REMEMBERED PHASES

OF THE CIVIL WAR

By W. S. Galvin

September 1917

Chapter I

      In the year 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States.  This came about by division in the Democratic Party.  The South hoped to nominate a Southern man, but this hope was thwarted by the nomination of Stephen A. Douglas, a Northern Democrat.

   Two years before this event, Lincoln and Douglas met and debated in a number of the large cities the question of slavery in the territories.  Douglas' doctrine was called "Squatter Sovereignty."  He claimed that a slaveholder had a right to take his slaves into the territories, and there squat despite all comers.  Lincoln combated this new doctrine and he did it so sensibly, with so much logic, and yet in the best of humor, that the citizens of the Nation began to rise up and take notice.  The "rail-splitter," as he was called, pitted against the best known man of the Democrat party, and whose great ability was generally admitted, and then a Senator of the United States from Illinois, was forced into this series of debates, both being candidates for re-election and Lincoln, of the new Republican party born only a couple of years before.

   There was a vast difference in the reputation of the men.  Douglas was known the Nation over; Lincoln's reputation was confined principally to the State of Illinois.  Lincoln was the older by two years, but had not delved into politics as a habit as deeply as Douglas.

   But these debates between the two Illinoisans advanced Lincoln's ability, or rather gave it such publicity that Senator Douglas had no accomplishment as a public speaker or as a logician and debater, that was not equaled and even excelled by Mr. Lincoln.  One great advantage he had over Mr. Douglas was his simplicity of speech, force of thought and honest expression of his opinions.  In other words he always appeared to his audiences as if what he said was heartfelt belief.  The readers of his speeches were struck and deeply impressed by his arguments.  They were evidently not evolved as the support of a mere theory.  They were plain, common sense facts such as confront us in the affairs of life, and were bereft of all the politician's insincerity and trickery of speech to create an impression on the hearer.

   Senator Douglas, in lieu of argument, would descend to personal flings at his competitor.   Even this was taken in the best of humor.  Mr. Lincoln in his early days kept whiskey in the grocery, that he conducted, which was a general custom in that day, and in one of his speeches in the debate referred insinuatingly to Lincoln's practice at the bar.   When Lincoln's time came to reply he recalled the remark of the Senator but told his audience that "he was behind the bar, not in front of it, as the Senator will well understand."

   Besides the great enlightenment on the slavery question brought out in these memorable debates, Mr. Lincoln was at one swoop thrust in the ranks of future possible candidates for the Presidency.  In the election that followed this debating campaign Mr. Douglas won.   He was sent back to the Senate, as the "Little Giant," whom Illinois Democrats would not deign to forsake.  Lincoln lost the Senatorship from Illinois, but in less than two years, again pitted against his former competitor in that historical debate he won a greater prize, the Presidency of the United States.

   Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States in 1860.  He had defeated his old competitor for the Senate, Stephen A. Douglas.  The Democrat party was divided, Douglas heading the Northern Democracy and John C. Breckingridge the Southern.  In this division was verified the Biblical pronouncement that "A house divided against itself cannot stand," and that other, "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad."

   The election of Mr. Lincoln drove the South to the extreme of anger.  The Slavery question had agitated the nation for many years.  Many changes had taken place in the parties, according to their several attitudes toward the long mooted question.  When the Democratic party became too pronounced in favoring the Southern idea their following began to fall off; and likewise was it the case with the Whig Party.  And as time went on, slavery became the absorbing question in congress and out.  To alleviate this rising feeling compromises were made, but they failed to accomplish their purpose, showing that a question "can never be settled until it is settled right."

   But statesmen who have their eye on the Presidential chair and whose burning desire is to be comfortably seated in it for the constitutional period, will do most anything to fool the people temporarily when that useful White House piece of furniture seems almost within their grasp.  "They all do it," or at least most all.

   And from these agitation's within the parties, came the birth of the Republican Party, which was pronounced in its declarations against the extension of Slavery to the territories.   A great impetus was given to the new party by the influx into it of the best leaders and brainiest statesmen of deserted parties, such as Salmon P. Chase, Democratic Governor of Ohio, William H. Seward, Whig Governor of New York, Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, and a host of others.  It is to these able statesmen that the credit is given for the outspoken platform of principles that put the new party to the front as if by magic.

   Lincoln had not aspired to the Presidency.  Had they chosen him Vice President, he would have been perfectly  satisfied; had he been ignored altogether, he would have deemed the will of the convention wiser than he.  Previous to the convention he had expressed the opinion to some of his home folks that he wasn't fitted for the Presidency.  What a different ending would be the career of many would-be- statesmen, if they would not allow their calm judgment to be over bourne by the intensity of ambitious desires.  When so imbued they are sure to suppress their true convictions and depart from the strict path of duty.  How many of our brilliant statesmen have thus fallen short and failed of their goal for this sole reason.

   It should be appreciated by the reader that articles like these are not intended to go into the minute details of party action and to dwell at length on the force and effect of the endeavor to make wrong seem right, or even behave itself.  Though it is well to remind the reader that it is never the best thing to let some one else do the maximum of your thinking and thus arouse mere prejudice, which never "gets anywhere."  Real smart men in political life should learn a practical and enduring lesson from the unselfish life of Abraham Lincoln.  Steadily adhered to, it will win much oftener than it does when the mere "policy" course is pursued.  It only shows that the alleged brainy fellow, who so highly exalts his ego, when he fails to throw his accumulated selfishness and his high-altitude esteem on the dump, is sure later to find himself there.  The instances are "too numerous to mention."

   Senator Douglas, the leader of the Northern Democracy, and Abraham Lincoln's competitor for the Presidency, died less than three months after the inauguration of Lincoln.  He was present at the inaugural, a pronounced Union man, and was severe in his condemnation of the course the South proposed to take.  He said that "no matter who was elected president, it was the will of the people, and every lover of his country should abide by   the decision of the people, as rendered at the polls."  His last words were "Stand by the Union".

   Their great and only leader having passed, Democracy was left like a ship without its rudder.   Unfortunately, the party failed to heed the dying words of its great leader; but not so with thousands of patriotic Democrats, in high and low estate, who gallantly stepped forward, raised their right hands and swore willing fidelity to their country and its flag.  And among these were some of the best generals in the War.

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