USA > Illinois > Stephenson County > History of Stephenson County, Illinois : a record of its settlement, organization, and three-quarters of a century of progress > Part 30
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The first thing I have to say to you is a word in regard to Judge Douglas' declaration about the "vulgarity and blackguardism" in the audience-that no such thing, as he says, was shown by any Democrat while I was speaking. Now, I only wish, by way of reply on this subject, to say that while I was speaking, I used no "vulgarity or blackguardism" toward any Democrat. (Laugh- ter and applause. )
Now, my friends, I come to all this long portion of the judge's speech- perhaps half of it- which he has devoted to the various resolutions and plat- forms that have been adopted in the different counties in the different congres- sional districts, and in the Illinois Legislature, which he supposes are at vari- ance with the positions I have assumed before you today. It is true that many of these resolutions are at variance with the positions I have here assumed. All I have to ask is that we talk reasonably and rationally about it. I happen to know, the judge's opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, that I have never tried to conceal my opinions, nor tried to deceive any. one in reference to them. He may go and examine all the members who voted for me for the United States Senator in 1855, after the election in 1854. They were pledged to cer- tain things here at home, and were determined to have pledges from me; and if he will find any of these persons who will tell him anything inconsistent with what I say now, I will resign, or rather retire from the race, and give him no more trouble. (Applause.)
The plain truth is this: At the introduction of the Nebraska policy, we be- lieved there was a new era being introduced in the history of the Republic, which tended to the spread and perpetuation of slavery. But in our opposi- tion to that measure we did not agree with one another in everything. The - people in the north end of the state were for stronger measures of opposition than we of the central and southern portions of the state, but we were all op-
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posed to the Nebraska doctrine. We had that one feeling and that one senti- ment in common. You at the north end met in your conventions and passed your resolutions. We in the middle of the state and further south did not hold such conventions and pass the same resolutions, although we had in gen- eral a common view and a common sentiment. So that these meetings which the judge has alluded to, and the resolutions he has read from, were local, and did not spread over the whole state. We at last met together in 1850, from all parts of the state, and we agreed upon a common platform. You who held more extreme notions, either yielded those notions, or, if not wholly yielding them, agreed to yield them practically, for the sake of embodying the oppo- sition to the measures which the opposite party were pushing forward at that time. We met you then and if there was anything yielded, it was for practical purposes. We agreed then upon a platform for the party throughout the entire state of Illinois, and now we are all bound, as a party to that platform. And. I say here to you, if anyone expects of me-in the case of my election-that I will do anything not signified by our Republican platform and my answers here today, I tell you very frankly that person will be deceived.
I do not ask for the vote of any one who supposes that I have secret pur- poses or pledges that I dare not speak out. Cannot the judge be satisfied? If he fears, in the unfortunate case of my election (laughter) that my going to Washington will enable me to advocate sentiments contrary to those which I expressed when you voted for and elected me, I assure him that his fears are wholly needless and groundless. Is the judge really afraid of any such thing? (Laughter.) I'll tell you what he is afraid of. He is afraid we'll all pull together. (Applause and cries of "We will! we will!") This is what alarms him more than anything else. (Laughter.) For my part, I do hope that all of us, entertaining a common sentiment in opposition to what appears to us a design to nationalize and perpetuate slavery, will waive minor differences on questions which either belong to the dead past or the dis- tant future, and all pull together in this struggle. What are your sentiments? ("We will! we will!" Loud cheers.) If it be true that on the ground which I cupy, ground which I occupy as frankly and boldly as Judge Douglas does his- my views, though partly coinciding with yours, are not as perfectly in accord- ance with your feelings as his are, I do say to you in all candor, go for him, and not for me. I hope to deal in all' things fairly with Judge Douglas, and with the people of the state, in this contest. And if I should never be elected to any office, I trust I may go down with no stain of falsehood upon my reputation, notwithstanding the hard opinions Judge Douglas chooses to entertain of me. (Laughter.)
The judge has again addressed himself to the Abolition tendencies of a speech of mine made at Springfield in June last. I have so often tried to answer what he is always saying on that melancholy theme that I almost turn with disgust from the discussion-from the repetition of an answer to it. I trust that nearly all of this intelligent audience have read that speech. ("We have ! we have.") If you have, I may venture to leave it to you to inspect it closely, and see whether it contains any of those "bugaboos" which frighten Judge Douglas. (Laughter.)
