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 CONTENTS

Epigraph
Timeline of Major Events
Cast of Major Characters

PART ONE THE PRESENT CRISIS

ONE Things Fall Apart
TWO Vaulting Ambition
THREE The Spirit of Violence
FOUR War to the Knife
FIVE The Puritan as Prophet
SIX Cyclops
SEVEN A Voice from the Grave
E IGHT The Harlot Slavery
NINE The Assassination of Charles Sumner
TEN Arguments of the Chivalry
E LEVEN Exterminating Angel
TWELVE Democracy in America

PART TWO THE RISE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

THIRTEEN Creation
FOURTEEN Miss Fancy
FIFTEEN The Forbidden Word
SIXTEEN Vice President Lincoln
SEVENTEEN The Birther Campaign
E IGHTEEN The Great Awakening
NINETEEN The White Man
TWENTY All the Powers of Earth
TWENTY-ONE The Wizard of Mississippi
TWENTY-TWO The Unmaking of the President
TWENTY-THREE A House Divided
TWENTY-FOUR The Higher Object
TWENTY-FIVE The Moral Lights
TWENTY-SIX The Phoenix
TWENTY-SEVEN Icarus
TWENTY-E IGHT This Guilty Land
TWENTY-NINE Witch Hunt
THIRTY Right Makes Might
THIRTY-ONE Walpurgisnacht
THIRTY-TWO The Railsplitter
THIRTY-THREE The Wigwam
THIRTY-FOUR A Fallen Star
THIRTY-FIVE Wide-Awake

Acknowledgments
About the Author
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Illustration Credits
For John Ritch and Christina Ritch
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with
another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and
equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they
should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That
to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing
its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
Safety and Happiness.”
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, JULY 4, 1776

“In those days, our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all,
and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of
the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, and sneered at, and
construed, and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from
their graves, they could not at all recognize it. All the powers of earth
seem rapidly combining against him. Mammon is after him; ambition
follows, and philosophy follows, and the Theology of the day is fast
joining the cry. They have him in his prison house; they have searched
his person, and left no prying instrument with him. One after another
they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him, and now they have
him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which can never
be unlocked without the concurrence of every key; the keys in the
hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred
different and distant places; and they stand musing as to what
invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to
make the impossibility of his escape more complete than it is.”
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, JUNE 26, 1857

“At any time, the South can raise, equip, and maintain in the field, a
larger army than any Power of the earth can send against her, and an
army of soldiers–men brought up on horseback, with guns in their
hands. . . . No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth
dares to make war upon it. Cotton is king. . . . The Senator from New
York said yesterday that the whole world had abolished slavery. Aye, the
name, but not the thing; all the powers of the earth cannot abolish
that.”
SENATOR JAMES HENRY HAMMOND, OF SOUTH CAROLINA, MARCH
4, 1858

“Our best people do not understand the danger. They are besotted.
They have compromised so long that they think principles of right and
wrong have no more any power on this earth.”
JOHN BROWN, 1859
 TIMELINE OF MAJOR EVENTS

March 4, 1853: Inauguration of Franklin Pierce as president

May 30, 1854: Kansas-Nebraska Act passes the Congress
October 4, 1854: Lincoln speaks against the Kansas-Nebraska Act at the Illinois House of
Representatives
February 8, 1855: Lincoln, the Whig candidate for the U.S. Senate, recognizes he lacks the
votes in the state legislature to win, and throws his support to the antislavery
Democrat Lyman Trumbull to defeat the pro-Douglas candidate
August 16, 1855: Andrew Reeder, the first territorial governor of Kansas, removed by
President Pierce for his objections to fraudulent elections
September 28, New York Republican Party created out of fusion of Whigs, Democrats,
1855: and Free Soilers
October 7, 1855: John Brown arrives in Kansas
October 23, 1855: Free state settlers meet at Topeka to adopt a constitution banning slavery in
the territory, elect a governor, and designate Andrew Reeder its
congressional delegate
November 1855: Wakarusa War in Kansas between free state and proslavery forces
December 25, Christmas dinner at Maryland home of Francis P. Blair to found the
1855: national Republican Party
February 22, The Know Nothing Party, or American Party, nominates former president
1856: Millard Fillmore as its presidential candidate
February 22, First national convention of the Republican Party takes place at Pittsburgh
1856:
February 22, Lincoln writes the platform at a meeting of antislavery editors at Decatur as
1856: the founding document of the Illinois Republican Party and calls for its first
convention
March 12, 1856: Stephen A. Douglas submits his report on Kansas to the Senate
May 19–20 1856: Charles Sumner delivers his speech to the Senate, “The Crime Against
Kansas”
May 21, 1856: Missouri Ruffians led by former senator David Rice Atchison sack the
Kansas free state capital of Lawrence
May 22, 1856: Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina canes Charles Sumner in
the Senate
May 24–25, 1856: John Brown and his men murder five proslavery settlers at Pottawatomie,
Kansas
May 29, 1856: Lincoln delivers his “Lost Speech” as the keynote of the founding
convention of the Illinois Republican Party
June 6, 1856: James Buchanan defeats Stephen A. Douglas at the Democratic Party
national convention to win nomination as the presidential candidate
June 19, 1856: John C. Frémont nominated as the first Republican Party presidential
candidate; Lincoln’s name put into nomination for vice president but loses
to William Dayton, a former U.S. senator from New Jersey
November 4, James Buchanan elected president
1856:
March 4, 1857: Inauguration of James Buchanan as president
March 6, 1857: Chief Justice Roger B. Taney issues decision in the Dred Scott case
June 12, 1857: Douglas defends the Dred Scott decision in a speech at Springfield
June 15, 1857: Fraudulent election in Kansas elects proslavery delegates to a constitutional
convention
June 26, 1857: Lincoln assails the Dred Scott decision in a speech at Springfield, declaring
of the captive slave, “All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining against
him.”
August 24, 1857: The Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company collapses, triggering an
economic panic
October 19, 1857: Proslavery delegates meeting at Lecompton to ratify a Kansas constitution
legalizing slavery
November 26, Kansas territorial governor Robert J. Walker confronts President Buchanan
1857: at the White House on the Lecompton Constitution and is rebuffed
December 3, Douglas visits Buchanan at the White House, demands he reject the
1857: Lecompton Constitution as a violation of “popular sovereignty,” and is
threatened by the president that he will be “crushed”
December 8, Buchanan endorses the Lecompton Constitution in his first annual message
1857: to the Congress
December 9, Douglas denounces Buchanan in a speech before the Senate
1857:
December 11, Frederick P. Stanton, acting territorial governor serving in Walker’s absence,
1857: dismissed by Buchanan
December 15, Walker resigns as territorial governor
1857:
December 21, Fraudulent referendum in Kansas approves the Lecompton Constitution
1857:
January 4, 1858: Free state Kansas legislature conducts a referendum that overwhelmingly
rejects the Lecompton Constitution
February 2, 1858: Buchanan submits Lecompton Constitution to the Congress to approve for
admission of Kansas as a slave state
March 4, 1858: Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina declares in a speech,
“Cotton is king”
April 1, 1858: The House of Representatives rejects the admission of Kansas as a state
under the Lecompton Constitution
April 30, 1858: The Congress passes the English bill stipulating a new referendum on the
Lecompton Constitution
June 17, 1858: Lincoln delivers his “house divided” speech in accepting the Republican
nomination for the Senate
August 2, 1858: Kansas voters by a large margin reject the Lecompton Constitution
August 21, 1858: Lincoln-Douglas debate, Ottawa, Illinois
August 27, 1858: Lincoln-Douglas debate, Freeport
September 15, Lincoln-Douglas debate, Jonesboro
1858:
September 18, Lincoln-Douglas debate, Charleston
1858:
October 7, 1858: Lincoln-Douglas debate, Galesburg
October 13, 1858: Lincoln-Douglas debate, Quincy
October 15, 1858: Lincoln-Douglas debate, Alton
November 2, Douglas reelected, Lincoln defeated
1858:
November 4, The Illinois Gazette of Lacon publishes an editorial: “Abraham Lincoln for
1858: President in 1860”
January 5, 1859: Inner circle of Lincoln men meet at the Illinois State Capitol and propose
running Lincoln for president or vice president
April 7, 1859: Illinois Republican State Committee meets at Bloomington, decides to
support Lincoln as a presidential candidate and to keep him in the
background for the moment
April 1859: Lincoln secretly buys a German language newspaper, the Illinois Staats-
Anzeiger
September 1859: Douglas publishes an article in Harper’s Monthly, “Popular Sovereignty in
the Territories”
September 13, Senator David C. Broderick, Democrat of California, a Douglas ally, killed
1859: in a duel with California Supreme Court chief justice David Terry, ally of
Senator William Gwin, Democrat of California, an enemy of Douglas
September 1859: Lincoln speaks in Ohio cities, following Douglas, in off-year election
campaign; Republicans sweep statewide offices
October 12, 1859: Lincoln receives a telegram inviting him to speak to a group of Republicans
in New York
October 16–18, John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry
1859:
December 2, John Brown hanged
1859:
February 27, Lincoln poses for a photograph at the studio of Mathew Brady in New York
1860: City
February 27, Lincoln delivers speech at the Cooper Union: “Right makes might”
1860:
April 30, 1860: Seven Southern state delegations walk out of the Democratic Party national
convention at Charleston to stop Douglas’s nomination and protest the
failure to endorse the Alabama Platform in favor of the extension of slavery
to the territories
May 3, 1860: The Democratic Party national convention at Charleston adjourns without
nominating a candidate
May 9, 1860: Illinois Republican convention nominates Lincoln for president; he is
dubbed “The Railsplitter”
May 10, 1860: Constitutional Union Party convention nominates John Bell of Tennessee
for president and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for vice president
May 18, 1860: Republican Party national convention at Chicago nominates Lincoln for
president
June 18–23, 1860: Democratic Party national convention reconvenes at Baltimore, refusing to
seat Southern delegations that had bolted at Charleston; nominates Douglas
for president
June 23, 1860: National Democratic Party convention at Baltimore, comprised of
Southern bolters, nominates Vice President John C. Breckinridge of
Kentucky for president and Senator Joseph Lane of Oregon for vice
president
November 6, Lincoln elected president
1860:
December 20, South Carolina secedes from the Union
1860:
 CAST OF MAJOR CHARACTERS

