McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 by Various

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"Ah, if you had only known Adolphus!" he exclaimed.

Now, the third glass of clean spirits has always a deplorable effect
on me. It turns me from bright to black, from lightness of spirits to
extreme sulkiness. I have done more wickedness over this third tumbler
than in all the other states of comparative inebriety within my
experience. So now I glowered at my companion and rapped out a curse.

"Look here, I don't want to hear any more of Adolphus, and I've a
pretty clear notion of the game you're playing. You want to make me
drunk, and you're ready to sit prattling there till I drop under the
table."

"Do me the favor to remember that you came, and are staying, at your
own invitation. As for the brandy, I would remind you that I suggested
a milder drink. Try some Madeira."

He handed me the decanter, as he spoke, and I poured out a glass.

"Madeira!" said I, taking a gulp. "Ugh! it's the commonest Marsala!"

I had no sooner said the words than he rose up, and stretched a hand
gravely across to me.

"I hope you'll shake it," he said; "though, as a man who after three
glasses of neat spirit can distinguish between Madeira and Marsala,
you have every right to refuse me. Two minutes ago you offered to
become my butler, and I demurred. I now beg you to repeat that offer.
Say the word, and I employ you gladly; you shall even have the second
decanter (which contains genuine Madeira) to take to bed with you."

We shook hands on our bargain, and catching up a candlestick, he led
the way from the room.

Picking up my boots, I followed him along the passage and down the
silent staircase. In the hall he paused to stand on tiptoe, and turn
up the lamp, which was burning low. As he did so, I found time to
fling a glance at my old enemy, the mastiff. He lay as I had first
seen him--a stuffed dog, if ever there was one. "Decidedly," thought
I, "my wits are to seek, to-night;" and with the same, a sudden
suspicion made me turn to my conductor, who had advanced to the
left-hand door, and was waiting for me, with hand on the knob.

"One moment," I said; "this is all very pretty, but how am I to know
you're not sending me to bed while you fetch in all the countryside to
lay me by the heels?"

"I'm afraid," was his answer, "you must be content with my word, as
a gentleman, that never, to-night or hereafter, will I breathe a
syllable about the circumstances of your visit. However, if you
choose, we will return upstairs."

"No; I'll trust you," said I; and he opened the door.

It led into a broad passage, paved with slate, upon which three or
four rooms opened. He paused by the second, and ushered me into a
sleeping-chamber which, though narrow, was comfortable enough--a vast
improvement, at any rate, on the mumper's lodgings I had been used to
for many months past.

"You can undress here," he said. "The sheets are aired, and if you'll
wait a moment I'll fetch a nightshirt--one of my own."

"Sir, you heap coals of fire on me."

"Believe me that for ninety-nine of your qualities I do not care a
tinker's curse: but as a man who, after three tumblers of neat brandy,
can tell Marsala from Madeira you are to be taken care of."

He shuffled away, but came back in a couple of minutes with the
nightshirt.

"Good-night," he called to me, flinging it in at the door; and without
giving me time to return the wish, went his way upstairs.

Now it might be supposed that I was only too glad to toss off my
clothes and climb into the bed I had so unexpectedly acquired a right
to. But, as a matter of fact, I did nothing of the kind. Instead, I
drew on my boots and sat on the bed's edge, blinking at my candle till
it died down in its socket, and afterwards at the purple square of
window as it slowly changed to gray with the coming of dawn. I was
cold to the heart, and my teeth chattered with an ague. Certainly I
never suspected my host's word; but was even occupied in framing good
resolutions and shaping out an excellent future, when I heard the
front door gently pulled to, and a man's footsteps moving quietly to
the gate.

The treachery knocked me in a heap for the moment. Then leaping up and
flinging my door wide, I stumbled through the uncertain light of the
passage into the front hall.

There was a fan-shaped light over the door, and the place was very
still and gray. A quick thought, or rather a sudden prophetic guess at
the truth, made me turn to the figure of the mastiff curled under the
hall table.

I laid my hand on the scruff of his neck. He was quite limp, and my
fingers sank into the flesh on either side of the vertebrae. Digging
them deeper, I dragged him out into the middle of the hall, and pulled
the front door open to see the better.

His throat was gashed from ear to ear.

