ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF HIS EMANCIPATION 
 POLICY 
 
 AN ADDRESS DELIVERS!} BEFORE 
 
 THE CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
 
 FEBRUARY 27, 19O6 
 
 PAUL iSELBY 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY 
 
 IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 
 
 ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 OF THE BIRTH OF 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 FEBRUARY 12, 1909
 
 Ball's Emancipation Group, 
 Washington, D. C.
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF HIS EMANCIPATION 
 POLICY 
 
 AW ADDRESS DELIVERS!) BEFORE 
 
 THE CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
 
 FEBRUARY 27, 19O6 
 
 BY 
 SELBY 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY 
 
 IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 
 
 ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 OF THE BIRTH OF 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 FEBRUARY 12, 1909
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF HIS EMANCIPATION POLICY. 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Chicago 
 
 Historical Society : 
 
 6^ Next to the service rendered in maintaining the in- 
 ^ tegrity of the Union founded by Washington and his com- 
 ^ patriots, nothing stands forth more prominent in the 
 1 career of Abraham Lincoln than the foresight and achieve- 
 ment manifested in his emancipation policy. While up to 
 the hour of his assassination this brought upon him the 
 f vilest obloquy and denunciation ever visited upon an Amer- 
 i ican statesman surpassing even that heaped upon Wash- 
 w ington yet one of the most striking evidences of the rev- 
 5^ olution in sentiment wrought in the minds of his enemies 
 Q. by time and a more just conception of what he sought to 
 accomplish, is furnished in the fact that, to-day, some of 
 * his most bitter assailants of forty years ago have ranged 
 q_ themselves on the side of his most ardent admirers and 
 o enthusiastic eulogists. It is to this phase in his career 
 and what it illustrates what he foresaw with such un- 
 
 3M 
 
 ^~ erring sagacity, and what he accomplished with unswerving 
 
 Q^ consistency and devotion to the welfare of the Nation 
 
 that the attention of the reader is invited in this address. 
 
 It was during one of the darkest of the many dark 
 periods in the history of the war for the preservation of the 
 Union, when Congress and the President were casting about 
 for a policy that would be effective in suppressing the rebel- 
 lion, that two distinguished leaders of their respective par- 
 
 283769
 
 ties, holding opposing views on the subject of slavery, gave 
 utterance, in their respective houses of Congress, to those 
 strikingly similar predictions, based on exactly opposite con- 
 ditions. Said one of them : 
 
 "There is a niche in the temple of fame, a niche near to 
 Washington, which should be occupied by the statue of him who 
 shall save this country. Mr. Lincoln has a mighty destiny. It 
 is for him, if he will, to step into that niche. It is for him to 
 be but a President of the people of the United States, and there 
 will his statue be. But if he choose to be, in these times, a 
 mere sectarian and a party man, that niche will be reserved for 
 some future and better patriot. It is in his power to occupy a 
 place next to Washington, the Founder and Preserver, side by 
 side." 1 
 
 The other prediction ran as follows : 
 "I, too, have a niche for Abraham Lincoln ; but it is in Free- 
 dom's holy fane, and not in the blood-besmeared temple of human 
 bondage; not surrounded by slave-fetters and chains, but with 
 the symbols of freedom; not dark with bondage, but radiant 
 with the light of Liberty. In that niche he shall stand proudly, 
 nobly, gloriously, with shattered fetters and broken chains, and 
 slave-whips beneath his feet. If Abraham Lincoln pursues the 
 path evidently pointed out for him in the Providence of God, 
 as I believe he will, then he will occupy the proud position I 
 have indicated. That is a fame Avorth living for ; aye, more : 
 that is a fame worth dying for, though that death led through 
 the blood of Gethsemane and the agony of the accursed tree. 
 . . . Let Abraham Lincoln make himself . . . the eman- 
 cipator, the liberator . . . and his name shall not only be 
 enrolled in this earthly temple, but it will be traced on the liv- 
 ing stones of that temple which rears itself amid the thrones 
 and hierarchies of Heaven." 2 
 
 It will readily be inferred what were the conditions 
 attached to these parallel predictions. With the first it 
 was that Lincoln should use his authority that the institu- 
 tion of slavery might be protected and perpetuated in the 
 States where it already existed ; with the second, that slav- 
 ery should be ultimately exterminated. Both predictions 
 have been fulfilled by subsequent results : The first, in 
 spite of its qualifications, and the last in accordance with 
 
 Congressional Globe, 37th Congress (Second Session), Speech 
 of Senator John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, on the Confiscation 
 Bill, April 23, 1862. 
 
 *The same; Speech of Hon. Owen Lovejoy, of Illinois, in the 
 House of Representatives, on the same measure, April 24, 1862. 
 
 108
 
 them. By common consent, not only of his own country- 
 men but of the civilized world, Abraham Lincoln has been 
 assigned the place beside Washington here predicted for 
 him. Neither prophet lived to see the entire fulfillment 
 of his prediction, but while the heart of a succeeding gen- 
 eration is thrilled by the fervid eloquence of a Lovejoy, 
 it seems like one of the revenges of history when one of 
 the purest, most patriotic and loyal of the apologists for 
 slavery was permitted to predict the renown of the man 
 most responsible for its overthrow a result over which 
 his most bitter enemies now rejoice. 
 
 Yet the attempt has been renewed at intervals though 
 less frequently in later, years than formerly to detract 
 from Lincoln a part of the honor due to his memory, by 
 claiming that he was not, in any proper sense of the term, 
 a positive factor in securing the abolition of slavery on 
 this continent ; but that, so far as he was concerned, the re- 
 sult was an accident, the outcome and consequence of 
 events and circumstances which he lacked the power to 
 control. At times it has been some Northern representative 
 of a class who opposed the war policy of the Government 
 and predicted disaster from the attempt to resist secession 
 by force of arms ; while, again, it has been some adherent of 
 the "Lost Cause," who has thus essayed to apologize for 
 the effort to perpetuate the existence of an institution 
 which was abhorrent to the moral sense of the age and 
 condemned by universal Christendom. Both seek to justify 
 their positions by assuming that the great leader in the 
 cause of practical emancipation had no loftier motive than 
 that which inspired their own action; but they only suc- 
 ceeded in stultifying themselves in face of the fact that 
 their chief argument against both Lincoln's first election 
 and his subsequent war policy was, that he contemplated 
 precisely what they now affect to deny that he accomplished. 
 They were wrong in the one case as they were in the 
 other.
 