PRESIDENTS
Zachary Taylor, 12th President
Millard Fillmore, 13th President
Franklin Pierce, 14th President
James Buchanan, 15th President

THE SENATE
David Rice Atchison, Missouri, Democrat, president pro tempore, F Street
Mess
Edward D. Baker, Oregon, Republican, former Illinois congressman and
friend of Lincoln
James A. Bayard, Delaware, Democrat
Judah P. Benjamin, Louisiana, Democrat
Jesse Bright, Indiana, Democrat, president pro tempore
David C. Broderick, California, Democrat
Andrew Butler, South Carolina, Democrat, F Street Mess
Simon Cameron, Pennsylvania, Democrat/Know Nothing/Republican
Salmon P. Chase, Ohio, Republican
Clement Clay, Alabama, Democrat
John J. Crittenden, Kentucky, Whig/Know Nothing
Jefferson Davis, Mississippi, Democrat
Stephen A. Douglas, Illinois, Democrat
William Pitt Fessenden, Maine, Republican
Henry S. Foote, Mississippi, Democrat
John C. Frémont, California, Republican candidate for president 1856
William M. Gwin, California, Democrat
John P. Hale, New Hampshire, Republican
James Henry Hammond, South Carolina, Democrat, former governor
Robert M.T. Hunter, Virginia, Democrat, F Street Mess
Preston King, New York, Republican
Joseph Lane, Oregon, Democrat, National Democratic candidate for vice
president 1860
James M. Mason, Virginia, Democrat, F Street Mess
William Seward, New York, Republican
John Slidell, Louisiana, Democrat
Charles Sumner, Massachusetts, Republican
Lyman Trumbull, Illinois, antislavery Democrat, Republican
Benjamin Wade, Ohio, Republican
Henry Wilson, Massachusetts, Republican

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

William Barksdale, Mississippi, Democrat
Thomas Hart Benton, Missouri, Democrat
Francis P. Blair, Jr., Missouri, Republican
Preston S. Brooks, South Carolina, Democrat
Anson Burlingame, Massachusetts, Republican
Schuyler Colfax, Ohio, Republican
Henry A. Edmundson, Virginia, Democrat
Galusha Grow, Pennsylvania, Republican
Thomas Harris, Illinois, Democrat, friend of Douglas
Philemon Herbert, California, Democrat
Laurence M. Keitt, South Carolina, Democrat
Edwin Morgan, New York, Republican
James L. Orr, South Carolina, Democrat, Speaker of the House
Roger Pryor, Virginia, Democrat
William Richardson, Illinois, Democrat, friend of Douglas
John Sherman, Ohio, Republican
Alexander H. Stephens, Georgia, Whig/Democrat
Thaddeus Stevens, Pennsylvania, Whig/Republican
Eli Thayer, Massachusetts, Republican, founder of New England Emigrant
Aid Society
Robert Toombs, Georgia, Whig/Democrat
Clement Vallandigham, Ohio, Democrat
Elihu Washburne, Illinois, Republican, friend of Lincoln
David Wilmot, Pennsylvania, Democrat/Republican
Robert C. Winthrop, Massachusetts, Whig, Speaker of the House

ALABAMA
John Forsyth, editor of the Mobile Register
William Lowndes Yancey, fire-eater, author of the Alabama Platform