How many seconds passed after I dropped the senseless lump on the
floor, and before I made another movement, it would puzzle me to say.
Twice I stirred a foot as if to run out at the door. Then, changing my
mind, I stepped over the mastiff, and ran up the staircase. The light
no longer shone out into the left-hand passage; but groping down it,
I found the study door open, as before, and passed in. A sick light
stole through the blinds--enough for me to distinguish the glasses
and decanters on the table, and find my way to the curtain that hung
before the room where the light had first attracted me.

I pushed the curtain aside, paused for a moment, and listened to the
violent beat of my heart; then felt for the door handle and turned it.

All I could see at first; was that the chamber was small; next, that
the light patch in a line with the window was the white coverlet of a
bed; and next, that somebody, or something, lay on the bed.

I listened again. There was no sound in the room; no heart beating but
my own. I reached out a hand to pull up the blind, and drew it back
again. I dared not.

The daylight grew, minute by minute, on the dull parallelogram of
the blind, and minute by minute that horrible thing on the bed took
something of distinctness. The strain beat me at last. I fetched a
veritable yell to give myself courage, and, reaching for the cord,
pulled up the blind as fast as it would go.

The face on the pillow was that of an old man--a face waxen and
peaceful, with quiet lines about the month and eyes, and long lines of
gray hair falling back from the temples. The body was turned a little
on one side, and one hand lay outside the bedclothes in a very natural
manner. But there were two dark spots on the coverlet.

Then I knew I was face to face with the real householder; and it
flashed on me that I had been indiscreet in taking service as his
butler, and that I knew the face his ex-butler wore.

[Illustration: "FACE TO FACE WITH THE REAL HOUSEHOLDER."]

And, being by this time awake to the responsibilities of the post, I
quitted it three steps at a time, not once looking behind me. Outside
the house the storm had died, and white sunlight broke over the sodden
moors. But my bones were cold, and I ran faster and faster.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

BY IDA M. TARBELL.

LINCOLN'S PROMINENCE AS A WHIG POLITICIAN AT THIRTY-TWO.--STEPHEN A.
DOUGLAS'S REMOVAL TO SPRINGFIELD.--BEGINNING OF THE RIVALRY BETWEEN
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS.--LINCOLN'S PART IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1840.--MARY
TODD AND HER ENGAGEMENT TO LINCOLN.--FALSE STORIES REGARDING LINCOLN'S
COURTSHIP.--THE LINCOLN AND SHIELDS DUEL.--LINCOLN'S MARRIAGE.

By the time Abraham Lincoln was thirty-two years old--that is, in
1841--he was one of the leading Whig politicians of Illinois. Four
times in succession he had been elected to the General Assembly of the
State--in 1834, 1836, 1838, and 1840. Twice he had been a candidate
for Speaker of the House--in 1838 and in 1840--both times against
William L.D. Ewing; and though both times defeated, the vote had in
each instance been close. In 1841 he had been talked of as a candidate
for governor, a suggestion to which he would not listen.

He had not taken this prominent position because the Whig party lacked
material. Edward Dickinson Baker, Colonel John J. Hardin, John T.
Stuart, Ninian W. Edwards, Jesse K. Dubois, O.H. Browning, were but
a few of the brilliant men who were throwing all their ability and
ambition into the contest for political honors in the State. Nor
were the Whigs a whit superior to the Democrats. William L.D. Ewing,
Ebenezer Peck, William Thomas, James Shields, John Calhoun, were in
every respect as able as the best men of the Whig party. Indeed, one
of the prominent Democrats with whom Lincoln came often in contact,
was popularly regarded as the most brilliant and promising politician
of the State--Stephen A. Douglas. His record had been phenomenal.
He had amazed both parties, in 1834, by securing appointment by the
legislature to the office of State Attorney for the first judicial
circuit, over John J. Hardin. In 1836 he had been elected to the
legislature, and although he was at that time but twenty-three years
of age, he had shown himself one of the most vigorous, capable, and
intelligent members. Indeed, Douglas's work in the Tenth Assembly gave
him about the same position in the Democratic party of the State at
large that Lincoln's work in the same body gave him in the Whig
party of his own district. In 1837 he had had no difficulty in being
appointed register of the land office, a position which compelled
him to make his home in Springfield. It was only a few months after
Lincoln rode into town, all his earthly possessions in a pair of
saddle-bags, that Douglas appeared. Handsome, polished, and always
with an air of prosperity, the advent of the young Democratic
official was in striking contrast to that of the sad-eyed, ill-clad,
poverty-stricken young lawyer from New Salem.