 Invaluable as was the service which Lincoln rendered 
 to his country and the cause of free government by his suc- 
 cessful efforts for the preservation of the Union, there is 
 no part of his public and official life that will have 3. 
 stronger fascination for the student of history in the future 
 than that connected with the framing and promulgation of 
 his proclamation of emancipation. In fact, this is already 
 regarded by many as the most conspicuous act of his grand 
 career the very climax and culmination of a life given 
 for the salvation of the Republic. It is this fact which 
 makes the story of the evolution of his emancipation policy 
 of such absorbing interest. 
 
 There were two leading features of Lincoln's character 
 which influenced the steps in his war policy leading up to 
 the issue of his Emancipation Proclamation, viz : his love 
 of freedom which meant also his love of justice and his 
 respect for the Constitution and the laws. By nature and 
 his deep sympathy with every species of human suffering 
 a "radical" in respect to the former, he was, at the same 
 time, inherently and strongly conservative as to the latter. 
 It was this characteristic which enabled him to effect all 
 that the most zealous champion of emancipation hoped for, 
 while adhering most closely to legal and constitutional 
 methods in its accomplishment. This was evident in his 
 whole career from the scene in New Orleans, when, as a 
 young flatboatman, he had his indignation aroused by a 
 revolting exhibition of the horrors of slavery, down to the 
 final and crowning act in the great drama in which he was 
 the chief actor, the signing of the Emancipation Proclama- 
 tion and the approval of the Constitutional Amendment 
 abolishing slavery in all the States. While his spoken and 
 written words during this period do not show that he 
 always held to the same position in regard to methods, they 
 indicate a conscientious and consistent adherence to the 
 same principles. When circumstances required a change 
 of policy, he had the courage to make it. This never im- 
 
 110
 
 plied a backward step, but every change indicated progress 
 in accordance with existing conditions. This was espe- 
 cially evident in his official policy after he was entrusted 
 with the direction of national affairs ; and it was his strong 
 logical sense and strict adherence to legal and constitu- 
 tional methods, as well as his sagacity in keeping "close to 
 the people," that made the entire removal of slavery possi- 
 ble in harmony with the preservation of the Union, in spite 
 of the impatient criticism of political friends and the 
 armed hostility of open and avowed enemies. 
 
 Some of the more conspicuous acts in Lincoln's public 
 career, which may be referred to as constituting eras in 
 the development of his policy with regard to the institu- 
 tion of slavery, include the following: (i) His protest 
 (in conjunction with one other member of the Illinois 
 House of Representatives) against a series of pro-slavery 
 resolutions which had passed both branches of the General 
 Assembly at the session of 1837, in which he declared his 
 belief "that the institution of slavery is founded in both 
 injustice and bad policy," and that "the Congress of the 
 United States has the power, under the Constitution, to 
 abolish slavery in the District of Columbia ;" (2) his demon- 
 stration before the Supreme Court of Illinois, in 1841, of 
 the right of a slave girl to freedom under the Ordinance of 
 1787 thus determining the application of that second char- 
 ter of American freedom to Illinois territory; (3) his 
 introduction in the Congressional House of Representa- 
 tives, in January, 1847, of a bill for the abolition of slavery 
 in the District of Columbia, with the consent of the voters of 
 the District and with compensation to the owners, together 
 with his forty-two votes during the same session in favor 
 of the Wilmot Proviso; (4) his speeches, beginning with 
 the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854 and in 
 opposition to that measure extending to 1860, including 
 the debates with Senator Douglas in 1858. 
 
 During this period of over twenty years, there are fre- 
 
 111
 
 quent utterances of opinion on the subject of slavery in 
 his private correspondence as in his letter to his friend, 
 Joshua F. Speed, in 1855 but always in harmony with the 
 views he had expressed in public in uncompromising hos- 
 tility to the "institution." His speeches on the repeal of 
 the Missouri Compromise, and especially the debates of 
 1858, furnish a most complete and comprehensive discus- 
 sion of the slavery issue in all its aspects, as that question 
 then stood between the advocates and the opponents of ex- 
 tension into new Territories, and made him the natural 
 leader of the newly organized party then consolidating its 
 forces for the successful campaign of 1860. His conserva- 
 tive position during the early part of this period is shown 
 by the fact that he did not participate in the first Anti-Ne- 
 braska State Convention, held at Springfield, October 4 and 
 5, 1854, and, as indicated by his letter to Ichabod Codding of 
 that year, declined to accept a place in the Republican State 
 Central Committee to which he had been chosen by that 
 convention. He clung to the hope, at that time, that the 
 Whig party would be revivified by ranging itself in opposi- 
 tion to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Yet no 
 one questioned the consistency of his opinions and attitude 
 on the slavery question, and, in 1856, he was in full sym- 
 pathy with the Republican party, which came into full- 
 fledged existence at Bloomington in that year. In taking 
 this position he only followed out the injunction which he 
 had given to his friends the old line Whigs at Peoria, 
 in October, 1854, when he advised them to "stand with 
 anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is 
 right, and part with him when he goes wrong." In the 
 same speech, referring to a professed indifference whether 
 slavery should be "voted down or up," which he construed 
 to mean a "covert real zeal for the spread" of that insti- 
 tution, he said: "I hate it because of the monstrous in- 
 justice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our 
 republican example of its just influence in the world; en- 
 
 112
 
 ables the enemies of free institutions to taunt us as 
 hypocrites ; causes the friends of freedom to doubt our sin- 
 cerity, and, especially, because it forces so many good men 
 among ourselves into an open war on the very fundamental 
 principles of civil liberty. . . . Slavery is founded in 
 the selfishness of man's nature opposition to it, in his 
 love of justice. . . . Repeal all compromises, repeal 
 the Declaration of Independence, repeal all past history 
 you still cannot repeal human nature. It still will be the 
 abundance of man's heart that slavery extension is wrong, 
 and out of the abundance of his heart his mouth will con- 
 tinue to speak." As to the question, what should be done 
 to rid the country of slavery, he said: (''My first impulse 
 would be to free all the staves and send them to Liberia, 
 to their own native land."/ /Recognizing the physical im- 
 possibility of this, he concluded : "It does seem to me 
 that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted ; 
 but, for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to 
 judge our brethren of the South" thus indicating, at once, 
 his preference as to modes of emancipation and his charity 
 for the slaveholders themselves. 
 