ILLINOIS
William B. Archer, former state legislator, Whig/Know Nothing/Republican
Edward L. Baker, editor of the Illinois State Journal
William H. Bissell, former Democrat, first Republican governor
Orville Hickman Browning, lawyer, former state legislator,
Whig/Republican
Jacob Bunn, merchant, funder of Lincoln’s campaigns
John Whitfield Bunn, merchant, funder of Lincoln’s campaigns
Theodore Canisius, editor of the Illinois Staats-Anzeiger secretly owned by
Lincoln
J.O. Cunningham, editor of the Urbana Union, Republican
David Davis, judge of the Eighth Circuit, Lincoln’s convention manager
T. Lyle Dickey, judge, Whig
Adele Cutts Douglas, wife of Stephen A. Douglas, grand-niece of Dolley
Madison
Jesse K. DuBois, former state legislator, Whig/Republican, state auditor
Zebina Eastman, abolitionist editor of the Free West
Jesse W. Fell, lawyer, publisher of the Bloomington Pantagraph, educator,
abolitionist, Whig/Republican
Joseph Gillespie, former state legislator, Whig/Know Nothing/Republican
Jackson Grimshaw, lawyer, Republican
Ozias Hatch, former state legislator, state secretary of state, Republican
Friedrich Hecker, German revolutionary, Republican presidential elector
William Henry Herndon, Lincoln’s law partner
Abraham Jonas, former state legislator, Lincoln law associate
Norman Judd, state senator from Chicago, chairman Republican State Central
Committee
Gustave Koerner, German American leader, former judge on the state
Supreme Court, lieutenant governor, Democrat/Republican
Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln law associate
Stephen Trigg Logan, Lincoln’s former law partner, Whig/Republican
Owen Lovejoy, abolitionist, Republican and congressman
James H. Matheny, Springfield lawyer, Lincoln’s best man at his wedding,
Whig/Know Nothing
Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune
Richard J. Oglesby, lawyer, planner of the Illinois Republican convention
1860
John M. Palmer, former state legislator, Democrat/Republican
Ebenezer Peck, state legislator, Republican
Henry B. Rankin, Lincoln-Herndon law clerk
Charles H. Ray, editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune
George Schneider, editor of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung
John Locke Scripps, reporter for the Chicago Democratic Press, records
Lincoln’s autobiography
James W. Sheahan, editor of the Chicago Times
John Todd Stuart, Lincoln’s former law partner, Whig
Leonard Swett, Lincoln law associate
Leonard Volk, sculptor
John “Long John” Wentworth, mayor of Chicago, Democrat/Republican
Henry Clay Whitney, Lincoln law associate
Richard Yates, congressman, governor, Whig/Republican

KANSAS
George W. Brown, editor of the Herald of Freedom
John Calhoun, proslavery surveyor general
Mark Delahay, free state newspaper editor, Lincoln’s distant cousin
John W. Geary, third territorial governor
Samuel Jones, proslavery sheriff
Samuel Lecompte, proslavery judge
Andrew Reeder, first territorial governor
Charles Robinson, free state governor
Sara Robinson, wife of Charles Robinson
Wilson Shannon, second territorial governor
Frederick P. Stanton, deputy to Governor Walker
Robert J. Walker, fourth territorial governor, former U.S. senator from
Mississippi, former secretary of the treasury

MASSACHUSETTS
Charles Francis Adams, Conscience Whig, son of President John Quincy
Adams
John A. Andrew, lawyer, Republican, governor
Frank W. Bird, businessman, Republican power broker
Caleb Cushing, Pierce’s attorney general, chairman of the Democratic
national convention 1860
Ralph Waldo Emerson, philosopher, abolitionist
Edward Everett, former governor, senator, and president of Harvard
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Unitarian minister, member of the Secret
Six
Samuel Gridley Howe, social reformer, member of the Secret Six
Abbott Lawrence, industrialist, influential Whig
Amos A. Lawrence, industrialist, funder of the New England Emigrant Aid
Society
Theodore Parker, Unitarian minister, member of the Secret Six
Benjamin Roberts, African American lawyer
George Luther Stearns, industrialist, abolitionist donor, member of the Secret
Six
Henry David Thoreau, writer, abolitionist
George Ticknor, Harvard professor, social arbiter of Boston

NEW YORK
August Belmont, U.S. head of Rothschild bank, uncle of John Slidell’s wife,
Buchanan’s campaign manager 1856
John Bigelow, editor of the New York Evening Post
William Cullen Bryant, editor of the New York Evening Post
Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune
James S. Pike, reporter for the New York Tribune
Henry J. Raymond, editor of the New York Times, lieutenant governor of
New York
Dean Richmond, cochairman of the New York Central Railroad, Democratic
power broker
Henry Villard, reporter for the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, New York Tribune,
and New York Herald
Thurlow Weed, editor of the Albany Evening Journal, Seward intimate, Whig,
and Republican political boss
Walt Whitman, former editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, author Leaves of Grass
Fernando Wood, mayor of New York City, grand sachem of Tammany Hall

SOUTH CAROLINA
Christopher G. Memminger, commissioner for secession
Robert Barnwell Rhett, editor of the Charleston Mercury

VIRGINIA
John Minor Botts, former congressman, Whig/Know Nothing, Unionist
George Fitzhugh, editor of the Richmond Enquirer, author of Sociology for the
South, or The Failure of Free Society
Edmund Ruffin, fire-eater, author, agronomist
Henry A. Wise, governor

SLAVES AND FREE BLACKS

Mary Mildred Botts, child emancipated by Charles Sumner
Anthony Burns, fugitive slave captured in Boston
Frederick Douglass, fugitive slave, author, abolitionist, confidant of John
Brown
Margaret Garner, fugitive slave who killed her child rather than submit her
family to slavery
Polly Mack, free black in Springfield who sought out Lincoln to free her son
about to be sold as a slave in New Orleans
John Shelby, free black from Springfield, held captive in New Orleans to be
sold as a slave, his liberty purchased by Lincoln; son of Polly Mack

ABOLITIONISTS
Gamaliel Bailey, editor of The National Era newspaper in Washington, D.C.
Henry Ward Beecher, pastor of the Plymouth Church of Brooklyn
Lydia Maria Child, Boston abolitionist, poet, author, journalist
Margaret Douglass, Virginia schoolteacher jailed for educating blacks
William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator
Julia Ward Howe, abolitionist, wife of Samuel Gridley Howe
Wendell Phillips, Boston abolitionist
Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Theodore Weld, assistant to Congressman John Quincy Adams, author,
organizer

JOHN BROWN’S RAID

Jeremiah G. Anderson, white member of Brown’s band, killed
Osborne Perry Anderson, free black member of band, escaped
Fontaine Beckham, mayor of Harpers Ferry and B&O agent, killed by
Brown’s men
Thomas Boerley, grocer, killed by Brown’s men
John Brown, revolutionist, executed
Oliver Brown, son of John Brown, member of band, killed
Owen Brown, son of John Brown, member of band, escaped
Watson Brown, son of John Brown, member of band, killed
John Edwin Cook, white member of the band, executed
John Anthony Copeland, Jr., free black, student at Oberlin College, executed
Barclay Coppoc, white member of the band, escaped
Edwin Coppoc, white member of the band, killed Mayor Beckham, executed
Hugh Forbes, English soldier of fortune
Shields Green, fugitive slave member of the band, executed
Albert Hazlett, white member of band
George H. Hoyt, Brown’s defense attorney
Thomas Jackson, major and professor, Virginia Military Institute
John Henry Kagi, white member of the band, killed
Lewis Leary, free black member of the band, killed
Robert E. Lee, colonel of U.S. Marines
Willie H. Leeman, white member of the band, killed
Francis Jackson Meriam, white member of Brown’s band, conduit to the
Secret Six, escaped
Dangerfield Newby, black member of the band, killed
James Redpath, reporter for the New York Tribune
Franklin Sanborn, secretary of the Massachusetts Kansas Aid Committee,
member of the Secret Six
Hayward Shepherd, black railway porter killed by Brown’s men
Gerrit Smith, funder of abolitionist causes and John Brown, member of the
Secret Six
Aaron Stevens, white member of Brown’s band, executed
J.E.B. Stuart, lieutenant of U.S. Marines
Stewart Taylor, white member of band, killed
Dauphin Thompson, white member of band, killed
Will Thompson, white member of band, killed
Charles Plummer Tidd, white member of band, escaped
Lewis W. Washington, great-grandnephew of George Washington, held as
hostage