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The judge complains that I did not fully answer his questions. If I have the sense to comprehend and answer those questions, I have done so fairly. If it can be pointed out to me how I can more fully and fairly answer him, I will do it; but I aver I have not the sense to see how it is to be done. He says I do not declare I would in any event vote for the admission of a slave state into the Union. If I have been fairly reported, he will see that I did give explicit answer to his interrogatories; I did not merely say that I would dislike to be put to the test, but I said clearly, if I were put to the test, and a territory from which slavery has been excluded should present herself with a state consti- tution, sanctioning slavery-a most extraordinary thing, and wholly unlikely to happen-I did not see how I could avoid voting for her admission. But he refuses to understand that I said so and he wants this audience to understand that I did not say so. Yet it will be so reported in the printed speech that he cannot help seeing it.
He says if I should vote for the admission of a slave state I would be vot- ing for a dissolution of the Union, because I hold that the Union cannot per- manently exist half slave and half free. I repeat that I do not believe this government can endure permanently half slave and half free; yet I do not admit, nor does it at all follow, that the admission of a single slave state will permanently fix the character and establish this as a universal slave nation. The judge is very happy indeed at working up these quibbles. (Laughter and cheers.) Before leaving the subject of answering questions, I aver as my confident belief, when you come to see our speeches in print, that you will find every question which he has asked me more fairly and boldly and fully answered than he has answered those which I put to him. Is not that so? (Cries of "Yes, Yes.") The two speeches may be placed side by side, and I will venture to leave it to impartial judges whether his questions have not been more directly and circumstantially answered than mine. Judge Douglas says he made a charge upon the editor of the Washington Union, alone, of entertaining a purpose to rob the states of their power to exclude slavery from their limits. I undertake to say, and I make the direct issue, that he did not make his charge against the editor of the Union alone. (Applause.) I will undertake to prove by the record here that he made the charge against more and higher dignitaries than the editor of the Washmington Union. I am quite aware that he was shirking and dodging around the form in which he put it, but I can make it manifest that he levelled his "fatal blow" against more per- sons than this Washington editor. Will he dodge it now by alleging that I am trying to defend Mr. Buchanan against the charge?' Not at all. Am I not making the same charge myself? (Laughter and applause.) I am try- . ing to show that you, Judge Douglas, are a witness on my side. (Renewed laughter.) I am not defending Buchanan, and I will tell Judge Douglas that in my opinion, when he made that charge, he had an eye farther north than he has today. He was then fighting against people who called him a Black Republican and an Abolitionist. It is mixed all through his speech, and it is tolerably manifest that his eye was a great deal farther north than it is today. (Cheers and laughter.) The judge says that though he made this charge, Toombs got up and declared there was not a man in the United States, except
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the editor of the Union, who was in favor of the doctrines put forth in that article. And thereupon I understand that the judge withdrew the charge. Al- though he had taken extracts from the newspaper, and then from the Lecomp- ton Constitution, to show the existence of a conspiracy to bring about a "fatal blow," by which the states were to be deprived of the right of excluding sla- very, it all went to pot as soon as Toombs got up and told him it was not true. (Laughter.)
It reminds me of the story that John Phoenix, the California railroad sur- veyor, tells .. He says they started out from the Plaza to the Mission of Do- lores. They had two ways of determining distances. One was by a chain and pins-taken over the ground. The other was by a "go-it-ometer"-an invention of his own-a three-legged instrument, with which he computed a series of triangles between the points. At night he turned to the chain-man to ascertain what distance they had come, and found that by some mistake he had merely dragged the chain over the ground without keeping any record. By the "go- it-ometer" he found he had made ten miles. Being skeptical about this, he asked a drayman who was passing how far it was to the Plaza. The drayman replied it was just half a mile; and the surveyor put it down in his book-just as Judge Douglas says, after he had made his calculations and computations, he took Toomb's statement. (Great laughter.) I have no doubt that after Judge Douglas had made his charge, he was as easily satisfied about its truth as the surveyor was of the drayman's statement of the distance to the Plaza. (Renewed. laughter.) Yet it is a fact that the man who put forth all that matter which Douglas deemed a "fatal blow" at state sovereignty, was elected by the Democrats as public printer.