 These extracts show how early in the agitation growing 
 out of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, Lincoln had 
 taken ground in opposition to slavery and in favor of its 
 gradual abolition a position which he consistently main- 
 tained up to the day of his election to the Presidency. 
 These views were reiterated in his speech of July 10, 1858, 
 from the balcony of the Tremont House in Chicago, in the 
 declaration, "I have always hated slavery as much as any 
 Abolitionist," and, in various forms, during the debates 
 with Douglas of the same year. In the following year we 
 find him in his speech at Cincinnati (on September 17, 
 1859), addressing himself to the citizens, of Ms native State 
 of Kentucky, courageously saying, '(I think slavery is 
 wrong, morally and politically. > I desire that it should be 
 no further spread in these United States, and I should not
 
 object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Un- 
 ion.^ A few months later, in his speech in Cooper Insti- 
 tute, he put the question of the constitutional rights of 
 slavery in the following logical form : flf slavery is 
 right, all words, acts, laws and constitutions against it are 
 themselves wrong and should be swept away. If it is 
 right, we cannot justly object to its nationality its univer- 
 sality ; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its 
 extension its enlargement^' And he closed his argument 
 with the following characteristic plea: "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." The same 
 views were repeated at Hartford, New Haven, and else- 
 where, and went far to convince the pronounced anti- 
 slavery men of New England that the position of the author 
 of these sentiments on the slavery question was not only 
 thoroughly consistent, but they made him the logical can- 
 didate for the Presidency of those who wished to check the 
 spread of that institution into the new States and Terri- 
 tories, 
 
 While the significance of these utterances, on the part 
 of a man so soon to be charged with the duty of adminis- 
 tering the affairs of the Government, will be recognized, 
 it will be generally conceded that the most conspicuous 
 event in Lincoln's career while he was yet a private citi- 
 zen conspicuous in relation to the time of its performance 
 and in its effect, by drawing the attention of the whole 
 country to him as a prominent figure in national politics 
 was his celebrated "house-divided-against-itself" speech, 
 delivered after the Republican State Convention of Illinois 
 in the city of Springfield on the evening of June 16, 1858. 
 After nominating candidates for State Treasurer and State 
 Superintendent of Public Instruction, the convention de- 
 clared Lincoln its choice for United States Senator in oppo- 
 sition to Douglas, who, it was known, would be the choice 
 of the Democracy. In the evening the convention reassem-
 
 bled for its final session, the chief business being to listen 
 to a promised speech from Lincoln. The place was the Hall 
 of Representatives in the old State Capitol a hall with 
 historical associations for Illinoisans not unlike those be- 
 longing to the famous "Hall of William Rufus," so bril- 
 liantly described by the gifted Macaulay in his essay on 
 the "Trial of Warren Hastings." The speech was deliv- 
 ered almost upon the identical spot on which, less than 
 seven years later after the results, which he then fore- 
 shadowed in language little short of prophecy, had been 
 achieved through his agency he lay, pale and motionless, 
 in the presence of weeping thousands of his fellow-citizens, 
 a mute but eloquent witness against the savage blood- 
 thirstiness of "his taking off" and the brutal and fiendish 
 'tyranny of that system which he had given his life to de- 
 stroy. The language of his wonderful exordium has been 
 made familiar by frequent repetition, but is especially de- 
 serving of reproduction here. Speaking of the existing agi- 
 tation on the subject of the further extension of slavery, 
 he then said: 
 
 "In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have 
 been reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot 
 stand.' I believe this government cannot endure permanently 
 half -slave and half -free. I do not expect the Union to be dis- 
 solved I do not expect the house to fall but I do expect that 
 it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all 
 the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the fur- 
 ther spread of it and place it where the public mind shall 
 rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction; or 
 its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful 
 in all the States old as well as new North as well as South." 
 
 How apparent these truths now appear, but how few 
 then saw them as Lincoln did ! And how prophetic, in the 
 light of the history of the next seven years, sound the con- 
 cluding words of faith and encouragement: 
 
 "The result is not doubtful if we stand firm we shall not 
 fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay; but, 
 sooner or later, the victory is sure to come." 
 
 It was my privilege as a member of that Convention
 
 on the evening of the delivery of this speech, to listen to 
 that wonderful combination of inexorable logic and start- 
 ling prophecy, and I have a vivid recollection of the im- 
 pressive deliberation and earnestness with which he uttered 
 truths of the full significance of which he even then seemed 
 to have a just appreciation. It preceded Seward's famous 
 speech in which he announced the doctrine of an "irrepres- 
 sible conflict," and foreshadowed more clearly than that 
 the final result. It was an alarm bell rung in the night, 
 announcing the beginning of that struggle between the 
 friends of freedom and slavery, which, less than three years 
 afterwards, culminated in the shock of war that shook 
 this land as it had never been shaken before. 
 
 That Lincoln regarded this speech as marking an era 
 in his political life, if not in the life of the nation, is shown 
 by his refusal to comply with the advice of friends to 
 modify some of its most startling declarations, and by his 
 later statement to a deputation of the Society of Friends, 
 who called upon him in June, 1862, to urge the adoption 
 of an emancipation policy, when, in answer to their refer- 
 ence to the extract quoted above as an implied pledge to 
 that effect, he said: "The sentiments contained in that 
 passage were deliberately uttered, and I hold them now." 
 