From the first, Lincoln and Douglas were thrown constantly together
in the social life of the town, and often pitted against each other in
what were the real forums of the State at that day--the space around
the huge "Franklin" stove of some obliging store-keeper, the steps of
somebody's law office, a pile of lumber, or a long timber, lying in
the public square, where the new State-house was going up.

In the fall of 1837 Douglas was nominated for Congress on the
Democratic ticket. His Whig opponent was Lincoln's law partner, John
T. Stuart. The campaign which the two conducted was one of the most
remarkable in the history of the State. For five months of the spring
and summer of 1838 they rode together from town to town all over the
northern part of Illinois (Illinois at that time was divided into but
three congressional districts; the third, in which Sangamon County
was included, being made up of the twenty-two northernmost counties),
speaking six days out of seven. When the election came off in August,
1838, out of thirty-six thousand votes cast, Stuart received a
majority of only fourteen; but even that majority the Democrats always
contended was won unfairly. The campaign was watched with intense
interest by the young politicians of Springfield; no one of them felt
a deeper interest in it than Lincoln, who was himself at the same time
a candidate for member of the State legislature.

[Illustration: OLD STATE-HOUSE AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.

From a recent photograph made for MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE. The corner-stone
was laid July 4, 1837, about four months after the passage of the
act removing the capital to Springfield. The event was attended with
elaborate ceremonies. The orator of the day was Colonel E.D. Baker. It
was nearly four years before the building was finally completed, at a
cost of two hundred and forty thousand dollars. It was first occupied
by the legislature during the regular session of 1840-1841, that body,
at two previous special sessions, being obliged to use the Methodist
church for the Senate, and the Second Presbyterian church for the
House. The Supreme Court found a meeting place in the Episcopal
church. The legislative committees met in rooms in private houses
about town. This building was the State capitol for more than thirty
years, becoming, upon the completion of the present State-house, the
court-house of Sangamon County.]

Lincoln must have learned by the end of 1840, if not before, something
of the power of the "Little Giant," as Douglas was called. Certainly
no man in public life between 1837 and 1860 had a greater hold on his
followers. The reasons for this grasp are not hard to find. Douglas
was by nature buoyant, enthusiastic, impetuous. He had that sunny
boyishness which is so irresistible to young and old. With it he had
great natural eloquence. When his deep, rich voice rolled out fervid
periods in support of the sub-treasury and the convention system, or
in opposition to internal improvements by the federal government, the
people applauded out of sheer joy at the pleasure of hearing him. He
was one of the few men in Illinois whom the epithet of "Yankee" never
hurt. He might be a Yankee, but when he sat down on the knee of
some surly lawyer, and confidentially told him his plans; or, at a
political meeting, took off his coat, and rolled up his sleeves, and
"pitched into" his opponent, the sons of Illinois forgot his origin in
love for the man.

Lincoln undoubtedly understood the charm of Douglas, and realized
his power. But he already had an insight into one of his political
characteristics that few people recognized at that day. In writing to
Stuart in 1839, while the latter was attending Congress, Lincoln said:
"Douglas has not been here since you left. A report is in circulation
here now that he has abandoned the idea of going to Washington, though
the report does not come in a very authentic form, so far as I can
learn. Though, by the way, speaking of authenticity, you know that if
we had heard Douglas say that he had abandoned the contest, it would
not be very authentic."

In the campaign of 1840 Lincoln and Douglas came more frequently than
ever into conflict. At that time the local issues, which had formerly
engaged Illinois candidates almost entirely, were lost sight of in
national questions. In Springfield, where the leaders of the parties
were living, many hot debates were held in private. Out of these grew,
in December, 1839, a series of public discussions, extending over
eight evenings, and in which several of the first orators of the
State took part. Lincoln was the last man on the list. The people were
nearly worn out before his turn came, and his audience was small. He
began his speech with some melancholy, self-deprecatory reflections,
complaining that the small audience cast a damp upon his spirits which
he was sure he would be unable to overcome during the evening. He
did better than he expected, overcoming the damp on his spirits so
effectually that he made what was regarded as the best speech of the
series; and by a general request, it was printed for distribution. The
speech is peculiarly interesting from the fact that while there is
a little of the perfervid eloquence of 1840 in it, as well as a good
deal of the rather boisterous humor of the time, a part of it is
devoted to a careful examination of the statements of his opponents,
and a refutation of them by means of public documents.

