CHAPTER XII

LINCOLN'S COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH

[Sidenote] Lincoln to McNeill, April 6, 1860. Lamon, "Life of Lincoln," p. 441.

[Sidenote] Jas. A. Briggs to Lincoln, November 1, 1859. MS. Jas. A. Briggs in New York "Evening Post," August 16, 1867.

Among the many invitations to deliver addresses which Lincoln received in the fall of 1859, was one from a committee asking him to lecture in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, in a course then in progress there, designed for popular entertainment. "I wrote," said Lincoln, "that I could do it in February, provided they would take a political speech, if I could find time to get up no other." "Your letter was duly received and handed over to the committee," was the response, "and they accept your compromise. You may lecture at the time you mention, and they will pay you $200. I think they will arrange for a lecture in New York also, and pay you $200 for that."

[Sidenote] C.C. Nott to Lincoln, February 9, 1860. MS.

Financial obstacles, or other reasons, brought about the transfer of the engagement to a new committee, and the invitation was repeated in a new form: "The Young Men's Central Republican Union of this city [New York] very earnestly desire that you should deliver what I may term a political lecture during the ensuing month. The peculiarities of the case are these: A series of lectures has been determined upon. The first was delivered by Mr. Blair, of St. Louis, a short time ago; the second will be in a few days, by Mr. Cassius M. Clay, and the third we would prefer to have from you rather than any other person. Of the audience I should add that it is not that of an ordinary political meeting. These lectures have been contrived to call out our better, but busier citizens, who never attend political meetings. A large part of the audience will consist of ladies."

[Sidenote] Lincoln to McNeill, April 6, 1860. Lamon, "Life of Lincoln." p. 441.

Lincoln, however, remained under the impression that the lecture was to be given in Brooklyn, and only learned after he reached New York to fulfill his engagement that he was to speak in the Cooper Institute. When, on the evening of February 27, 1860, he stood before his audience, he saw not only a well-filled house, but an assemblage of listeners in which were many whom, by reason of his own modest estimate of himself, he would have been rather inclined to ask advice from than to offer instruction to. William Cullen Bryant presided over the meeting; David Dudley Field escorted the speaker to the platform; ex-Governor John A. King, Horace Greeley, James W. Nye, James A. Briggs, Cephas Brainerd, Charles C. Nott, Hiram Barney, and others sat among the invited guests. "Since the days of Clay and Webster," said the "Tribune" next morning, "no man has spoken to a larger assemblage of the intellect and mental culture of our city." Of course the presence of such a gathering was no mere accident. Not only had Lincoln's name for nearly two years found constant mention in the newspapers, but both friendly and hostile comment had coupled it with the two ranking political leaders in the free-States--Seward and Douglas. The representative men of New York were naturally eager to see and hear one who, by whatever force of eloquence or argument, had attracted so large a share of the public attention. We may also fairly infer that, on his part, Lincoln was no less curious to test the effect of his words on an audience more learned and critical than those collected in the open-air meetings of his Western campaigns. This mutual interest was an evident advantage to both; it secured a close attention from the house, and insured deliberation and emphasis by the speaker, enabling him to develop his argument with perfect precision and unity, reaching perhaps the happiest general effect ever attained in any one of his long addresses.

He took as his text a phrase uttered by Senator Douglas in the late Ohio campaign--"Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better than we do now." Lincoln defined "this question," with a lawyer's exactness, thus:

Does the proper division of local from Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal Government to control as to slavery in our Federal Territories? Upon this Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and the Republicans the negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue, and this issue--this question--is precisely what the text declares our fathers understood "better than we."

From this "precise and agreed starting-point" Lincoln next traced with minute historical analysis the action of "our fathers" in framing "the government under which we live," by their votes and declarations in the Congresses which preceded the Constitution and in the Congresses following which proposed its twelve amendments and enacted various Territorial prohibitions. His conclusions were irresistibly convincing.

The sum of the whole is [said he] that of our thirty-nine fathers who framed the original Constitution, twenty-one--a clear majority of the whole--certainly understood that no proper division of local from Federal authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories; while all the rest probably had the same understanding. Such unquestionably was the understanding of our fathers who framed the original Constitution; and the text affirms that they understood the question "better than we".... It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers of the original Constitution and the seventy-six members of the Congress which framed the amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly include those who may be fairly called "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live." And so assuming, I defy any man to show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that in his understanding any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories. I go a step further. I defy any one to show that any living man in the whole world ever did, prior to the beginning of the present century (and I might almost say prior to the beginning of the last half of the present century), declare that in his understanding any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories. To those who now so declare, I give, not only "our fathers who framed the government under which we live," but with them all other living men within the century in which it was framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be able to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with them.

Now, and here, let me guard a little against being misunderstood. I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do so would be to discard all the lights of current experience--to reject all progress, all improvement. What I do say is, that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case, whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better than we.