 The testimony of his intimate friends proves that the 
 whole speech had not only been carefully written out in 
 advance, but it was delivered with an impressive solemnity, 
 a measured diction and an emphasis unusual even for Lin- 
 coln. When it appeared in print, as it did without delay, 
 it startled those who heard it. It drew a line between the 
 friends of freedom and slavery almost as sharp and dis- 
 tinct as the war did three years later, and many who had 
 been his life-long friends found themselves ranged on the 
 side of his political enemies. That Lincoln felt this con- 
 dition most deeply cannot be doubted, in view of the genial 
 character of his friendships, and was well known to his 
 more intimate associates, although it did not cause him to 
 
 116
 
 abate one jot of his position. Some of his stanchest politi- 
 cal friends were dumb, not because they dissented from 
 his inevitable conclusions, but because they doubted whether 
 the time had come for their announcement. His more ag- 
 gressive enemies felt that a favorable opportunity was now 
 afforded to assail a dangerous political leader, and they did 
 not hesitate to denounce the speech and its author as teach- 
 ing the most arrant abolitionism and disunionism. Both 
 were mistaken, as a careful reading of that prophetic pro- 
 duction in the light of subsequent history demonstrates. 
 Lincoln had only read the signs of the times and forecast 
 the future more accurately than his fellows, as he often did 
 during the war period which followed. 
 
 These views may be taken as indicating very accurately 
 Mr. Lincoln's position on this question at the time of his 
 nomination for the Presidency on a platform, the leading 
 features of which were a declaration in favor of the per- 
 petuation of the Union and opposition to the further ex- 
 tension of slavery. Regarding this as sufficiently explicit, 
 he declined repeated and urgent invitations to furnish for 
 publication, during the pending campaign, any further 
 statement of his policy. To a friend who urged him to 
 make such a statement, a few weeks previous to the elec- 
 tion, he wrote: 
 
 "I appreciate your motive when you suggest the propriety of 
 my writing for the public something disclaiming all intention to 
 interfere with slaves or slavery in the States ; but, in my judg- 
 ment, it would do no good. I have already done this many, 
 many times ; and it is in print and open to all who will read. 
 Those who will not read or heed what I have already publicly 
 said, would not read or heed a repetition of it. 'If they hear not 
 Moses and his prophets, neither will they be persuaded though 
 one rose from the dead.' " 
 
 After the election, and pending his assumption of the 
 duties of his office, he replied to the editor of a paper in a 
 slave State, who had written urging him to "make some 
 public declaration" of his views: 
 
 "I could say nothing which I have not already said, and 
 which is in print and accessible to the public. Please pardon
 
 me for suggesting that, if papers like yours, which heretofore 
 have persistently garbled and misrepresented what I have said, 
 will now fully and fairly place it before their readers, there 
 can be no further misunderstanding." 
 
 Nevertheless, he was a careful observer of political 
 events, as shown by his letters to Congressmen Kellogg and 
 Washburne of Illinois. To the former, after the conven- 
 ing of Congress in December, 1860, he wrote: 
 
 "Entertain no proposition for a compromise in regard to the 
 extension of slavery. . . . The tug has to come, and better 
 now than later". 
 
 To Washburne he said: 
 
 "Prevent, as far as possible, any of our friends from de- 
 moralizing themselves find our cause by entertaining proposi- 
 tions for compromise of any sort on 'slavery extension.' There 
 is no possible compromise upon it but which puts us under 
 again, and leaves all our work to do over again. . . . On 
 that point hold firm as with a chain of steel." 
 
 There is nothing in his correspondence, during this 
 period, more pregnant with meaning than his letter to the 
 Hon. John A. Gilmer of North Carolina, well known as a 
 conservative Southern man and Unionist, who had been 
 mentioned as a possible member of Lincoln's first cabinet. 
 To Gilmer, who had evidently written him in the spirit of 
 some of the correspondents already referred to, Lincoln re- 
 plied at considerable length. The following extracts are 
 the most significant: 
 
 "I am greatly disinclined to write a letter on the subject 
 embraced in yours ; and I would not do so. even privately as 
 I do, were it not that I fear that you might misconstrue my 
 silence. Is it desired I shall shift the ground upon which I 
 have been elected? I cannot do it. You need only to acquaint 
 yourself with that ground and press it on the attention of 
 the South. It is all in print and easy of access. May I be 
 pardoned if I ask whether even you have ever attempted to 
 procure the reading of the Republican platform, or my speeches, 
 by the Southern people? If not, what reason have I to expect 
 that any additional production of mine would meet a better 
 fate? It would make me appear as if I repented the crime of 
 having been elected, and was anxious to apologize and beg for- 
 giveness. ... On the Territorial question I am inflexible. 
 ... On that there is a difference between you and us; and 
 it is the only substantial difference. You think slavery is right 
 and ought to be extended ; we think it is wrong and ought to 
 be restricted." 
 
 118
 
 There could be no clearer statement of the relative po- 
 sitions of Lincoln and his opponents, on the day of his in- 
 auguration, than this quotation. In his inaugural he denned 
 the issue between the respective sections of the Union in 
 almost identically the same terms; and, as a further nega- 
 tive definition of his policy, he said: "I have no purpose, 
 directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of 
 slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no 
 lawful right to do so" which was a literal quotation from 
 his first debate with Douglas at Ottawa in 1858. His at- 
 titude then was precisely what it had been from the organ- 
 ization of the Republican party ; and that was entirely con- 
 sistent with the views he had repeatedly expressed from the 
 day he protested against the pro-slavery resolution adopted 
 by the Illinois Legislature in 1837. 
 