[Illustration: A HARRISON BADGE OF 1840.

From the collection of Mr. O.H. Oldroyd of Washington, D.C.]

[Illustration: A HARRISON BUTTON OF 1840.

From the collection of Mr. John C. Browne of Philadelphia.]

As a good Democrat was expected to do, Douglas had explained with
plausibility why the Van Buren administration had in 1838 spent
$40,000,000. Lincoln takes up his statements one by one, and proves,
as he says, that "the majority of them are wholly untrue." Douglas had
attributed a part of the expenditures to the purchase of public lands
from the Indians.

"Now it happens," says Lincoln, "that no such purchase was
made during that year. It is true that some money was paid
that year in pursuance of Indian treaties; but no more, or
rather not as much, as had been paid on the same account in
each of several preceding years.... Again, Mr. Douglas says
that the removal of the Indians to the country west of the
Mississippi created much of the expenditure of 1838. I have
examined the public documents in relation to this matter, and
find that less was paid for the removal of the Indians in
that than in some former years. The whole sum expended on that
account in that year did not exceed one quarter of a
million. For this small sum, although we do not think the
administration entitled to credit, because large sums have
been expended in the same way in former years, we consent it
may take one and make the most of it.

"Next, Mr. Douglas says that five millions of the expenditures
of 1838 consisted of the payment of the French indemnity money
to its individual claimants. I have carefully examined the
public documents, and thereby find this statement to be wholly
untrue. Of the forty millions of dollars expended in 1838, I
am enabled to say positively that not one dollar consisted of
payments on the French indemnities. So much for that excuse.

"Next comes the post-office. He says that five millions were
expended during that year to sustain that department. By a
like examination of public documents, I find this also wholly
untrue. Of the so often mentioned forty millions, not one
dollar went to the post-office....

"I return to another of Mr. Douglas's excuses for the
expenditures of 1838, at the same time announcing the pleasing
intelligence that this is the last one. He says that
ten millions of that year's expenditure was a contingent
appropriation, to prosecute an anticipated war with Great
Britain on the Maine boundary question. Few words will settle
this. First, that the ten millions appropriated was not made
till 1839, and consequently could not have been expended in
1838; second, although it was appropriated, it has never been
expended at all. Those who heard Mr. Douglas, recollect that
he indulged himself in a contemptuous expression of pity for
me. 'Now he's got me,' thought I. But when he went on to say
that five millions of the expenditure of 1838 were payments of
the French indemnities, which I knew to be untrue; that five
millions had been for the post-office, which I knew to be
untrue; that ten millions had been for the Maine boundary war,
which I not only knew to be untrue, but supremely ridiculous
also; and when I saw that he was stupid enough to hope that
I would permit such groundless and audacious assertions to
go unexposed,--I readily consented that, on the score both of
veracity and sagacity, the audience should judge whether he or
I were the more deserving of the world's contempt."

[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1860.--NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.

From a first-state proof of an engraving of the Cooper Institute
picture of Lincoln (see McCLURE'S MAGAZINE for February, 1896, first
frontispiece). Made by John C. Buttre, and now in the collection
of W.C. Crane of New York City, through whose courtesy it is here
reproduced.]

These citations show that Lincoln had already learned to handle public
documents, and to depend for at least a part of his success with an
audience upon a careful statement of facts. The methods used in
at least a portion of this speech are exactly those which made the
irresistible strength of his speeches in 1858 and 1859.

LINCOLN IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1840.

But there was little of as good work done in the campaign of 1840, by
Lincoln or anybody else, as is found in this speech. It was a campaign
of noise and fun, and nowhere more so than in Illinois. Lincoln was
one of the five Whig Presidential electors, and he flung himself into
the campaign with confidence. "The nomination of Harrison takes first
rate," he wrote to his partner Stuart, then in Washington. "You know
I am never sanguine, but I believe we will carry the State. The chance
of doing so appears to me twenty-five per cent, better than it did
for you to beat Douglas." The Whigs, in spite of their dislike of the
convention system, organized as they never had before, and even sent
out a "confidential" circular of which Lincoln was the author.