If any part of the audience came with the expectation of hearing the rhetorical fire-works of a Western stump-speaker of the "half-horse, half-alligator" variety, they met novelty of an unlooked for kind. In Lincoln's entire address he neither introduced an anecdote nor essayed a witticism; and the first half of it does not contain even an illustrative figure or a poetical fancy. It was the quiet, searching exposition of the historian, and the terse, compact reasoning of the statesman, about an abstract principle of legislation, in language well-nigh as restrained and colorless as he would have employed in arguing a case before a court. Yet such was the apt choice of words, the easy precision of sentences, the simple strength of propositions, the fairness of every point he assumed, and the force of every conclusion he drew, that his listeners followed him with the interest and delight a child feels in its easy mastery of a plain sum in arithmetic.

With the sympathy and confidence of his audience thus enlisted, Lincoln next took up the more prominent topics in popular thought, and by words of kindly admonition and protest addressed to the people of the South, showed how impatiently, unreasonably, and unjustly they were charging the Republican party with sectionalism, with radicalism, with revolutionary purpose, with the John Brown raid, and kindred political offenses, not only in the absence of any acts to justify such charges, but even in the face of its emphatic and constant denials and disavowals. The illustration with which he concluded this branch of his theme could not well be surpassed in argumentative force.

But you will not abide the election of a Republican President! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!" To be sure what the robber demanded of me--my money--was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.

But the most impressive, as well as the most valuable, feature of Lincoln's address was its concluding portion, where, in advice directed especially to Republicans, he pointed out in dispassionate but earnest language that the real, underlying conflict was in the difference of moral conviction between the sections as to the inherent right or wrong of slavery, and in view of which he defined the proper duty of the free-States.

A few words now [said he] to Republicans. It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace and in harmony one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill temper. Even though the Southern people will not so much, as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can. Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them.

Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally surrendered to them? We know they will not. In all their present complaints against us the Territories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and insurrections? We know it will not. We so know, because we know we never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the denunciation.

The question recurs. What will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning; of our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.

These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly--done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated; we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our free-State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this way. Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, do nothing to us, and say what you please about slavery." But we do let them alone--have never disturbed them; so that, after all, it is what we say which dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us of doing until we cease saying.

I am also aware they have not, as yet, in terms, demanded the overthrow of our free-State constitutions. Yet those constitutions declare the wrong of slavery, with more solemn emphasis than do all other sayings against it, and when all these other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these constitutions will be demanded and nothing be left to resist the demand. It is nothing to the contrary that they do not demand the whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation. Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally right, and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it, as a legal right and a social blessing.

Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground, save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against it are themselves wrong, and should be silenced and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality--its universality! if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its extension--its enlargement. All they ask we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being right; but thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view and against our own! In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national Territories, and to overrun us here in the free-States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored, contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man, such as a policy of "don't care," on a question about which all true men do care, such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists; reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance; such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

[Sidenote] "New York Tribune," February 28, 1860.

The smiles, the laughter, the outburst of applause which greeted and emphasized the speaker's telling points, showed Mr. Lincoln that his arguments met ready acceptance. The next morning the four leading New York dailies printed the speech in full, and bore warm testimony to its merit and effect. "Mr. Lincoln is one of nature's orators," said the "Tribune," "using his rare powers solely to elucidate and convince, though their inevitable effect is to delight and electrify as well. We present herewith a very full and accurate report of this speech; yet the tones, the gestures, the kindling eye, and the mirth-provoking look defy the reporter's skill. The vast assemblage frequently rang with cheers and shouts of applause, which were prolonged and intensified at the close. No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience."

[Illustration: CALEB CUSHING.]

[Sidenote] Pamphlet edition with notes and preface by Charles C. Nott and Cephas Brainerd, September, 1860.

A pamphlet reprint was at once announced by the same paper; and later, in the Presidential campaign, a more careful edition was prepared and circulated, to which were added copious notes by two members of the committee under whose auspices the address was delivered. Their comment, printed in the preface, is worth quoting as showing its literary value under critical analysis. "No one who has not actually attempted to verify its details can understand the patient research and historical labor which it embodies. The history of our earlier politics is scattered through numerous journals, statutes, pamphlets, and letters; and these are defective in completeness and accuracy of statement, and in indices and tables of contents. Neither can any one who has not traveled over this precise ground appreciate the accuracy of every trivial detail, or the self-denying impartiality with which Mr. Lincoln has turned from the testimony of 'the fathers' on the general question of slavery, to present the single question which he discusses. From the first line to the last, from his premises to his conclusion, he travels with a swift, unerring directness which no logician ever excelled, an argument complete and full, without the affectation of learning, and without the stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details. A single, easy, simple sentence of plain Anglo-Saxon words, contains a chapter of history that, in some instances, has taken days of labor to verify, and which must have cost the author months of investigation to acquire."

From New York Lincoln went to fill other engagements to speak at several places in New England, where he met the same enthusiastic popular reception and left the same marked impression, especially upon his more critical and learned hearers. They found no little surprise in the fact that a Western politician, springing from the class of unlettered frontiersmen, could not only mold plain strong words into fresh and attractive phraseology, but maintain a clear, sustained, convincing argument, equal in force and style to the best examples in their college text-books.

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