 The beginning of the war, following closely upon the 
 inauguration, forced upon Lincoln, as it forced upon the 
 country, the recognition of a condition of affairs totally un- 
 precedented in the nation's history. As he had previously 
 endured every species of misrepresentation, calumny and 
 detraction from his enemies without complaint, so now he 
 was subjected to criticism and censure from those who had 
 been his friends, but were impatient to have their favorite 
 policy of emancipation adopted. Yet it was as true then 
 that he had "an oath registered in heaven ... to 
 preserve, protect and defend the Constitution," as it was on 
 the day he was inaugurated ; and, as he rightly construed 
 the Constitution, that protected the rights of the States un- 
 til they were forfeited by acts of their citizens or compelled 
 to give way before the higher obligation to preserve the 
 Government and maintain the Union. Of the time when 
 this step should become necessary if at all he was the 
 judge; and, while it was no doubt painful for him to differ 
 with the friends of freedom by overruling the emancipa- 
 tion proclamation of Fremont and the order of Gen. Hun- 
 ter, he assumed the responsibility with the same courage
 
 with which he had, at the outbreak of the war, dared to re- 
 sist the scheme of secession. That he desired that "all men 
 should be free" had been proved by his oft-repeated asser- 
 tion to that effect; but he also believed "gradual, and not 
 sudden, emancipation better for all" for master as well as 
 for slave for Government as well as for people and he 
 advocated the policy of allowing compensation for the value 
 of liberated slaves as a matter of economy no less than of 
 right to loyal slave owners. When, early in the second 
 year of the war, the acts abolishing slavery in the District 
 of Columbia and prohibiting it in all the Territories had 
 been passed in succession and met his prompt approval, he 
 made his last earnest appeal to the Congressmen from the 
 border slave States in behalf of his favorite policy of com- 
 pensated emancipation, but without effect.V Had the South 
 been wise enough to accept that policy, it would have saved 
 hundreds of millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands 
 of lives; besides this, the reconciliation of the warring sec- 
 tions and their recovery from the ravages of hostilities 
 would have been most speedy. The Southern people were 
 too much blinded by prejudice and passion to give the sub- 
 ject a moment's consideration, and thus they invited their 
 own undoing. 
 
 ^ It was at this time that Lincoln began to turn his at- 
 tention seriously to the policy of emancipation in those por- 
 tions of the rebel States which persisted in their resistance 
 to Federal authority. On the I3th of July, 1862, he opened 
 up the subject to Secretary Welles and Secretary Seward, 
 and on the 22nd three days after his last futile conference 
 with the Congressmen from the border States he brought 
 the matter before the whole cabinet. Accepting the advice 
 of Secretary Seward, who argued that the step at that time 
 would be premature, he consented to postpone action until 
 some success had been won in the field. The battle of An- 
 tietam furnished the occasion for which he had been wait- 
 ing. ^Lincoln completed the second draft of his preliminary
 
 proclamation, of which he had prepared the first in July, 
 submitted it to the cabinet on Saturday, September 20 three 
 days after the battle revised it on Sunday morning, added 
 two verbal changes suggested by Secretary Seward ; it re- 
 ceived the official signature on Monday following, and was 
 given to the world. The step was taken without consulta- 
 tion with the cabinet, but avowedly and explicitly on the 
 responsibility of the President himself, and, as he declared 
 in the final proclamation in January following, "as an act 
 of justice warranted by the Constitution upon military ne- 
 cessity." The diaries of members of the cabinet show that, 
 at most, only two of the members of that body distinctly 
 approved the measure as to time and manner, and one 
 (Postmaster-General Blair), who objected on the grounds 
 of political expediency, asked and obtained permission to 
 file a protest with the document. One of Lincoln's most 
 sturdy and sagacious friends, Secretary Gideon Welles, who 
 was acquainted with every step taken by the administration, 
 and whose Spartan firmness saved the Government from 
 many a blunder, says of the proclamation: 
 
 "It was his (Lincoln's) own act, a bold step, an executive 
 measure originating with him, and was, as stated in the mem- 
 orable appeal at the close of the final proclamation, invoking 
 for it the considerate judgment of mankind, warranted alone 
 by military necessity. . . . Results have proved that there 
 was in the measure profound thought, statesmanship, courage 
 and far-seeing sagacity consummate executive and administra- 
 tive ability, which was, after some reverses, crowned with suc- 
 cess. The nation emerging from gloom and disaster, and the 
 whole civilized world, united in awarding honor and gratitude 
 to the illustrious man who had the mind to conceive and the 
 courage and firmness to decree the emancipation of a race." 
 
 And yet there are those who profess to believe that, in 
 taking this step, Lincoln acted with unjustifiable hesitation 
 and reluctance. That the duty imposed upon him was un- 
 expected and undesired is no doubt true, as the war which 
 made it a necessity was undesired. How little of agree- 
 ment there was among pronounced Union men in Congress, 
 during the first year of the war, in reference to the manner 
 of dealing with slaves and the question of slavery in the 
 
 121
 
 rebellious States, is shown by the fact that a bill freeing the 
 slaves of rebel masters failed in the House of Representa- 
 tives in the last days of May, 1862, though a measure going 
 even farther than this became a law, with the President's 
 approval, on the i/th of July following. Thus it appears 
 that Congress, no less than the administration, was "at sea" 
 on this question, though progressing towards the final 
 haven. What wonder, then, that the President, who was 
 compelled to bear upon his shoulders the entire responsibil- 
 ity of his policy, should hesitate to take the most momen- 
 tous step of his administration, when it was doubtful, not 
 merely whether that step would be approved by the people 
 which was essential to the success of the Union cause 
 but whether it would be sustained by a Union Congress? 
 The responsibility resting upon him, as Commander-in- 
 Chief of the army and navy in such an emergency, was in- 
 finitely greater, and the task confronting him more difficult 
 and delicate than that which any legislator was called upon 
 to face. Even the Cabinet was not free from dissension, as 
 proven by the secret history of that body coming to light in 
 later years. 
 
 It is true that, in a conference held with advocates of 
 immediate emancipation during the summer of 1862 no- 
 tably with the Chicago clergymen on the I3th of September 
 {Lincoln suggested arguments which implied opposition to 
 the measure, as he also did in his famous letter to Horace 
 Greeley, of August 22nd of that year, when he declared: 
 
 "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, 
 and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save 
 the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it ; and if I 
 could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would 
 also do that.j What I do about slavery and the colored race 
 I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what 
 I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to 
 save the Union." 
 
 In conclusion he impressively added: 
 
 "I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish 
 that all men everywhere could be free." 
 
