Douglas was, even then, being indicted in the public press, and when he came to his constituency after the adjournment of Congress in the succeeding August; he was put on trial for his political life, which was all of life that had any charms for him. He opened his defence at Chicago in the succeeding September, with indifferent success, and early in October, he came to the State fair at Springfield with the intent to cajole and captivate the rustic classes. It is entirely safe to say, that the democrats of Illinois were, almost to a man, inimical to this measure; and that, at first, they were paralyzed with astonishment, fear or indignation, but when action became necessary, some followed their audacious leader, blindly; others, fled from the field of political battle while a few joined with the Whigs to rebuke and overthrow this political iconoclast; these new allies informally consulted together as to who could most successfully combat the fallacies which they well knew Douglas to be an adept in, and which they also knew he would employ, to preserve harmony and discipline in his own ranks, and to debauch public sentiment on the moral question at stake. All spontaneously agreed on Lincoln; bidding him, in the spirit of the commission to the Andalusian Knight, in the medieval time: "Take thou the leading of the van; They met first at Springfield and again at Peoria, and had an engagement at Lacon, but Douglas pretended to be ill, and urged Lincoln to not debate with him any more, by reason of his illness, to which the latter, in his goodness of heart, assented. This is the reason Lincoln gave me, although Herndon gives a different reason. I next saw Lincoln on the Twenty-Fourth day of October, after the above incidents took place; when he came to Urbana, to attend the fall Circuit Court. I saw him as he drove into town behind his own horse, which was an indifferent, raw-boned specimen, in his own blacksmithmade buggy-a most ordinary looking one. He was entirely alone; and might have passed for an ordinary farmer, so far as appearances were concerned. There were less than fifty cases on the docket of this Court of all kinds, and, in point of fact, there was but one jury trial; and Lincoln was not in that. I think all in the way of Court business that Lincoln did, at that term, was to make a brief argument to the Court, in a Chancery case. While Court was in session Lincoln came straggling, carelessly in; his face divested of his usual melancholy garb, and apparently in an humor to take life easy and gaily for the present moment. I noticed his intellectual countenance, and especially his eyes, so clearly indicative of deep reflection, at the first glance. I mentally pronounced him to be a great man at once. I never saw any man who impressed me so highly, at first sight, as Abraham Lincoln. Of course I had learned of his propensity for story-telling: and I was not, consequently, greatly astonished, after he had listened for a while to the extremely prosy business, which engaged the attention of the Court, to have experimental knowledge of his ability in that line. That same evening he made a political speech, on the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and its restoration, and I thought then, and have often thought since, that it was the greatest speech I had ever, up to that date, heard: and I have never heard any greater since, except from Lincoln. It was so clear, systematic and simple that I was enabled to rehearse it in substance from memory a month later at Monticello. I furnish a verbatim report of this speech. It is one of his best efforts. I well recollect of how kindly and cordially he aided and advised me about my business at Court, it being my first appearance at the bar. I did not feel the slightest delicacy in approaching him for assistance: it seemed as if he wooed me to close intimacy and familiarity, at once; and this from no selfish motive at all-nothing but pure disinterested philanthropy and goodness of heart toward a young lawyer just cominencing his career. He sat on the bench, for the judge, for awhile for that term; and my first motion in Court was made before him. I remember with what benignity he acted in this time that tried the soul of a fledgling at the bar; but how little did either he or I think that the hand that entered my first court order would eventually sign the death warrant of American Slavery. Next day he made some arrangement about his horse and buggy, and took the train to fill an appointment somewhere up north-west. I saw him start for the train: being obliged to ride over two miles in an old dilapidated omnibus, he was the sole occupant of the nondescript conveyance he had somehow procured, and had in his hand a small french harp, which he was making most execrable music with. I