REPUBLICANS
Edward Bates, St. Louis lawyer, Whig/Know Nothing, candidate for
Republican presidential nomination 1860
Francis Preston Blair, member of President Andrew Jackson’s Kitchen
Cabinet, founder of the national Republican Party
Lewis Clephane, business editor of The National Era, organizer of the
Republican Club of Washington, D.C.
Andrew G. Curtin, Republican candidate for governor of Pennsylvania,
Lincoln supporter
William Dayton, former U.S. senator from New Jersey, Republican candidate
for vice president 1856
Jessie Benton Frémont, daughter of Thomas Hart Benton, wife of John C.
Frémont, campaign manager
Hinton Rowan Helper, author, The Impending Crisis: How to Meet It
Henry S. Lane, Republican candidate for governor of Indiana 1860, Lincoln
supporter
Alexander K. McClure, Pennsylvania newspaper editor and Curtin’s
campaign manager
Carl Schurz, German language newspaper editor, friend of Lincoln
Caleb Smith, former congressman from Indiana, Lincoln supporter
Gideon Welles, editor of the Hartford Press, Democrat/Republican, Lincoln
supporter

DRED SCOTT CASE

Montgomery Blair, son of Francis P. Blair, Dred Scott’s attorney
Taylor Blow, son of Dred Scott’s original owner, who emancipated him after
the decision
John Catron, associate justice of the Supreme Court, friend of James
Buchanan
Benjamin R. Curtis, associate justice of the Supreme Court, dissenter in the
Dred Scott case
Robert C. Grier, associate justice of the Supreme Court, friend of James
Buchanan
Reverdy Johnson, defense attorney in the case before the Supreme Court,
former attorney general
John McLean, associate justice of the Supreme Court, Republican candidate
for president in 1856, dissenter in the Dred Scott case
John Sanford, owner of Dred Scott
Dred Scott, slave who sued for his freedom
Harriet Scott, slave, Dred Scott’s wife
Roger Taney, chief justice of the Supreme Court, author of the Dred Scott
decision

THE BUCHANAN ADMINISTRATION AND E NTOURAGE

Samuel L.M. Barlow, Wall Street financier and political funder
Jeremiah Black, attorney general, former judge on the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court
John C. Breckinridge, vice president, former member of Congress,
presidential candidate of the National Democratic Party 1860
Lewis Cass, secretary of state, former senator from Michigan
Howell Cobb, secretary of the treasury, former governor of Georgia, former
Speaker of the House
John B. Floyd, secretary of war, former governor of Virginia
John W. Forney, Pennsylvania newspaper editor and political operative
Harriet Lane, niece of Buchanan and acting first lady
Jacob Thompson, secretary of the interior, former congressman from
Mississippi
Isaac Toucey, secretary of the navy, former congressman from Connecticut

LINCOLN’S FAMILY
Ninian Edwards, Jr., brother-in-law, married to Mary’s sister, Whig/Democrat
John Hanks, cousin
Mary Lincoln, wife
Robert Todd Lincoln, son
Thomas “Tad” Lincoln, son
William Wallace “Willie” Lincoln, son
 PART ONE

THE PRESENT CRISIS

“We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great . . .”
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, “THE PRESENT CRISIS”
 CHAPTER ONE

THINGS FALL APART

In 1850, the Union was proclaimed to have been saved again in a great
compromise that removed slavery as a controversy from national politics.
President Millard Fillmore declared it nothing less than “the final settlement.”
The issue tearing the country apart, whether the vast territory conquered in the
Mexican War would be slave or free, was no longer to be a matter of debate.
“We have been carried in safety through a perilous crisis,” Franklin Pierce
announced at his inauguration on March 4, 1853.
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
 LECTURE V.

THE MAKING OF WASH DRAWINGS AND THEIR

REPRODUCTION BY MECHANICAL PROCESS.

W
HEN I speak of wash drawings, I would really refer to all
painting or drawing, in colour or monochrome, in tone, as
distinguished from work in line, which was the subject of my
last lecture.
Many persons do not like line work, never master it, and are
insensible to its beauty when they see it. For these there is another
method of expression, although, I cannot repeat too often, an
illustrator should be able to work in more ways than one. One may
make one’s illustration in colour in oil, in gouache, in body colour, in
wash; in fact paint a picture in the usual way, though, even with the
best and most careful methods of reproduction, it will be almost
invariably found that in the various stages of photographing, etching
and printing, very much, if not all, the charm has disappeared, even
though the result be printed in colour, for up to the present no
colour can be perfectly reproduced, or rendered into black and
white, even by the best engraver in the world. And no colour can be
reproduced except by the artist himself. A few men like Detaille, De
Neuville, and Lynch have, I believe, invented a special colour scheme
for the requirements of colour reproduction, and some of the
engravings made from their pictures by Messrs. Boussod, Valladon &
Co. are very wonderful; but in the best examples I imagine there is
an enormous amount of careful touching up and going over by hand,
which places these reproductions in the category of proofs rather
than of prints. Certainly there is a vast difference between them and
the colour work usually seen in the same firm’s commercial
publications, good as they are, and there is a yawning gulf between
these and the colour print we have with us always. Therefore, if you
wish to work in oil I would suggest that you work in monochrome,
and further I would advise you to make your designs in simple black
and white—that is if the reproduction is to be printed with black ink;
for the nearer your original is to the colour in which it is to be
printed, the nearer will the engraver and printer be able to approach
it. I would also suggest that perfectly dead colours should be used,
because varnish or any sort of glaze, shine or glitter, will tell in the
photograph, and even the most careful engravers are rather given to
reproducing the photographic copy than the original, even though
the latter be at their side.
One method, that has been successful lately, is mixing oil colour with
turpentine until it flows like water, and then working on paper; this
reproduces most excellently, the only drawback being that the colour
rubs off easily.
Body colour and gouache are much used; the only thing to be
remembered is that you should keep to the same colours and the
same method of work all the way through each drawing. It is very
interesting to combine body colour with wash; often in the original
design the combination is most pleasing, but the camera does not
approve of it, and frequently plays the most unexpected tricks with
these combinations. Therefore, either stick to body colour, lamp
black, ivory black and white,[3] or pure wash; in the latter case there
is nothing which photographs so well as charcoal grey, made by
Newman & Co. The most delicate washes reproduce beautifully. It is
rather hard to manage, but once you can manage it, it is almost
perfect. It is best for work in a very light key, in the extreme darks it
is liable to get heavy and sombre and gritty; and if you want a
positive black it is well to put it in with ink or some stronger black,
even at the risk of knocking things rather out of tone. The only
objection to charcoal grey is that it is rather difficult to work over it.
Still, in illustration in wash you will always get a cleaner, sharper
effect by doing your drawing at once, getting your effect right with
the first wash, than by any amount of tinkering at it.
[3] Winsor & Newton and Reeves have lately been experimenting
in this way, and their Albanine and Process black are well spoken
of by photo engravers.

