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             INGERSOLL, A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION

                           CHAPTER 4.

                  FROM EIGHTEEN SIXTY-SEVEN TO
                     EIGHTEEN SEVENTY-SEVEN.

     On February 28, 1867, Ingersoll became attorney-general of
Illinois, serving as such until January 11, 1869. He was appointed
by Governor Richard J. Oglesby, but undoubtedly would have
succeeded himself when the office was made elective, had he not
renounced the candidacy therefor. The reasons for the renunciation
indicated will be noted later. Meantime, we come, in proper
narrative sequence, to snother act, an act which, for manliness, --
for unswerving fidelity to the dictates of conscience, -- has never
been surpassed in the history of American politirs.

     On May 6, 1868, the Republican state convention met in Peoria
to select a candidate for the governorship of Illinois. Although no
special efforts had been made in Ingersoll's behalf, it was found,
at once, that he was the first choice of three-fourths of the
delegates. But some of the more sagacious questioned the political
wisdom of that choice. Ingersoll, even thus early, had become, as
far as the preachers were concerned, the best-hated individual in
all the state; and the delegates, notwithstanding their high
personal regard for the man, could not afford to launch the bark of
their aspirations without some assurance that it would not be
dashed against the jagged rock of his heterodoxy. They wanted a
pledge from their prospective leader, who, be it marked, had yet to
achieve national renown. Accordingly, a committee was sppointed to
confer witk him, the convention adjourning to await the result. It
had not long to wait: --

     "Gentlemen, I am not asking to be govenor of Illinois. * * *
I have in my composition that which I have declared to the world as
my views upon religion. My position I would not, under any
circumstances, not even for my life, seem to renounce. I would
rather refuse to be president of the United States than to do so.
My religious belief is my own. It belongs to me, not to the state
of Illinois. I would not smother one sentiment of my heart to be
the emperor of the round globe."

     In these days, when the gaze can scarcely be extended without
revealing a politician at the feet of a priest, this reply is as
strangely refreshing as would be a fountain that should burst from
the fevered breast of the desert.

     For the sake of narrative completeness and historic justice,
I may add that the convention, haviug declined to nominate
Ingersoll because he refused to stultify himself, conferred the
honor of nomination upon a man who, by previously declaring that he
was not a candidate, [NOTE: General John M. Palmer, who was
afterwards nominated and elected, telegraphed to general Rowett,
while the convention was in session: "Do not permit me to be
nominated. I cannot accept."]

     Induced Ingersoll to become one, and who, to say the least,
did not prevent his friends, in that very convention, from making
political capital of tke fact that Ingersoll was an "infidel." 
     And this is not the worst: the same individuals who sought to
stake the mental manhood of Ingersoll upon a "tower of silence," to
be pecked by the unclean vultures of politics, now desired to
retain him as "guide, counselor, and friend." His wisdom, his
eloquence -- his prestige -- must not be lost to them. And so, by
the strange alchemy of hypocrisy, his disqualifications for the
gubernatorial candidacy suddenly became qualifications for that of
attorney-general. Accordingly, insult followed injary; and he was
asked to accept the nomination for the latter oIfice. But Robert G.
Ingersoll still stood sponsor for his manhood; and his reply on
this occasion was about as evasive and difficult of comprehension
as had been his reply to the committee from the convention, and
presumably, for that reason, did not afford as much pleasure to him
who became the successful candidate for the governorship: --

     "When I say I am a candidate for a particular office, I mean
it; and when I say I am a not a candidate for a particular office,
I mean that too. When I became a candidate for governor, I
renounced my candidacy for attorney-general; and other candidates
were invited into the field. I would despise myself forever were I
now to become a candidate against any of these men whom, by my
action, I have invited to become candidates."

     This, as far as his own political preferment was concerned,
sealed Ingersoll's doom, not only in Illinois, but throughout the
United States.