 This undoubtedly expressed his whole creed, so far as
 
 emancipation and preservation of the Union were con- 
 cerned ; and, in expressing it, he was preparing the way for 
 the one, while seeking to secure the other. f\Yet how few 
 comprehend the full significance of these sententious propo- 
 sitions ! To the Chicago committee, referring to the objec- 
 tions he had suggested to their policy, he said : "They in- 
 dicate the difficulties that have thus far prevented my action 
 in some such way as you desire. I have not decided against 
 a proclamation of liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter 
 under advisement; and I assure you that the subject is on 
 my mind, by day and night, more than any other. What- 
 eve*r shall appear to be God's will, I will do." Not less 
 significant was his remark to some western gentlemen, as 
 testified by Moncure D. Conway, in the Fortnightly Review 
 of 1865: "We shall want all the anti-slavery feeling in 
 the country and more ; go home and screw the people up to 
 it, and you may say anything you like about me, if that will 
 help." This indicates that he was willing to be criticised, 
 if that would aid in bringing about the grand result. And, 
 at the very moment when uttering these sentiments, as also 
 when writing his reply to Mr. Greeley, the first draft of 
 the preliminary emancipation proclamation was lying in his 
 desk, and within ten days after his interview with the Chi- 
 cago committee the time for the fulfillment of his vow 
 having arrived in the success of the Union arms at Antie- 
 tam the proclamation became an accomplished fact. The 
 spirit of the act was shown in his response to a serenade on 
 the second day after the document was made public : "What 
 I did, I did after a very full deliberation and under a very 
 heavy and solemn responsibility. I can only trust in God 
 I have made no mistake. . . . It is now for the coun- 
 try and the world to pass judgment, and, may be, take 
 action upon it." When, less than three months before his 
 assassination, Congress adopted the Thirteenth Amendment 
 to the Constitution prohibiting slavery throughout the 
 United States, he found his act ratified and extended by the 
 
 183
 
 highest legislative power in the land "winding the whole 
 thing up," as he expressed it as it had already been ap- 
 proved by the people and sustained by the army in the 
 field. 
 
 That Lincoln's policy as to emancipation underwent 
 modifications and changes is unquestionable ; but they were 
 founded in wisdom, while the principles actuating him were 
 steadfast and unalterable. The one was progressive, vary- 
 ing with the changing conditions and demands of the time ; 
 the other fixed on the inexorable logic of facts and events. 
 He had the courage to follow wherever his invincible logic 
 led, yet he did not always act until his unerring sagacity 
 enabled him to perceive that some useful result was to be 
 attained thereby a fact illustrated in his delay of the 
 emancipation proclamation until he believed the people were 
 ready to accept and sustain it. While seeming to follow 
 public sentiment, he skillfully contrived to guide and direct 
 it. This was the secret of his hold upon the popular heart : 
 keeping "close to the people," he made himself a part of 
 them, and no public man in American history has been held, 
 at once, in such exalted veneration and in such intimate and 
 sympathetic fellowship. 
 
 Having once taken his position there was no backward 
 step in his policy. This was shown in his course with ref- 
 erence alike to the emancipation question and the rights 
 of negroes employed in the army. From his -order pre- 
 scribing retaliation for every colored soldier executed by 
 the rebels in violation of the laws of war, or sold into 
 slavery, to the instructions to Secretary Seward controlling 
 his action at the Hampton Roads conference, in January, 
 1865 that there will be "no receding by the Executive of 
 the United States on the slavery question from the position 
 assumed thereon in the late annual message to Congress 
 and in preceding documents" the policy of Lincoln on this 
 subject was uniform, as the following utterances will show : 
 "If they (the colored soldiers) stake their lives for us, they
 
 must be prompted by the strongest motive even the promise 
 of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept." 
 Letter read before the Union Mass Meeting at Springfield, Illi- 
 nois, September 3, 1863. 
 
 "While I remain in my present position I shall not attempt 
 to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation; nor shall 
 I return to slavery any person who is free toy the terms of that 
 proclamation, or by any of the acts of Congress." Annual Mes- 
 sage, December 8, 1863. 
 
 "Having determined to use the negro as a soldier, there 
 is no way but to give him all the protection given to any sol- 
 dier." Address at Baltimore Sanitary Fair, April 18, 1864. 
 
 "In presenting the abandonment of armed resistance to the 
 National authority on the part of the insurgents as the only 
 indispensable condition of peace, I retract nothing heretofore 
 said as to slavery. I repeat the declaration made a year ago, 
 that, while I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Eman- 
 cipation Proclamation ; nor shall I return to slavery any per- 
 son who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or by any 
 of the acts of Congress. ... If the people should, by what- 
 ever, mode or means, make it an executive duty to re-enslave 
 such persons, another and -not I, must be their instrument to 
 perform it." Annual Message, December 6, 1864. 
 
 The celebrated letter, "To Whom It May Concern," 
 under which Horace Greeley was authorized to confer with 
 the so-called "Commissioners" of the Confederate Govern- 
 ment at Niagara Falls, in July, 1864, was couched in simi- 
 lar terms, pledging the Government to the consideration of 
 ""any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, 
 the integrity of the whole Union and the abandonment of 
 slavery." And, in an interview held in August, 1864, he 
 said in regard to a proposition that had been made to him : 
 
 "There are men base enough to propose to me to return 
 to slavery our black warriors of Port Hudson and Olustee, and 
 thus win the respect of the masters they fought. Should I do 
 so, I should deserve to be damned in time and in eternity. Come 
 what may, I will keep faith with the black man. ... No 
 human power can subdue this rebellion without the emancipa- 
 tion policy. I will abide the issue." 
 
 These quotations show with what unswerving fidelity 
 and invincible firmness Abraham Lincoln, having once taken 
 "his stand on the platform of emancipation, ever after stood 
 by his pledge. Such examples illustrate and confirm what 
 lias been said in relation to the development of his anti- 
 its
 
 slavery policy. With characteristic modesty, he said to Mr. 
 Hodges of Kentucky: 
 
 "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly 
 that events have controlled me. Now at the end of three years' 
 struggle, the nation's condition is not what either party or any 
 man devised or expected. God alone can claim it Whither 
 it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of 
 a great wrong, and wills that we of the North, as well as you 
 of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, 
 impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and 
 revere the justice and goodness of God." 
 