In this pure wash work you should be careful, very careful, not to let
any meaningless pencil lines show through, as they always
photograph, cannot be taken out, and at times spoil the whole
effect; in fact, imperfections in wash drawings always reproduce
more perfectly than the perfections themselves, and it is well to
keep your paper reasonably clean, to avoid smudging, blots and
lines, or otherwise you will be disappointed in the result. It is often
very effective in an original drawing to put in a lot of colour, but it
nearly always comes out wrongly in the reproduction. On the other
hand, although body colour often comes badly with wash, if you
work over or into either your wash or body colour with pen, chalk, or
pencil of the same substance as the wash, the result is harmonious
often and excellent. I mean, if you make a drawing in wash with
Indian ink and work on it with liquid Indian ink in a pen, the result
will be right. If you touch up charcoal grey with charcoal, the wash
and line unite—these things, however, you will soon learn by
experience, even though that experience is gained in a rather painful
manner. Still, at present the better magazines and papers are not a
practising ground for students, as they were some time ago, and you
must be able to do good work before you can expect any intelligent
editor to print it.
Drawings or paintings—in fact all work in tone is reproduced
mechanically by what is known as the half-tone process, which I
referred to briefly in my last lecture.
The drawing is photographed, but in front of the sensitised glass, a
microscopically ruled screen is placed to break up this tone into dots
or lines, really to get the same effect as the wood engraver obtains
with his dots and lines. Otherwise, the tones being flat, or even if
they are gradated, would print as a black mass; but these screens
break up the masses into little squares, which receive the printing
ink on their faces, and the colour or original effect of the picture is
thus preserved. It is rather difficult to explain this, but the screen
produces white lines in the darks and dark lines in the whites; you
can see them by looking at any block. Afterwards, the process is
exactly the same as for line drawings. This reproduction of wash
work is very uncertain; good effects are obtained, about as often as
failures. The delicate tones are not infrequently altogether lost.
There are no positive blacks or whites, but a uniform grey tint covers
the entire block, in which all delicacy is often hidden. Therefore, to
get a good effect, when printed, the drawing should be simply
made, that is if it is for cheap engraving and rapid printing; but if for
the best books and magazines, wood engravers may be employed to
remedy the imperfections of the photograph and the mistakes of the
etcher. That is, whites may be cut, blacks toned down, lines thinned,
or large spaces on the block may be left for the engraver to work
upon: most remarkable results may be seen in the better American
magazines.
There are many qualities in a drawing which that senseless machine,
the camera, will never reproduce. There are also a few points which
it is very difficult (in tone work) for an engraver to render, but they
may both combine and obtain most interesting effects.
For instance, it is very difficult to give in a wood engraving the look
of paint on canvas, without losing much of the picture itself, for if
the wood engraver begins to try to imitate texture he not
infrequently loses the subject. The mechanical process seems to do
this very easily, especially if the brush marks on the canvas are at all
prominent. But the delicacy is frequently lost; so, too, are the strong
blacks, though a good wood engraver can remedy these defects by
treating the metal block just as though it was wood, engraving on it,
cutting out, save where it is right, all the mechanical look. But two
factors are necessary, first a good engraver, and, second, a publisher
who is willing to pay for this engraving, which is expensive. The
majority of publishers will not do so, though they will pay for the
work of a good or notorious author. They will employ a feeble artist,
a poor engraver, and a cheap printer, and talk of how much better
the work was done thirty years ago. Of course it was; it was
decently drawn and mostly badly engraved, vilely printed, but well
paid for; now the photograph is the standard and the results are all
about us; therefore you must think of the results. So make broad
simple masses, keep your work as flat as you can, remembering that
all blacks will have the little white dots of the screen more or less
showing through them—these can be kept out by the engraver, but
they certainly will appear in the cheapest work; remembering that all
delicate grey tones will be eaten up by the screen, therefore don’t
put them in if you can help it; and, finally, that unless whites are cut
out they will never appear, instead you will have a dotted grey
effect.
In the very near future many of these imperfections will disappear,
for you must remember that it is scarcely ten years since half tone
began to be used at all. But look, whenever you see them—and they
are everywhere—at the reproductions of half-tone work; try and
study out how the artist got his effect; go to the art editor who
published the drawing and ask to see the original. Talk with artists
who do good work in black and white; they are mostly human,
intelligent, and willing to help and advise you. Go to the engravers’
shops and find out what the engraver will tell you, and to printing
offices and see your work on the press.
I have already spoken of the reproductions of line drawings by the
half-tone process. One is sometimes tempted to wish that all line
work could be reproduced by half tone and tone work could be
reproduced by line, because if the line is delicate or the drawing is
thin, the screen over it gives a tint which is pleasing, at times makes
it look like an etching somewhat, especially if the tint be judiciously
cut out. You might look at some of C. D. Gibson’s work, where very
great delicacy has been obtained in this way. Engravers are now
endeavouring to get the tint just where it is wanted, and I have no
doubt they will succeed. When they do, photo-engraving by the half-
tone process will be greatly improved.
Finally, study the requirements of the process not only as artists, but
from the point of view of the engraver; go down to his shop and find
out how the work is done; make him show and tell you; insist on
seeing proofs of your drawings—good proofs, too; make corrections
on them, first learning what corrections can be made. You cannot
have blacks put in your engravings if they did not exist in the
drawings, and, roughly speaking, you can only tone down, not
strengthen any engraving; but you will find, save in cases of blacks,
it is only toning down that the engraving wants, thinning and
greying of lines.
All this, I have no doubt, is very dry and uninteresting and tedious,
but unless you get these things into your heads in the beginning,
your drawings will not photograph well, engrave well, or print well;
and if they don’t, you will not get any illustration to do, and you may
have yourselves to blame for it.
 LECTURE VI.

REPRODUCTION OF DRAWINGS BY WOOD

ENGRAVING.