Every weapon he thought of possible use in the contest he secured. "Be
sure to send me as many copies of the 'Life of Harrison' as you can
spare from other uses," he wrote Stuart. "Be very sure to procure and
send me the 'Senate Journal' of New York, of September, 1814. I have a
newspaper article which says that that document proves that Van Buren
voted against raising troops in the last war. And, in general, send me
everything you think will be a good 'war-club.'"

Every sign of success he quoted to Stuart; the number of subscribers
to the "Old Soldier," a campaign newspaper which the Whig committee
had informed the Whigs of the State that they "_must take_;" the names
of Van Buren men who were weakening, and to whom he wanted Stuart to
send documents; the name of every theretofore doubtful person who had
declared himself for Harrison. "Japh Bell has come out for Harrison,"
he put in a postscript to one letter; "ain't that a caution?"

The monster political meetings held throughout the State did much
to widen Lincoln's reputation, particularly one held in June in
Springfield. Twenty thousand people attended this meeting, delegations
coming from every direction. It took fourteen teams to haul the
delegation from Chicago, and they were three weeks on their journey.
Each party carried some huge symbolic piece--the log cabin being the
favorite. One of the cabins taken to Springfield was drawn by thirty
yokes of oxen. In a hickory tree which was planted beside this cabin,
coons were seen playing, and a barrel of hard cider stood by the door,
continually on tap. Instead of a log cabin, the Chicago delegation
dragged across country a government yawl rigged up as a two-masted
ship, with a band of music and a six-pounder cannon on board.

There are many reminiscences of this great celebration, and Lincoln's
part in it, still afloat in Illinois. General T.J. Henderson writes,
in the entertaining reminiscences of Lincoln prepared for this
biography:

"The first time I remember to have seen Abraham Lincoln was during the
memorable campaign of 1840, when I was a boy fifteen years of age. It
was at an immense Whig mass-meeting held at Springfield, Illinois, in
the month of June of that year. The Whigs attended this meeting from
all parts of the State in large numbers, and it was estimated that
from forty to fifty thousand people were present. They came in
carriages and wagons, on horseback and on foot. They came with log
cabins drawn on wheels by oxen, and with coons, coon-skins, and hard
cider. They came with music and banners; and thousands of them came
from long distances. It was the first political meeting I had ever
attended, and it made a very strong impression upon my youthful mind.

"My father, William H. Henderson, then a resident of Stark County,
Illinois, was an ardent Whig; and having served under General William
Henry Harrison, the then Whig candidate for President, in the war of
1812-1815, he felt a deep interest in his election. And although
he lived about a hundred miles from Springfield, he went with a
delegation from Stark County to this political meeting, and took
me along with him. I remember that at this great meeting of the
supporters of Harrison and Tyler there were a number of able and
distinguished speakers of the Whig party of the State of Illinois
present. Among them were Colonel E.D. Baker, who was killed at Ball's
Bluff, on the Potomac, in the late war, and who was one of the most
eloquent speakers in the State; Colonel John J. Hardin, who was killed
at the battle of Buena Vista, in the Mexican War; Fletcher Webster,
a son of Daniel Webster, who was killed in the late war; S. Leslie
Smith, a brilliant orator of Chicago; Rev. John Hogan, Ben Bond, and
Abraham Lincoln. I heard all of these men speak on that occasion. And
while I was too young to be a judge of their speeches, yet I thought
them all to be great men, and none of them greater than Abraham
Lincoln."

One of the most prominent members of the Illinois bar has written out
especially for this work his impressions of Lincoln's speech at that
gathering.

[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1861.

From a photograph by Klauber of Louisville, Kentucky. From a
photograph owned by Mr. James B. Speed of Louisville, Kentucky, to
whose courtesy we owe the right to reproduce it here. When Lincoln
was visiting Joshua F. Speed in 1841, Mrs. Speed, the mother of his
friend, became much interested in him. His melancholy was profound,
and she tried by kindness and gentleness to arouse him to new interest
in life. One day before his departure she asked one of her daughters
for the latter's Oxford Bible, telling her she wanted it for Mr.
Lincoln, and promising to get another in its place. The gift touched
Lincoln deeply, and after he became President he remembered the giver
with the above portrait--one he had had taken especially for her, he
wrote.]

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