But if the current of public opinion in the North
suddenly turned, and for a long time ran with overwhelming
force in favor of slavery, it changed about almost
as suddenly and ran with equal force in the opposite
direction. The county in which I lived when a
boy, that furnished only one vote for the first Abolitionist
presidential ticket, became a Republican stronghold.
It was in what had been a Whig district, and when
the Whig party went to pieces, the most of its debris
drifted into the Republican lines.
On the occasion of one of the pro-slavery mobs I elsewhere
tell about, when a supply of eggs with which to garnish
the Abolitionists, was wanted, and the money for their
purchase was called for, the town constable—the
peace officer of the community—put his hand
in his pocket and supplied the funds.
A few years thereafter, on my return to the village
after a considerable absence, I found that I had come
just in time to attend a Republican rally which was
that day to be held in a near-by grove. When
I reached the scene of operations a procession to march
to the grove was being formed. There was considerable
enthusiasm and noise, but by far the most excited
individual was the Grand Marshal and Master of Ceremonies.
Seated on a high horse, he was riding up and down
the line shouting out his orders with tremendous unction.
He was the constable of the egg-buying episode.
THE POLITICAL SITUATION
In several of his addresses before his election to
the Presidency, Mr. Lincoln gave utterance to the
following language: “A house divided against
itself cannot stand. I believe this Government
cannot permanently remain half slave and half free.
I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect
it to cease to be divided. It will become all
one thing or all the other thing.”
The same opinion had been enunciated several years
before by John Quincy Adams on the floor of Congress,
when, with his accustomed pungency, he declared, “The
Union will fall before slavery or slavery will fall
before the Union.”
But before either Adams or Lincoln spoke on the subject—away
back in 1838—the same idea they expressed
had a more elaborate and forcible presentation in
the following words:
“The conflict is becoming—has
become—not alone of freedom for the blacks,
but of freedom for the whites. It has now become
absolutely necessary that slavery shall cease in
order that freedom may be preserved in any portion
of our land. The antagonistic principles of
liberty and slavery have been roused into action,
and one or the other must be victorious. There
will be no cessation of the strife until slavery
shall be exterminated or liberty destroyed.”
The author of the words last above quoted was James
Gillespie Birney, who was the first Abolitionist,
or “Liberty party,” candidate for the
Presidency, and of whose career a brief sketch is elsewhere
given.