 Yet what leader, with such instrumentalities and in the 
 face of such perplexities, ever before brought forth such 
 beneficent results? From the pathetic and marvelously 
 touching appeal for peace and Union in his first inaugural 
 an appeal that has never been surpassed, if equaled, in 
 impressiveness and power in any state paper, and which 
 could only fail of its object because the minds of those to 
 whom it was addressed had been blinded by prejudice and 
 hate down to the reverent acknowledgment to Almighty 
 God, in his second and last, for the success of the Union 
 arms and the recognition of His power in so controlling 
 the struggle as to end in the destruction of slavery, all his 
 official and private utterances breathe the same spirit of 
 faith in the final triumph, with a more emphatic determina- 
 tion to protect the freed slaves in their newly acquired 
 rights. In all there is no evidence that he ever swerved 
 from the confidence expressed in his Springfield speech: 
 
 "We shall not fail if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise 
 counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay, but sooner or later, 
 the victory is sure to come." 
 
 That faith first uttered in anticipation of a protracted 
 political struggle, firmly maintained in succeeding stages of 
 tbe conflict of arms, and confirmed in the final triumph of 
 emancipation as an incident of the war, and not its primary 
 object grew with every step in the progress of the contest. 
 And when, in the closing words of his last inaugural, he de- 
 clared: "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that 
 this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet,
 
 if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by 
 the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited 
 toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by 
 the lash shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as 
 was said three thousand years ago, so still must it be said, 
 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous alto- 
 gether.' " From that hour the world no longer had reason 
 for doubting that Abraham Lincoln was inspired by a 
 sublime patriotic and religious purpose, and that he had 
 never lost sight of the result which he predicted in his 
 great speech in the old State House at Springfield, delivered 
 on that June evening in 1858. During all of this most 
 tragic period of the Nation's history, although compelled to 
 deal with problems and face emergencies such as never 
 confronted any other occupant of the Presidential chair, he 
 invariably rose to the demands of the occasion, whether in- 
 volving questions of national or of foreign policy A. While 
 Garrison, Phillips and other anti-slavery leaders of half a 
 century ago, aided unintentionally by their pro-slavery an- 
 tagonists, were the pioneers in the agitation which aroused 
 the people to a true conception of the enormities of Ameri- 
 can slavery, it was Lincoln that furnished and put in oper- 
 ation the conserving influence which finally welded radical- 
 ism and conservatism together, and made the destruction 
 of slavery compatible with law and the preservation of the 
 Union. In the language of Grant at the dedication of the 
 Lincoln monument at Springfield in 1874, "In his death 
 the Nation lost its greatest hero ; in his death, the South lost 
 its most just friend." 
 
 One who was a personal friend and admirer of Lincoln, 
 as well as his political supporter, but who was confessedly 
 dissatisfied with his early emancipation policy, when he saw 
 the array of evidence presented in this study, going to 
 prove Lincoln's consistency and fidelity to principle, wrote: 
 "How much wiser he was then all his people !" His highest 
 eulogy is to state what he was and what he did. In his
 
 public career personal and national history are so intimately 
 blended and interwoven, that it is impossible wholly to sepa- 
 rate them. And it is in view of what he said and what he 
 did, and of the death that he died, that the prophecy con- 
 tained in the sadly musical words which form the closing 
 paragraph of his first inaugural address is receiving a new 
 significance and its most impressive fulfillment ; that "the 
 mystic chords of memory, stretching away from every bat- 
 tlefield and patriot grave to every heart and hearthstone 
 all over this broad land," have begun to "swell the chorus 
 of the Union," when touched, as they surely have been, "by 
 the better angels of our nature." But the most potent 
 touch was applied by the hand of Abraham Lincoln, and 
 the responsive strings will go on vibrating, with ever in- 
 creasing melody, through the coming ages of our national 
 existence.
 
 DEATH OF LINCOLN. 
 A Reminiscence of the Tragedy of April 14, 1865. 
 
 The following article from the pen of the author of the 
 preceding address contains the first editorial comment upon 
 the assassination of President Lincoln, which appeared in 
 the columns of his home paper, The Illinois State Journal, 
 of Springfield, 111. During the Civil War period the writer 
 was associated with the editorial department of The Journal, 
 the only morning paper -then published in Springfield re- 
 ceiving the regular telegraphic reports of the Associated 
 Press, and outside of the mechanical department of the 
 paper, was the first citizen of Springfield to receive intelli- 
 gence of the crime, the announcement of which, a few hours 
 later, shocked the whole nation. After spending much of 
 the night at the side of the operator in the telegraph office, 
 awaiting the latest report of Mr. Lincoln's condition, the 
 writer retired from the office about 6 a. m., but on returning 
 three hours later, met intelligence of the fatal outcome of 
 the assassin's revolting crime, which was announced in a 
 brief "Extra," and by noon many of the business houses 
 and residences of Springfield were draped in mourning, and 
 a feeling of horror pervaded the entire population. The first 
 regular issue of The Illinois State Journal after the calam- 
 itous event occurred on Monday, April 17, 1865, from which 
 this article is taken. 
 
 THE GREAT NATIONAL CALAMITY. 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN is DEAD! These portentous words, 
 as they sped 'over the wires throughout the length and 
 breadth of the land on Saturday morning last, sent a thrill 
 of agony through millions of loyal hearts and shrouded a 
 nation, so lately rejoicing in the hour of victory, in the
 
 deepest sorrow. The blow came at a moment so unexpected 
 and was so sudden and staggering, the crime by which he 
 fell was so atrocious and the manner of it so revolting, 
 that men were unable to realize the fact that one of the pur- 
 est of patriots, the most beloved and honored of Presidents, 
 and the most forbearing and magnanimous of rulers had 
 perished at the hands of an assassin. The horrifying de- 
 tails recalled only scenes which had disgraced the barbaric 
 ages. People were unwilling to believe that, in our own 
 time, there could be found men capable of a crime so utterly 
 fiendish and brutal. One of the assassins, in a crowded 
 theater, stealthily approaches a man against whom he could 
 have no just cause of enmity ; a man so tender in his feel- 
 ings and so sympathetic, that all his errors were on the 
 side of mercy ; a man who had been twice elected to the 
 highest office in the gift of a great people and without 
 notice of his presence while his victim, with his wife sitting 
 by his side, is wholly unconscious of danger, deliberately 
 discharges a pistol from behind, piercing the head of the 
 President with the fatal ball, then availing himself of the 
 bewilderment of the audience, leaps from the stage and 
 makes his escape. The other assassin, at nearly the same 
 moment, obtrudes himself into the sick chamber of a man 
 who, but a few days before, had narrowly escaped death by 
 being thrown from his carriage, and whose life is hardly 
 yet free from danger, and commences a murderous assault 
 upon his prostrate and helpless victim and his unarmed at- 
 tendants. It is impossible to conceive of anything more fiend- 
 ish and diabolical. And yet this is "Chivalry!" and its 
 perpetrators profess to be influenced by the love of Lib- 
 erty! It is the chivalry of the desperado and the love of 
 liberty which controls the highwayman and the enemy of 
 humanity. 
 
