“Go it, husband; go it, bear,” was Mr.
Lincoln’s comment on that part of Douglas’s
address. I went to the debate with a very strong
prejudice against Douglas, looking upon him as one
of the most time-serving of those Northern men whom
the Abolitionists called “dough-faces.”
I confess that my views of the man were considerably
modified. I admired the pluck he showed in speaking
when his voice was in tatters. Still more did
I like the resolution he displayed in defying those
leaders of his own party, including the President,
who wanted him to retreat from the ground he had taken,
seeing that it had become practically Anti-Slavery.
At the same time I had an almost worshipful admiration
for Lincoln, whom I had not before seen or heard.
I expected a great deal from him. I thought his
closing appeal in that great debate would contain some
ringing words for freedom. He had, as I supposed,
a great opportunity for telling eloquence. He
stood almost on the ground that had drunk the blood
of Lovejoy, the Anti-Slavery martyr. I felt that
that fact ought to inspire him. I was disappointed.
Mr. Lincoln’s speech was altogether colorless.
It was an argument, able but perfectly cold. It
was largely technical. There was no sentiment
in it. Lovejoy had died in vain so far as that
address was concerned. I am free to say that I
was led to doubt whether Mr. Lincoln was then in hearty
sympathy with any movement looking to the freedom
of the slave, and this impression was not afterwards
wholly removed from my mind.
CHAPTER XIII
ANTI-SLAVERY WOMEN
My father was a subscriber to the National Era,
the Anti-Slavery weekly that was published in Washington
City before the war by Dr. Gamaliel Bailey. Being
the youngest member of the family, I usually went
to the post-office for the paper on the day of its
weekly arrival. One day I brought it home and
handed it to my father, who, as the day was warm,
was seated outside of the house. He was soon
apparently very much absorbed in his reading.
A call for dinner was sounded, but he paid no attention
to it. The meal was delayed a little while and
then the call was repeated, but with the same result.
At last the meal proceeded without my father’s
presence, he coming in at the close and swinging the
paper in his hand. His explanation, by way of
apology, was that he had become very much interested
in the opening installment of a story that was begun
in the Era, and which he declared would make
a sensation. “It will make a renovation,”
he repeated several times.
That story, it is almost needless to say, was Uncle
Tom’s Cabin, and it is altogether needless
to say that it fully accomplished my father’s
prediction as to its sensational effects. Since
the appearance of the Bible in a form that brought
it home to the common people, there has been no work
in the English language so extensively read.
The author’s name became at once a cynosure the
world over. When Henry Ward Beecher, the writer’s
distinguished brother, delivered his first lecture
in England, he was introduced to the audience by the
chairman as the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher Stowe.