W
OOD engraving, as a fine art, has been virtually invented,
developed, brought to apparent perfection, and yet ceased to
exist, temporarily, almost, as a trade, in this century.
A wood engraving is an engraving made with a graver, upon a cross
section of box-wood, that is upon the end, and not the side, of a
plank, in relief. As in the case of mechanical engraving, all the wood,
excepting that underneath the design upon the block, is cut away,
and the picture remains alone in relief, raised upon the surface of
the block of the same height as the type; thus the block may be
placed on the press and printed with the type.
The first great wood engraver was Thos. Bewick, and he, unlike
many of his followers to-day, was an artist, and mostly made his
own drawings on the block and cut them as he wished. He saw that
wood engraving was a substitute for the slower, more tedious, and
more expensive method of steel engraving; that, most important,
many of the qualities of steel could be imitated in wood, as the same
tools were used; that it could be printed with type; and, save that
the richness of colour could not be retained, that it had most of the
advantages of metal and few of its disadvantages, and was vastly
cheaper. From the first, the imitation of steel was considered the
proper aim, and though early in this century Stothard drew with a
pen upon the block, and his designs were facsimiled in the wood by
Clennell, the prevailing fashion was the imitation of steel engraving,
even by Bewick himself. Many of his lines are exactly those used by
the steel engravers. By the middle of the century steel engraving
virtually disappeared, its practitioners being unable to compete with
wood engravers. There have been but few original engravers in this
form of art, and though the work of some of the steel engravers who
reproduced Turner and Roberts, Wilkie and Landseer, is marvellous,
the art is almost dead at present. Cheapness has killed it. Wood
engraving also killed lithography—a lithograph cannot be printed
with type—and consequently the wood engraver became a most
important person. He ran a shop with many assistants; he
commissioned artists to make drawings for his assistants to engrave,
he dictated the way in which these drawings were to be done, the
way in which the lines were to be drawn and washes made, so that
they could be cut most easily. He commissioned writers to work up
or down to the artists; he printed the books and sold them to the
publishers, who were content to put their names on the title pages.
And by this method much good and more bad work was
accomplished, but the engraver finally became supreme, autocratic,
dictatorial, insufferable; and then he vanished, as a shop. Process
stepped in, in its turn, on account of its cheapness; and to-day,
unless the engraver is an artist, he is but the slave of the process
man, a hard fate—but his own. Before the introduction of
photography, artists had to make their designs for the wood
engraver the size they were wanted upon the block of wood, if
portraits of places, reverse them, in pen, brush, pencil, or wash; the
engraver cut around and through these designs, making a
translation of them in relief on the block which could be printed
from. But the drawing had disappeared, and the artist had nothing
but the engraving to show for it, hence endless difficulties arose;
good artists hated to have their drawings cut to pieces; good
engravers hated to have their work criticised unfavourably; also,
drawing of a small size, and in reverse on the block was difficult to
learn, and only a mechanical craft of no artistic advantage when
learned. Therefore, as soon as it was possible to escape from the
drudgery, to draw of any size on paper and have that drawing
photographed on to a sensitised wood block, of the size it was
wanted, in reverse, all artists took to it. And a new school of
engravers arose, men who tried to invent new methods of engraving
so that they could express the medium, as well as the subject, in
which a picture was produced. True from Stothard onward, through
Meissonier and Menzel, engravers had tried to render pen and pencil
drawings in line on wood; now everything began to be attempted,
charcoal, etchings, steel, water colours, lithographs, oils. All the
imperfections, accidents, and blemishes were preserved, even if the
picture disappeared. But a number of most distinguished artist wood
engravers appeared, especially in America, though few of them
learned their trade in that country. But they received more
encouragement, better pay, better printing, and better artists worked
for them. And so the school of American wood engravers, many of
whom are not Americans, was born.
Now how is the modern work done? The artist’s picture in any
medium, of any size, is given to the photographer, who copies and
reverses it, prints it on the block of wood which has been sensitised
for that purpose. The print is usually not very good, that is, it is
darker, with many of the qualities of the drawing lost; but it serves
only as a guide or a tracing for the engraver, who takes his tools,
and with the drawing behind him, reflected in a mirror to reverse it,
proceeds to cut the photograph of the drawing into relief, at the
same time trying to preserve the look of the canvas, paper, or metal
on which it was made, and the feeling of the colour, wash, or paint
with which it was executed. All this is most difficult, but a most
artistic result may be obtained, and one has but to refer to the
magazines of America and some of the weekly papers of Germany,
France, and Spain, for a proof of it.
Here, though much good wood engraving has been printed, outside
the offices of Messrs. Macmillan, Cassell and Co., and the Graphic, it
has of late years been mostly in the form of copies, electrotypes,
clichés from foreign blocks which are supplied by their makers, all
over the world, at a very low price, because they are not reserved
for any one paper or book. And when you begin to see a man’s
painting, or drawing, or engraving in every paper, you begin to tire
of him and his work. The editors of papers which publish clichés
seem to be the only people who like the multiplication and
cheapening of art, but then there is no accounting for their tastes.
The tools and appliances for making wood engravings are simple
enough, but to engrave anything but facsimile work, or your own
designs, will necessitate your going through considerable practical
training; probably some years of apprenticeship.
To cut line drawings on the wood, or to cut designs in large simple
masses, you do not require so much practice. All the tools you need
are different sized gravers and gouges, a small chisel to cut large
spaces, an engraver’s rest for the block, so that it can be turned
freely and easily about, and a whetstone to sharpen your tools.
Lamps and globes for water, shades for your eyes, you will scarcely
need, but a magnifying glass, something like that which
watchmakers use, may be useful. With these simple tools and some
box-wood—they can all be bought in East Harding Street or at any
colour maker’s—you have the necessary appliances.
If you draw on the block, a slight wash of Chinese white will help to
make it work easily. Draw with a brush or pencil; or if in wash,
without body colour, as that will chip off. You have only to remember
that the block, either plain or with the drawing on it, would print
perfectly black, and that every line you make with the graver in the
surface of it, will print white. Therefore, as I have said, to get an
outline engraving, you simply cut away everything but the drawing,
which is left in relief on the surface of the block, and which alone
prints, the rest of it being cut away. It is not necessary to engrave
the surface very deeply, only so much that neither the ink nor the
paper will touch in the hollows between the lines or masses.
Mistakes are not easy to remedy, except by making a hole in the
block and inserting a plug of wood, and then engraving that afresh.
The art of engraving in facsimile, that is, of engraving around lines
made with pen, or brush, or pencil, is comparatively easy, it only
requires much training and a steady hand. But the ability to translate
a work in colour into black and white, on a wood block, so that it
shall give a good idea of the original, is far more difficult. To do it
well, the engraver must not only have the knowledge of the
technical requirements of his craft at his finger ends, only to be
gained after years of apprenticeship, but he must be a trained artist
as well. If he wishes to get the best results, he must have the
original before him, he must understand it and appreciate it. And
finally, he must have the technical skill to engrave it. Even then,
most likely, the artist will not like the block. It is a difficult art, a
thankless art, save in the rarest cases: one which requires years of
special training, and at present in this country, no matter how great
an artist one is, there is very little chance to practise it. Work of this
sort you cannot expect to be able to do without years of training; if
you care for it you must apprentice yourself to a wood engraver.
Still there are forms of wood engraving which you may take up, from
the most primitive to the most complicated, and you may carry out
the work from the designing of it to the printing of it yourselves, or,
you may draw on the block and cut away, as in engravings by the
late R. L. Stevenson (or were they done by Lloyd Osbourne or some
other ghost?), and possibly you will have an experience like this:—

“A blemish in the cut appears,

Alas, it cost both blood and tears.
The glancing graver swerved aside,
Fast flowed the artist’s vital tide,
And now the apologetic bard
Demands indulgence for his pard.”