rallied him on this, to which, stopping his concert, he replied, "This is my band: Douglas had a brass band with him in Peoria, but this will do me:" and he resumed his uncouth solo as the vehicle. drove off and the primitive strains, somewhat shaken up by the jolting conveyance, floated out upon the air till distance intervened. He may be thus described: all descriptions are substantially the same. He was six feet and four inches in height, his legs and arms were disproportionately long, his feet and hands were abnormally large, he was awkward in his gait and actions. His skin was a dark, sallow color, his features were coarse-his expression kind and amiable: his eyes were indicative of deep reflection, and, in times of repose, of deep sorrow as well. His head was high, but not large: his forehead was broad at the base, but retreated, indicating marked perceptive qualities, but not great reflective ones: and in this phrenology is sadly at fault. He wore a hat measuring seven and one-eighth. His ears were large; his hair, coarse, black and bushy, which stood out all over his head, with no appearance of ever having been combed. His mobile face ranged, in modes of expression, through a long gamut: it was rare that an artist could catch the expression, and Lincoln's face was of that kind that the expression was of greater consequence than the contour of the features. When I first knew him his attire and physical habits were on a plane with those of an ordinary farmer :-his hat was innocent of a nap:-his boots had no acquaintance with blacking:-his clothes had not been introduced to the whisk broom-his carpet-bag was well worn and dilapidated;his umbrella was substantial, but of a faded green, well worn, the knob gone, and the name "A. Lincoln" cut out of white muslin, and sewed in the inside:-and for an outer garment a short circular blue cloak, which he got in Washington in 1849, and kept for ten years. He commenced to dress better in the Spring of 1858, and when he was absent from home on political tours usually did so: after he became President he had a servant who kept him considerably "slicked up :" but he frequently had to reason Lincoln into fashionable attire, by telling him his appearance was "official." He probably had as little taste about dress and attire as anybody that ever was born: he simply wore clothes because it was needful and customary: whether they fitted or looked well was entirely above, or beneath, his comprehension. When he first ran for the Legislature he presented this appearance: He wore a blue jeans coat, claw hammer style, short in both the sleeves, and in the tail:-in fact, it was so short in the tail he could not sit on it: homespun linen trousers, a straw hat and "stogy" boots. Of course this was putting the best foot forward, but ordinarily, in his youthful days, when not posing as a candidate, he was dressed thus: "He wore flax and tow-linen trousers-about three inches too short: one suspender; no vest or waistcoat. He wore a calico warmus, such as he had in the Black Hawk war: coarse brogans, color of the native hide; blue yarn stockings and straw hat, minus a band and turned up behind." Judge Matheny informs me that when Lincoln first ran for the Legislature it was regarded as a joke; the boys wanted some fun: he was so uncouth and awkward, and so illy dressed, that his candidacy afforded a pleasant diversion for them, but it was not expected that it would go any further. It was found, however, during the canvass, that Lincoln knew what he was about and that he had running qualities: so Matheny told him he was sowing seeds of success: and that next year he would win. And he did. Governor Yates told me that the first time he saw Lincoln was at New Salem, where he was lying on a cellar door, in the shade, reading. There were many odd-looking specimens of humanity in that region in those days, but Lincoln exceeded all in grotesqueness, oddity and a queer style of dress: but his conversation showed excellent sense. They went to dinner at Lincoln's boarding place, which was a rough log house, with a puncheon floor and a clapboard roof: the dinner was bread and milk. After the Bill had passed for the removal of the Capitol to Springfield, a vigorous attempt was made to reconsider it and a General Ewing, a man of ability, fine address and pride of character, led this attempt. Lincoln was selected. by the Sangamon delegation to champion their side, which he did with spirit and force: and Ewing, in his reply, turning to the Sangamon delegation, thus spurned Lincoln: "Gentlemen, have you no other champion than this coarse and vulgar fellow to bring into the lists against me? Do you suppose I will condescend to break a lance with your low and obscure colleague?" John W. Baddeley was a blunt Englishman who lived |