 The nation is bereaved. Every loyal man and woman 
 mourns the loss of one whose unswerving justice, whose 
 pure and unsullied character and whose mercifulness to- 
 wards his enemies had won the respect of those enemies 
 themselves. All but traitors mourn him as a personal friend. 
 At such an hour as this, and in sight of the fearful crime 
 that has been committed, the spirit of mere partisanship 
 is disarmed and its voice is silenced. Nothing but the most 
 demoniac treason dares to assail a man so foully dealt with 
 or gloat over "The deep damnation of his taking off." 
 
 130
 
 President Lincoln died at the hand of Slavery. It was 
 Slavery that conceived the fearful deed; it was Slavery that 
 sought and found the willing instrument and sped the fatal 
 ball ; it is Slavery alone that will justify the act. Hence- 
 forth men will look upon Slavery as indeed "the sum of all 
 villainies," the fruitful parent of all crime. This murder 
 was an assault upon the principle of free government, inas- 
 much as its victim was the choice of a majority of the nation 
 for the office which he filled. He has fallen in the very 
 hour of victory, when constitutional free government was 
 being vindicated and when peace seemed just ready to re- 
 turn to a land torn and distracted by civil war. Despite the 
 calumnies of his enemies, his fame is now secure. History 
 and posterity will now do him justice. His memory will 
 be,a rich inheritance to our nation, attracting to his tomb the 
 lovers of freedom from all lands and dividing, with that of 
 Washington, the admiration of the world. With a slight 
 change of phraseology, the closing lines of the magnificent 
 tyric (the "Battle Hymn of the Republic") will apply to 
 the death of Abraham Lincoln : 
 
 "As Christ died to make men holy, 
 So HE died to make men free, 
 While God is marching on." 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. 
 
 Paul Selby, the author of the foregoing address, was born in 
 Pickaway County, Ohio, July 20, 1825; at the age of nineteen re- 
 moving to southern Illinois, where he was engaged in teaching 
 four years, chiefly in Madison County. In 1848 he entered Illinois 
 College, at Jacksonville, leaving that institution in his junior year 
 (1852) to assume the editorship of The Morgan Journal, at Jacksons- 
 ville, with which he remained until 1858, covering the period of the 
 
 131
 
 organization of the Republican Party, in which The Journal took 
 an active part. It was at the suggestion of this paper that a con- 
 vention of Anti-Nebraska editors of the State of Illinois was held at 
 Decatur, on the 22nd of February, 1856, for the purpose of defining 
 a line of policy for a new party. The call for this convention was 
 endorsed by twenty-five editors of the State, but on the day of ita 
 assembling, owing to a snowstorm which blocked many of the rail- 
 roads, only twelve were in attendance, among those present being 
 Dr. Charles H. Ray, of The Chicago Tribune, the late George 
 Schneider, then of The Chicago Staats Zeitung, B. F. Shaw, now 
 of The Dixon Telegraph, and nine others. Mr. Selby was made 
 chairman of the meeting and W. J . Usrey of The Decatur Chronicle, 
 Secretary. Abraham Lincoln was present, and in conference with 
 the Committee on Resolutions, of which Charles H. Ray was Chair- 
 man, took part in framing a platform in opposition to the further 
 extension of slavery, and recommending theholding of a State Con- 
 vention at Bloomington on the 29th of May following, which resulted 
 in the formal organization of the new party, and at which Mr. Lin- 
 coln delivered what has been called his "Lost Speech." It was at 
 this Decatur meeting that Mr. Selby was brought in close contact 
 with Mr. Lincoln, and in after years was a frequent visitor at his 
 office in Springfield. On June 16, 1858, Mr. Selby was a member 
 of the State Convention at Springfield, which named Mr. Lincoln 
 as its candidate for United States Senator, and before which, on 
 the evening of that day, he delivered his celebrated "house divided 
 against itself" speech, which forecast so accurately events which 
 occurred during the next seven years, and in which he bore so con- 
 spicuous a part. This speech Mr. Selby recalls as having been 
 delivered almost identically from the same spot in the Hall of Rep- 
 resentatives on which the catafalque bearing the Martyred Presi- 
 dent's lifeless remains rested in May, 1865. 
 
 After two years (1859-1861), spent in educational work in Louisi- 
 ana, Mr. Selby returned North in July, 1861, and in July, 1862, be- 
 came associate editor of The Illinois State Journ al in Mr. Lincoln's 
 home city of Springfield, where he remained until after the close 
 of the war. Later he was associated in an editorial capacity with 
 The Chicago Evening Journal, The Chicago Republican, and for six 
 years as editor of The Quincy Whig, when in 1874, he resumed 
 his old position on The State Journal, four years later becoming 
 one of its proprietors and editor-in-chief, a position which he held 
 almost continuously for fifteen years. In 1880 he was appointed 
 Postmaster of the city of Springfield, was re-appointed in 1884, 
 serving for a period of six years and resigning during the adminis- 
 tration of Grover Cleveland in 1886. Disposing of his interest in 
 The State Journal in 1889, in the following year he removed to Chi- 
 
 132
 
 cago, where he has since been engaged in literary work, during 1897 
 and 1898, being connected with the editorial department of The 
 Chicago Tribune. In all he has spent about forty years in news- 
 paper work, of which about twenty years was in connection with 
 The Illinois State Journal, which, during Mr. Lincoln's life, was 
 regarded as his home organ. 
 
 133 
 
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