Or I imagine without much trouble you might invent something in

the style of Valloton, a Frenchman, who is resurrecting wood cutting
in a manner of his own, while carrying on the traditions of the old
men. I hope you may be able to get as much life and go in it as he
has. Make your drawing on the wood, or on paper, have it
photographed on the wood in the latter case, and cut around the
lines, leaving only the drawing. The greatest difficulty is with fine
lines, and you see how cleverly Valloton has avoided making them.
Or, like Lepère, another French artist—he would be a man to study
with—do big, bold, effective things; or again you might attempt, as
he does, colour work on wood, like that done by the Japanese,
drawing it, engraving it, and printing it all yourselves.
Or, take up drawing and engraving in the manner of Caldecott,
Crane, or Kate Greenaway, when they were reproduced and printed
by Edmund Evans.
Process is fighting for colour too, but wood, at least in proofs, and
that is all you would care for, gives some qualities far beyond
process.
In colour printing from wood blocks as many blocks must be made
as there are colours, and there must be as many separate printings
made from these blocks as there are colours in the printed picture.
There must also be an outline block called the key block. Usually in
European colour printing, whether from wood blocks, or by
lithography, or even process, the colours are printed on top of each
other; for example, a blue is printed over a yellow to get green, and
at times several colours are superimposed, with the result that
colour is lost and mud obtained. The Japanese have shown us how
to make colour prints, however, and their method is now adopted by
all intelligent colour printers. It consists in making the right colour
before it is put on the block, and in placing the colours side by side
like a mosaic. The work is done somewhat in this way; the artist
makes his drawing, several tracings (as many as there are colours)
are made from it, and one extra tracing must be made of the outline
only. Or rather the outline alone is cut on the block, other blocks are
then made for each colour, or the parts cut out of the same block;
one will contain all the red, another all the blue, a third the yellow,
and so on. They must be very accurately cut, so as to fit together
and print truly, and you can see from Japanese prints how
wonderfully well the work is done. Of course the editions from such
blocks are very limited, and on this account, like etchings, often vary,
the printers having tried experiments in colour. The grain of the
wood is taken advantage of in printing, as it often gives a lovely
pattern; a good printer will wash in gradated skies with the
backgrounds, and no matter how wonderfully they are worked, if of
the same colour, are printed usually from the same block. The
Japanese, I believe, use water-colours; certainly the French and
English, who have tried to imitate them, do, putting the colour,
mixed with a little size or gum, on the face of the block with a
sponge; in fact they are printed water-colours. Several Frenchmen
have obtained in this way most notable results. Very similar was the
fashion of colour printing called chiaroscuro, used in the early part of
the century. The trouble with this was that the oil with which the
inks were mixed, either ran, or spoiled the pages, or did not dry
well. Drawings on grey paper in chalk can be wonderfully imitated in
this way, and there are methods of using steel and copper plates,
bitten into relief to get outlines or tints, which were also employed.
To-day in the printing of wood engravings and process blocks by
steam, at many thousands an hour, the same system of colour
printing, by placing the colours side by side, is being attempted, for
it is impossible to obtain fine tone or rich effect by placing one
colour on top of another, even in slow printing by hand, while it is
absurd to attempt it rapidly by steam. In the most successful
attempts yet made, those of the Le Quotidien Illustré and Le Rire,
Paris papers, colour printing from process blocks has been most
successfully done, and I do not doubt that in a very few years colour
printing in magazines and newspapers will be very general.
As I have said, all intelligent printers have now come to the
conclusion that simple flat colours, put on side by side, will alone
give good artistic results; they have only learned this, however, after
going quite to the other extreme: after trying to get pure colour and
rich effects by using the three primary colours on top of each other,
they obtained but crudeness, vulgarity, and mud.
Photography and chemistry are useful in art, but art cannot be
created by these means. It may be that some one, some day, will be
able to photograph a picture in colour, but there is as yet no
evidence of it.
Wood engravings may also be made by scraping or lowering the
fronts or backs of blocks, and rich, soft, fat effects can be produced.
Very little has been done, I think, with these lowered blocks, some
remarkable examples of which can be seen in Chatto and Jackson’s
“History of Wood Engraving.”
Photography has aided the artist very much in wood engraving
(though most engravers say it has not), and especially in colour
printing it can be made great use of; as, instead of tracing a design
on to several blocks, it can be photographed, thus ensuring accuracy
—though the Japanese obtained this without any photographic aids
—and saving much time.
Still, that is about as far as it goes at present, and photography will
never supersede art, though it is engaged in a famous struggle with
artlessness.
 LECTURE VII.

LITHOGRAPHY.

L
ITHOGRAPHY, for some time the rival of metal engraving and
even for a time of wood, was invented at the end of the last
century, and, as its name implies, is the art of drawing or writing
upon stone. Briefly, a peculiar grained stone, found in Germany, may
be drawn upon with greasy chalk or ink; afterward it is slightly
etched, only washed really, with weak nitric acid and water to fix the
drawing and somewhat reduce the surface of the stone; if the stone
be now covered with gum, allowed to dry, and then inked, the ink
adheres only to the drawing; and if a sheet of paper is placed on it,
and the whole passed through a press, a print, or rather the drawing
in ink, will come off on the paper. This is roughly the art of
lithography.
The most important consideration for you, however, is the making of
the drawing. This may be done in one of two ways: either upon the
stone itself, or upon transfer paper specially coated, so that the
entire drawing is transferred from the paper on which it is drawn, by
mechanical means, to the stone, and not merely a print from the
original drawing. For many reasons it would probably be best to
draw upon the stone itself always; because, first and above all, the
less intervention—even mechanical intervention—there is between
the artist and his work, the better; and in many cases it is not
possible to get good results unless the artist works on the stone. But
if one has to make a large drawing out of doors, it is obviously
impossible to carry about a big and heavy stone with one; therefore
lithographic transfer paper must be used if the work is to be done
from nature.
Before this paper was perfected (it is very good now, and can be
obtained from Hughes & Kimber of West Harding Street, though
Belfont’s of Paris is the best), the artist either copied his sketches,
studies, or pictures himself, on the stone, if he understood
lithography; or else his drawings were copied for him by some other
artists who were trained lithographers. One most notable example of
this is to be found in J. F. Lewis’s “Alhambra.” The originals by Lewis
were redrawn on the stone by J. D. Harding, J. Lane, and W. Ganci,
as well as by Lewis himself; inevitably some of these men’s
individuality was apparent, and even in the case of Lewis, much
must have been lost by copying his own designs; and if original work
is given to professional lithographers, in ninety-nine cases out of one
hundred all the real character is taken out of it. To-day, however, one
may draw upon transfer paper, being careful only not to touch it with
one’s fingers, either in lithographic chalk or lithographic ink, which is
only the chalk rubbed down and put on with a pen or brush, on this
paper, which should be fastened down like an oil sketch, in a box
having a cover, by drawing pins. Take the drawing to the printer; he
will put it on the stone and print it for you far better than you can do
it yourself; still this is rather expensive, as the transferring of the
drawing to the stone and pulling a few proofs will cost you about a
guinea. But if your design can be drawn in your own studio, or at the
lithographer’s, on the stone, it is not only much simpler, but the
result may be better, and you can employ more varied methods of
work. For example, you may draw with the lithographic crayon—
Lemercier’s are the best; get them at Lechertier & Barbe’s—just as
you would with ordinary chalk or crayon. For if the stone is grained
like paper, the design, if well printed, should look almost exactly like
a drawing on paper. On a smooth or ungrained stone you may draw
or write with pen or brush and lithographic ink, which is only the
crayon rubbed down with gum arabic, or ammonia and water, as you
would rub down Indian ink, only you must heat the saucer in which
you are rubbing it, a little. When you have done this, use Gillott’s
lithographic pens, putting the ink on the pen with a brush, or use a
trimmed sable brush brought to a fine point; you must make your
lines carefully, and get your ink of the right consistency, otherwise it
tends to blot and spread or smear. Again, you may mix more of the
medium with the rubbed-down crayon. I should say it rubs, when
warm, without water; this medium may be obtained ready mixed
from Way & Sons, Wellington Street, Strand; paint with it as you
would in water colours, adding more of the medium or more ink as
you wish little or much colour. I have tried only a couple of
experiments in this way, and they were both complete failures. The
trouble I found was this: in making light tones, the moment the
brush charged with colour touches the stone, the stone itself turns
much darker than the colour you are putting on it; and as it dries
out very slowly, the making of a wash drawing is a most tedious
process, unless one has had enough experience of the work to know
just the effect of the finished drawing, or rather just the effect of the
wash applied, which cannot be seen in its proper tone, while
working on the stone, since the appearance the stone presents so
long as it is wet is absolutely different to what it will look like when
dry, and it is almost impossible to work over washes, because the
colour floats off if they are gone over again, or at least smudges and
smears; still, corrections and additions can be made with the crayon
point, and the whole design brought pretty well together. The best
work in wash has been done by Lunois, a Frenchman. Corrections
are at all times difficult to make in lithographs, the error having to
be scratched out and the stone repaired in that spot, before the new
work can be put in again.
Stump drawings may be made by getting the crayon in powder and
smearing it on the stone in masses with a rag. Effects can be
obtained by removing too much colour with ordinary scrapers and
putting in modelling with stumps and the point of the crayon; or all
three of the methods I have mentioned may be combined, as they
often are, on the same stone, notably in the work of Hervier.
Tints may be obtained by stippling and splatter work, as in pen
drawings. There is a machine called an air brush, used by
lithographers for this purpose, but the introduction of mechanical
dodges has done much to harm lithography.
Zinc may be grained and drawn upon in the same way; why this
metal is not more generally used, I do not know, for it is much
lighter, more portable, and can be easily mounted on a plain stone to
print from.
Until lately it was maintained that only what was drawn on stone
could be got off it in a print. But Mr. Goulding, the etching printer,
who has been making a series of experiments, says he can get
almost as much variety of effect, by wiping the surface of the stone
carefully, in a small number of prints, as he can from a copper plate
(see Lecture on the printing of Etchings). Still, for you, the process
ordinarily will end with the drawing. Even the transferring is only to
be successfully done by skilled workmen, and until you can print an
etching decently, it would be scarcely worth while to try a lithograph.
Considering that the process is perfectly autographic, that the
materials are few and cheap, it is strange that it is so little employed
at present. But a very serious attempt is being made to revive it, and
as an artist like Mr. Whistler is the leader and initiator, I believe it will
be successful.
Colour printing by lithography, though very complicated, might be
tried by you; as many stones must be prepared for transferring the
design, made either on paper or stone, from the paper to stone, or
from one stone to another, as there are colours, and only that part
of the design which is of one colour must appear on one stone; if
you try to get colour prints in the usual fashion by printing one
colour over the other, you will obtain the usual commercial muddling
lithographic appearance. But if you mix your own colours for the
lithographer, and have the colours placed side by side, in flat masses
like the Japanese block prints (see Wood Engraving Lecture), you
should get good results.
There are endless other processes and methods of work, but they
are all more or less complicated, and require special training and
special tools, and even machinery, and one who wishes to pursue
the subject further must go to a lithographer and learn the trade.
But in order to get artistic effects only, one has but to draw or paint
on paper or stone as one would ordinarily. The means are most
simple, and the results should be most interesting.
 LECTURE VIII.