Now, gentlemen, you may take Judge Douglas' speech of March 22, 1858, beginning about the middle of page twenty-one, and reading to the bottom of page twenty-four, and you will find the evidence on which I say that he did . not make his charge against the editor of the Union alone. I cannot stop to read it, but I will give it to the reporters. Judge Douglas said :
"Mr. President, you here find several distinct propositions advanced boldly by the Washington Union editorially, and apparently authoritatively, and every man who questions any of them is denounced as an Abolitionist, a free-soiler, a fanatic. The propositions are, first that the primary object of all govern- ment at its original institution is the protection of persons and property ; sec- ond, that the Constitution of the United States declares that the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states; and that, therefore, thirdly, all state laws, whether organic or otherwise, which prohibit the citizens of one state from settling in another with their slave property, and especially declaring it forfeited, are direct viola- tions of the original intention of the government and Constitution of the United States ; and fourth, that the emancipation of the slaves of the northern states was a gross outrage on the rights of property, inasmuch as it was invol- untarily done on the part of the owner.
"Remember that this article was published in the Union on the 17th of No- vember, and on the 18th appeared the first article, giving the adhesion of the Union to the Lecompton Constitution. It was in these words:
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" 'Kansas and Her Constitution .- The vexed question is settled. The prob- lem is solved. The dead point of danger is passed. All serious trouble to Kan- sas affairs is over and gone-'
"And a column, nearly, of the same sort. Then, when you come to look into the Lecompton Constitution, you find the same doctrine incorporated in it which was put forth editorially in the Union. What is it?
" 'Article 7, Section 1. The right of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction; and the right of the owner to a slave to such slave and its increase is the same and as invariable as the right of the owner of any property whatever.'
"Then in the schedule is a provision that the Constitution may be amended after 1864 by a two-thirds vote.
" 'But no alteration shall be made to affect the right of property in the owner- ship of slaves.'
"It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitution that they are identical in spirit with this authoritative article in the Washington Union of the day previous to its indorsement of this Constitution.
"When I saw that artcle in the Union of the 17th of November, followed by the glorification of the Lecompton Constitution on the 18th of November, and this clause in the Constitution asserting the doctrine that a state has no right to pro- hibit slavery within its limits, I saw that there was a fatal blow being struck at the sovereignty of the states of the Union."
Here, he says, "Mr. President, you here find several distinct propositions ad- vanced boldly, and apparently authoritatively." By whose authority, Judge Douglas? (Great cheers and laughter.) Again, he says in another place, "It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitution that they are identi- cal with this authoritative article." By whose authority? (Renewed cheers.) Who do you mean to say authorized the publication of these articles? He knows that the Washington Union is considered the organ of the Administration. I demand of Judge Douglas by whose authority he meant to say those articles were published, if not by the authority of the President of the United States and his Cabinet? I defy him to show whom he referred to, if not to these high func- tionaries in the Federal Government. More than this, he says the articles in that paper and the provisions of the Lecompton Constitution are "identical" and, be- ing identical, he argues that the authors are co-operating and conspiring together. He does not use the word "conspiring" but what other construction can you put upon it? He winds up with this :-
"When I saw that article in the Union of the 17th of November, followed by the glorification of the Lecompton Constitution on the 18th of November, and this clause in the Constitution asserting the doctrine that a state has no right to prohibit slavery within its limits, I saw there was a fatal blow being struck at the sovereignty of the states of this Union."
I ask him if all this fuss was made over the editor of this newspaper. (Laughter.) It would be a terribly "fatal blow" indeed which a single man could strike, when no President, no Cabinet officer, no member of Congress, was giving strength and efficiency to the movement. Out of respect to Judge Doug- las' good sense I must believe he did not manufacture his idea of the "fatal"
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character of that blow out of such a miserable scapegrace as he represents that editor to be. But the judge's eye is farther south now. (Laughter and cheers.) Then, it was very peculiarly and decidedly north. His hope rested on the idea of enlisting the great "Black Republican" party, and making it the tail of his new kite. (Great laughter.) He knows he was then expecting from day to day to turn Republican, and place himself at the head of our organization. He has found that these despised "Black Republicans" estimated him by a standard which he has taught them only too well. Hence he is crawling back into his old camp, and you will find him eventually installed in full fellowship among those whom he was then battling, and with whom he now pretends to be at such fear- ful variance. (Loud applause and cries of "Go on, go on,") I cannot, gentle- men, my time has expired.