     There occurred, in connection with this campaign, a little
incident which, revealing Ingersoll's sense of justice, -- his
tenderness and compassion, -- even more impressively than the two
official replies to the politicians revealed his mental manhood, it
is here impossible to omit. The treasurehouse of English is filled
with priceless gems; and long before I heard of this incident, I
had decided (for myself alone) as to which was the greatest, which
the tenderest, expression in our language; that the greatest was
Shakespeare's -- "There is no darkness but ignorance," and that the
tenderest most compassionate, was Whitman's -- "Not till the sun
excludes you, do I exclude you." But the incident of Ingersoll
changed my mind. The particulars of that incident are as follows:

     Soon after the campaign, Ingersoll and a number of his
associates were gathered in his office in Peoria. Some one
mentioned the fact that his orthodox political opponents had
circulated the charge that he had referred to Christ as "an
illegitimate child."

     Now, a small man, confronted with this charge, might have
replied: --

     "Yes: I said it; and according to your Bible, it is true."

     A great man might have added to this: --

     "But is it any fault of Christ's?"

     But Ingersoll replied: --

     "Gentlemen, it isn't to have you think that I would call
Christ an illegitimate child' which hurts me: it is to think that
you should think that I would think any the less of Christ if I
knew it was so."

     It has been stated by many whose judgment is entitled to great
weight, that, had Ingersoll kept silent on religious questions, any
place within the gift of the people might have been his. For
example, the resolutions of the memorial meeting which was held in
Peoria on July 23, 1899, and which was participated in by the most
prominent residents of that place, -- his lifelong acquaintances
and former fellow-citizens and neighbors, -- contain the following:

     "* * * At a time when everything impelled him to conceal his
opinions, or to withhold their expression, when the highest honors
of the state were his if he would but avoid the discussion of the
questions that relate to futerity, he avowed his belief; he did not
bow his knee to superstition, nor countenance a creed from which
his intellect dissented.

     "Casting aside all the things for which men most sigh --
political honor, the power to direct the fortunes of the state,
riches and emoluments, the association of the worldly and the well-
to-do -- he stood forth and expressed his honest doubts, and he
welcomed the ostracism that came with it, as a crown of glory, no
less than did the martyrs of old.

     "* * * at the time that he made his stand, there was before
him only the prospect of loss and of the scorn of the public.

     "We therefore, who know what a struggle it was to cut loose
from his old associations, and what it meant to him at that time,
rejoice in his triumph and in the plaudits that came to him for
thus boldly avowing his opinions, and we desire to record the fact
that we feel that he was greater than a martyr, greater than a
saint, greater than a mere mere hero -- he was a thoroughly honest
man.' * * * "

     Hon. Clark E. Carr (ex-minister to Denmark), who is intimately
and personally acquainted with the last fifty years of the
political history of Illinois, said, in an eloquent address at the
Ingersoll memorial meeting in Chicago, on August 6, 1899: --

     "We remember how, on account of his splindid services, and his
sublime patriotism, we in Knox county and in our part of the state,
united in seeking to place him in the chief executive office, and
we remember that by modifying certain views he held, he could have
been nominated by acclamation and elected to the high office of
Governor of Illinois, which would have opened the way to even
higher emoluments and positions; and we remember with what tenacity
and firmness he held to his convictions, and that neither public
sentiment, the appeal of friends, nor the allurements of position,
could move him to accept as true what he could not believe."

     "It is my strong conviction," wrote Dr. Moncure D. Conway, in
the South Place Magazine, London, "that but for orthodox animosity,
Colonel Ingersoll would have been Presideut of the United States. 
Certainly no man of his ability ever occupied that office."
     Many similar remarks might be quoted from like sources. They
were often made to Ingersoll himself, by publicists and political
leaders. Exact language cannot here be essayed; but the opinion
expressed was usually couched in suhstantially the following, if,
indeed, in much more intimate terms: 'Were it not for your attitude
on religion, you could, with your ability and personality, have any
honor that it is possible for the American people to bestow.'

     Strange as it may seem to some, the recipient of these
intended compliments never appreciated them. And what an
alternative mediocrity did put at his feet! As a matter of fact,
there was no place in this Republic that could have honored Robert
G. Ingersoll. And he could no more have preserved silence on
relig;on, than Shellcy could have refrained from pouring furth the
marrelous poetry that now glorifies the realm of fancy. Where is
the man with imagination enough to picture that iron frame of ample
proportions, that classic head and fine, frank face -- that
embodiment of all the gradations of temperament, from clown to king
-- sitting acquiescent at the feet of a Talmage!

