touching established laws, and his natural tendency to give voice to the average public sentiment of his day, rather than to go beyond it, or to reprove that sentiment for not going further. He averred over and over again, that he was "not in favor of negro citizenship;" but he said "there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence—the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the right to eat the bread without the leave of anybody
