Page:Once a Week Dec 1860 to June 61.pdf/19

8 corded lines, that disclose the machinery that moves the broad jaw.

This great leader of the “Republican” party—this Abolitionist—this terror of the “Democrats”—this honest old lawyer, with a face half Roman, half Indian, so wasted by climate, so scarred by a life’s struggles, was born in 1809, in Kentucky. His grandfather, who came from Virginia, was killed by the Indians. His father died young, leaving a widow and several children. They removed to Indiana, Abe being at that time only six years old. Poor, and struggling, his mother could only afford him some eight months’ rough schooling; and in the clearings of that new, unsettled country, the healthy stripling went to work to hew hickory and gum-trees, to grapple with remonstrating bears, and to look out for the too frequent rattlesnake. Tall, strong, lithe, and smiling, Abe toiled on as farm-labourer, mule-driver, sheep-feeder, deer-killer, woodcutter, and, lastly, as boatman on the waters of the Wabash and the Mississippi.

I, who have stood for hours and days watching the boatmen of these rivers, know how laborious is their life,—how hard they toil to get their flat boats off the sand-bars,—how they moor at night among the fever-haunted cotton-trees,—how they kill the alligator, and make boots of his bossy skin,—how they spend hours under an almost African sun, dragging cotton bales down the steep earth banks,—how they have to gouge, and stab and shoot, to keep their own life and soul together,—what with the thievish “rowdies,” the “river gamblers,” and the rough backwoodsmen of Arkansas, Kansas, and Texas.

About 1830, Abe broke from this wild life, and went off to Illinois as field-labourer, first—then as shopman—lastly, by a natural American transition, as volunteer in the New Salem Company, bound for the war in Florida, against either Black Hawk, Billy Bowlegs, or some other desperate Indian chief determined to defend his cedar-trees, sand-plains, and marshes. This was the making of Abe. Daylight began to show: his stanchness, principle, energy, and sense soon made him a captain.

When the war was over, Abe returned to Springfield, the capital of Illinois, and resided in the plain two-storied white plank-house that he now lives in. In 1832 (for Abe was now a man of mark), he tried for aseata seat [sic] in the legislature, but failed. The year after, however, he was elected, and sat sturdily in the local parliament for four sessions.

Now, as you seldom meet an American who has tried less than four professions, Abe began next to study law, and his excellent head aiding him, he became an advocate, and practised with great success at Springfield.

The old stanchness, the “duty-feeling,” as the Germans call moral principle, was helping on old Abe, now in the court-room at Springfield, as it had done in the Indiana woods, and on the cotton-landings at Baton RangeRouge [sic]. Already an active politician, Lincoln now declared himself a Whig, and supported Henry Clay. In 1846, he got a step further on, and was elected for Congress, where he sat till 1849. He became known there as a sturdy, dangerous Abolitionist, and on the Wilmot proviso he voted forty-two times (for the measure). A foe to popular cries and territorial aggression, he resisted Douglas, and opposed the Mexican war as unconstitutional.

In the years between 1849 and 1854, Lincoln retired from stump and platform and devoted himself to law. In 1854, as a Whig candidate for Illinois, he was defeated, but, like Sir John Moore, Abe’s retreat ended in victory. In 1856 he took an active part for Fremont, and against Buchanan. In 1858 the Republicans of Illinois unanimously chose Abe as their candidate, and in a stumping tour he assailed his opponent Douglas on the squatter sovereignty question—pleading for abolition—but Douglas was nevertheless elected.

With these bold and honest antecedents, imagine the alarm and rage of the democrat “rowdies” on suddenly learning that the Chicago convention had nominated Old Abe, “the honest lawyer,” as their Republican candidate for the President, that fiery Seward had waived his claims, and that Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, a clever, business man, was to be the Republican Vice-President. Was it any wonder the “dead rabbits,” the “shoulder hitters,” the “plug-uglies,” and the “rummies,” in bar-room and ten-pin alley absolutely foamed at the mouth, as the adherents of such political clubs are apt to do? Was it any wonder that the “little giant” himself said at a great ox-roast in Jones’s Wood near New York, that if “Lincoln shall attempt to subvert the constitution, violate its provisoes, or make war upon the rights and interests of any section of this confederacy, I will aid to the full extent of my power in hanging him higher than Virginia hung John Brown." (Vociferous cheering and cries of “Bravo!”)

No wonder the spindly trees and tawdry drinking sheds of Jones’s Wood rang with cries of “Good!” “There’s plenty of rope in New York!” “Go it, Dug!” “Sail in!” “Let her rip!” “That’s the talk!” “That’s so!” “Good for you!” “Three cheers and a tiger for Dug the little giant!” Hei! hei! hei! hei! !

The windows in every city were full of political caricatures. Douglas riding on a rail—Abe splitting rails—Lincoln on a platform, and the “etarnal nigger” grinning underneath. Out flew swarms of political song-books, virulent and venomous. The Republicans declared Douglas drank too much rye whiskey—the democrats laughed at Lincoln’s first splitting rails, and then taking to splitting hairs. His friends said Lincoln could cut seven cord of wood in a day, that he repeated his prayers every night, that he was very like General Jackson, only his boots were a trifle larger. The democrats replied: “Tell us any lies about the old rail-splitter, but don’t show us his darned ugly picture, or we’ll be sick—sure!”

Nothing could equal the absurdity and unconscious bathos of these Tyrtæuses of party. The democrats, to the tune of “Gaily the Troubadour,” sang:

Gaily did Little Dug come from his home,

While he was yet in youth not twenty-one,

He joined our gallant band on the frontiers:

Little Dug, Little Dug, give him three cheers.”

They nicknamed the Abolitionists the “woollies,”