     And suppose that Ingersoll had become president of the United
States. Suppose that, unheeding the silent voice within, he had
agreed to accept the nomination for the governorship of Illinois,
-- that is to say, the governorship, -- and that, subsequently,
with calloused conscience, using his irresistible eloqnence to
smoothe the way, he had marched to the executive seat of the
nation. Would it have been hetter -- better for him and for the
world?

     Who remembers the governors of states? How many can recall the
names of all the presidents? We remember Washington: -- he was the
first. We remember Jefferson, who at least penned the sublimest of
human documents; -- JeIIerson! the noble sage, whose lamp of wisdom
shineth still. And we remember Lincoln, in whose soul were the
sadness and sorrow, the anguish, the despair, and the consolation,
of a people; -- Lincoln! who kept unscattered in the skies the
constellation of the Republic; who caused the bow of equal rights
to arch alike the white and the black; whose wit, like lightning,
always taking the shortest course, often struck in the highest
places; and whose humor, like sunshine, silvered and gilded "the
clouds of war"; -- Lincoln! in his hand the broken fetters, at his
feet the bowed slave; -- Lincoln! in the ruthless fields, his hand
the last laurel on the dying soldier's brow.

     The truth is, that, in levying on posterity, there is no
extrinsic substitute for intrinsic worth. In the inexorable
necessity of things, not an atom can ultimately be otherwise than
as it really is. No office per se can be great enough to honor an
incumbent. Of course, a mediocrity may be masked for a while by the
garment of greatness; but to himself all the time, and to the world
in due time, he is as inevitable as the atom to the chemist.

     Those who regret Ingersoll's failure to reach official
supremacy should ponder well this fact. They should also consider,
that rarely, with peoples, has the greatest been chosen to lead or
to rule. Nor should this excite surprise; for the individual who
almost invariably differs sufficieiitly from his fellows to incur
their disapproval, if not their contempt. Nature does not make and
break a special die to please the multitude.

     Far from regrettable, Ingersoll's declination of the
nomination for the governorship of Illinois was one of the richest
blessings that ever befell the cause of intellectual freedom. It
was an incident which, to the real friend of progress, must ever
recall the spirit of the Declaration and of the Emancipation.

     In the first place, Ingersoll yearned for inestimably higher
things than the governorship of any state, or the presidency of any
country, whatever. He could not have been satisfied with being the
mere servant of a people. He himself possessed not only ears, but
a voice. He had a message for mankind, and he would deliver that
message, though it be from a platform denied to him by intolerance,
showered with the brickbats of bigotry, stormed by the infantry of
ignorance, and raked by the cross-fire of fanaticism.

     Had he sgreed to accept the nomination previously mentioned,
all this yearning for intellectual liberty, -- this divine fire of
enthusiasm, -- would have been extinguished -- like sudden night
upon a flame of morning-glories! He would have drunk a subtle
poison which, unlike that of Socrtites, would have sought out and
destroyed every fiber of his moral being. He would have stultified
himself, -- would have thrust an ignominious orthodox gag into his
own mouth; and ever after, in the glass of conscience, -- the
mirror of memory, -- he would have seen that gag projecting on
either side.

     And suppose, again, that he had become president of the United
States, as he almost certainly would have done had he listened to
the political sirens of Illinois. What, in general, wonld have been
the result? A splendid hypocrite in The White House; a vast number
of pardons; the Federal troops in attendance at prospective
"lynching-bees" -- that is, the protection of American citizens at
home; some allegations that American citizens in China and Turkey
had not been protected in their "rights"; a few half-hearted snubs
for the royal tyrants and puppets of Europe; a volame or so of
really brilliant "state papers" (not to mention the four
Thanksgiving proclamations); a lot of half-great orations,
delivered on popular and state occasions; and a book entitled,
Robert G. Ingersoll: Was He an Infidel?
END****************************************************************************