THE CIVIL WAR.
The firing upon Fort Sumter and the overt attempt to break up the Union in 1861, was not a surprise to the people of Stephenson County. Since 1848, there had been a great amount of public discussion on the slavery question; in the two newspapers, on the stump and in great public meetings, culminating in the debate between Lincoln and Douglas in 1858. The lines were sharply drawn between Whigs and Democrats and later between Democrats and Re- publicans. In the press and on the stump, each side assailed the policy of the other as leading toward disunion. Both sides were honest and sincere. Each believed the policy of the other to lead to disunion. On the question of per- petuity of the Union, there was no difference of opinion in this county.
Events followed fast upon each other,-the repeal of the Missouri Com- promise in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the Civil war in Kansas, the Lincoln- Douglas debates, John Brown's raid, the Dred Scott decision, the nomination of Lincoln and the split in the Democratic party in 1860,-all of which prepared the public mind for the approaching struggle. The conflict had raged for twenty years, and its intensity had raised up a mass of men of powerful conviction. The issues had passed from the abstract to the concrete and by 1860, the line of demarcation was geographical.
The firing on Fort Sumter, while not a surprise, presented a new situation. The issue was no longer slavery, it was the preservation of the National Union. While Stephenson County had been sharply divided on the various issues aris- ing out of the slavery question, her people stood almost a unit on the greater question of the preservation of the Union, and how well they did their part in the greatest crisis of the nation, is written in the history of her fighting men on the battlefield. Party lines were practically obliterated and Democrats and Re- publicans went to the front side by side, not to free the negroes, but to save a nation.
Douglas, in his Chicago speech, revealed his true greatness by coming out strongly on the side of Lincoln and the Union.
Old Plymouth Hall, where the Wilcoxen building now stands, was Free- port's Fanueil Hall. April 18, Thursday evening, 1861, a mass meeting was called for Plymouth Hall. The people rallied to the hall in great numbers and
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in feverish excitement and with a spirit of determination. Hon. F. W. S. Brawley was elected chairman; J. R. Scroggs and C. K. Judson, secretaries. On motion of J. W. Shaffer, Thomas Wilcoxen, J. M. Smith, W. P. Malburn, H. H. Taylor, Capt. Crane and Dr. Martin were elected vice presidents. A com- mitee on resolutions was appointed. It consisted of J. W. Shaffer, James Mit- chell, C. K. Judson, J. R. Scroggs and A. H. Stone. Stirring speeches were made by Smith D. Atkins, Charles Betts, C. S. Bagg and William Wagner of the Anzeiger. Resolutions straight to the point, declaring love for the Union and for the enforcement of the law, were adopted.
When a telegram came, April 17, 1861, that Lincoln had issued his first call for troops, Mr. Smith D. Atkins, then state's attorney for the district, at once drafted an enlistment roll and wrote his own name at the head of the list, the first to enlist from the county. Largely through his efforts a company was raised, a company organization perfected. Mr. Atkins was elected captain ; M. E. Newcomer, first lieutenant; S. W. Field, second lieutenant; E. T. Good- rich, H. A. Sheetz, William Polk and R. W. Hulbert, sergeants; C. T. Dunham, J. O. Churchill, R. H. Rodearmel and W. W. Lott, corporals; C. E. Cotton, drummer ; and J. R. Harding, fifer.
The officers and the following privates took the oath April 20, 1861 : W. W. Allen, J. W. Brewster, Robert Brennan, W. N. Blakeman, A. S. Best, H. P. Parker, W. H. Brown, Frank Bellman, J. S. Chambers, J. M. Chown, Thomas Chattaway, A. Coppersmith, F. Dreener, J. W. Duncan, J. P. Davis, M. Eshel- man, William Eddy, J. Geiser, J. R. Hayes, E. J. Hurlburt, W. J. Hoover, L. Hall, T. J. Hathaway, J. E. Hershey, J. F. Harnish, F. M. DeArmit, W. W. Hunt, W. J. Irvin, S. H. Ingham, Nicholas Kassel, D. L. Farmer, O. F. Lamb, T. H. Loveland, S. Lindeman, S. Lebkicker, J. H. McGee, U. B. McDowell, W. T. Mclaughlin, F. Murphy, D. McCormick, J. M. Miller, F. R. McLaugh- lin, J. P. Owen, J. Pratt, A. Patterson, G. L. Piersol, N. Smith, L. Strong, J. S. Stout, O. F. Smith, M. Slough, C. Sched, J. S. Sills, C. G. Stafford, T. Wishart, W. P. Waggoner, M. S. Weaver, J. Walton, Stephens Waterbury, J. Walkey and J. Work.
May 1, 1861, the company left for Springfield. It was a stirring day in old Freeport. Three thousand people were out to see the first company of Stephen- son county boys leave for the front. The company was escorted to the station by the Union Cornet Band and by Capt. W. B. Mills Company. At Springfield, Capt. Atkins' Company was assigned as Company A, the Eleventh Regiment of Illinois Volunteers.
A second company was soon organized, with W. J. McKimm, captain; Henry Settlee and Philip Arno, lieutenants; Carl F. Wagner, Jacob Hoebel, D. A. Golpin and Theodore Grove, sergeants. The company included : Joseph Meyer, Jacob Fiscus, E. Wike, John Bauscher, L. Lehman, Amos D. Hemming, Joseph Boni, George Moggly, Dietrich Sweden, John Kruse, Meinhard Herren, C. H. Gramp, Jacob Steinhauer, Mat Allard, John Berry, Peter E. Smith, James Holmes, Henry Groenewald, Albert Kocher, Thomas Burling, C. Protexter, David Stocks, Henry Luttig, Thomas Shuler, Adam Haiser, Andrew Oln- hausen, E. Neese, David French, J. M. Maynard, A. Borches, Jacob Doll, John A. Raymer, Jacob Ernst, Leonard Sherman, Frederick Deusing, John T.
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Palmer, John Wheeler, Martin Aikey, R. Harberts, A. V. L. Roosa, Emanuel Evee, C. F. A. Kellogg, John Niemeyer, Thomas Willan, James Vore, August Temple, Jacob Rohrback, Henry Spies, Charles Entorff, Isaac Kephart, James Barron, Herman Froning, Daniel F. Shirk, James Kenneg, Albert J. Miller, William H. Hennich, John Wiefenbach, William Morris, Henry Kasper, Mar- tin D. Rollison, Henry D. Black, John F. Black, Henry Rubald, Bernard O'Brien, George Philbrick, William Quinn, John B. Yoder, John Ginther, M. D. Miller, John Yordy, Moses Burns, Gotlieb Vollmer, Garrison Haines and Max Lamprecht, privates.
A company organized at Lena went to the front in the Fifteenth Illinois. Camp Scott had been opened on what is now Taylor's Park and to this company came volunteers from all points of the compass. Hon. Thomas J. Turner was colonel of the Fifteenth Regiment recruited at Camp Scott, and the regiment left for Alton, June 19, 1861. An immense crowd gathered at the railroad sta- tion to see the regiment leave for the war. Such a scene beggars description,- the parting of friends, relatives and loved ones, the martial music of fife and drum, and through all a deep stirred patriotism and loyalty.
At the close of the three months' service, Capt. Atkins and his company re- enlisted, as Company A, Eleventh Illinois Volunteer Infantry, at Birds Point.
At least three regiments containing Stephenson County volunteers were in the battle at the capture of Fort Donelson. In September, 1862, the Ninety- second Illinois was organized, with volunteers from Lancaster, Kent, Erin, Buckeye and Jefferson townships. In June, 1862, a company of three months' men was organized under Capt. James W. Crane; lieutenants, Stephen Allen and Lorenzo Williard ; sergeants, John Stine, James R. Bake, Charles A. Dodge, John D. Lamb and Harrison W. Sigworth; and corporals, C. D. Bentley, Am- brose Martin, Sidney Robins, H. S. Ritz, W. H. Heyt and W. H. Battle. In 1862, an enrollment of the county showed 3,000 men able for duty.
War meetings were held at Freeport, Lena, Cedarville, Winslow and other places in the county in 1862 and 1863.
Besides sending a large percentage to the fighting line, the people of the county loyally aided the needy at the front and at home. Fairs were held and money was donated to support families whose heads had gone to war. . Dr. W. P. Narramore, of Lena, and other physicians gave their services freely to the families of soldiers. Through all there was a magnificent spirit of co- operation born of necessity.
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