ETCHING.

I
N all the various methods of making illustrations to which I have
so far called your attention, it was necessary that some part of
the work should be done by a specially trained craftsman, at least
if any practical and commercial result was desired.
Now in etching, the more you yourselves do and the less any one
else does, the better should be the result.
An etching is, in its narrowest sense, a print from a metal plate into
which a design has been bitten or eaten by acid; again, in most of
the other methods, the printing was from relief blocks like type, and
therefore those illustrations could be printed with type. Now we have
to consider another sort of work, namely, intaglio, or incised, or
sunken work not printed from the surface, but from lines cut below
it, and therefore unavailable for letterpress printing. Of course it
would be easy to make a relief block in metal, or an incised block of
wood, to reverse the treatment in printing, but it would not be
natural or right.
The whole difference is this: if a wood block has a line cut in the
surface and the whole face is inked with a roller, the line will print
white and the rest of the block black. If the etching plate is inked
and cleaned off, as is always done, it will print white; if a line is cut
in it, the ink will remain in that and produce a black line. Of course
they must be printed in appropriate presses.
In its broadest sense an etching may be produced in any one of a
number of ways, by the artist, on a metal plate which may be
printed from.
It is never a process or mechanical engraving, and never was and
never will be, and the attempt to palm off mechanical blocks or
plates is a swindle and a humbug.
Etchings are produced in the following manner; at least this is the
best and simplest method.
A plate of highly polished copper, zinc, or even steel, iron, or
aluminium is obtained from the makers, William Longman, of
Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, or from Messrs. Hughes & Kimber,
West Harding Street, Fetter Lane, or Messrs. Roberson, 99, Long
Acre. Copper, however, is the best and almost universally used. This
should be carefully cleaned with a soft rag and whiting; then it
should be gripped by a vice with a wooden handle, in one corner,
care being taken to put a piece of soft paper between the vice and
the plate to keep the teeth of the former from scratching it; heated,
either upon an iron frame with a spirit or Bunsen lamp under it, or
over the gas, until, if you take a ball of etching ground and touch the
plate with it, the ground melts. This ground is made of resin, wax,
and gum; the best is made by Sellers in England and Cadart in
France. All these materials can be bought of Roberson or Hughes &
Kimber. Touch the hot plate in several places with the ground. It
should melt at once; then take an American etching roller (which I
think you can only obtain at Roberson’s) and go over the plate
rapidly with it in every direction, until the little masses of melted
ground have been spread evenly and thinly in a film all over it. With
a little practice you should be able to do this in a couple of minutes,
and you can lay in this way (which is unknown virtually in England) a
thinner, harder, more even and very much better ground, with less
trouble, than in any other. Heat the plate again a little more, and
take a bundle of wax tapers twisted together by heating them, light
them and pass them under the face of the plate held, varnished side
downwards, by the vice; do not touch the plate with the taper, or
the varnish, being still melted, will come off, but go rapidly back and
forward, allowing the flame only to touch the surface. In a few
minutes the varnish will have been completely blackened by the
smoke. Next, take a bottle of stopping-out varnish (which you may
as well buy; don’t bother to make it) and cover the back and edges
of the plate. If this is done while the plate is hot, it dries very fast,
and as soon as the plate is cool it is ready to work on.
This is the first stage. The waxy ground is put on to protect the plate
from the acid with which it is to be bitten, and it must be so well
made and well put on, that one can draw through it, without tearing
it up and without any resistance; also it must adhere firmly to the
plate, where it is not drawn through, and must resist the acid
perfectly in the untouched parts. The smoking is done to enable you
to see your lines in the copper, light on dark; this is rather curious at
first, but you will get used to it. The stopping-out varnish is also to
protect the plate, and is only a cheaper sort of ground dissolved in
oil of lavender or ether. When the plate is cool, it should be of a
brilliant uniform black, and if there are any dull, smoky-looking
places on it, the ground is burnt. Here the ground may be rubbed
off, or will show cracks, if you touch it, in these places, and the
varnish should be cleaned off the face with turpentine, the plate
carefully dried and regrounded. Otherwise the varnish will either
crack while you are drawing on it, or come off in the bath of acid,
and your work will be spoiled.
You draw upon the varnished plate with needles or points; any steel
points will do, from a knitting-needle to the best big point you can
get. The small needles invented by Mr. Whistler I find the best; but
this is a personal liking. They are of all shapes and sizes. You may
commence and draw in your entire subject, only remembering that
you must leave your foreground lines further apart than those in the
distance.
You may make your drawing either with the same needle, all over, or
with needles of different sizes; for though one half of the art is in
the drawing, the other half, and the really characteristic half, is in the
biting. There is very little to be said about the drawing, save that
you must draw just as well as ever you can; you will find out almost
immediately that you have the most responsive tool in your fingers,
and that you can work with it in any direction. Do not bother, if you
use the same needle, because the drawing looks flat, and the lines
are of the same width; the biting will fix all that. Draw away; if you
are afraid to tackle the copper straight away with a point, paint your
design on it, with a little Chinese white, or, if you have a pencil
drawing of the subject, you may make a tracing from it, and go over
that, transferring it to the plate; or you may turn the drawing face
down and run it through a copper plate press; the drawing will come
off on the varnished surface in reverse, and if you are doing a
portrait of a place you must otherwise reverse it yourself. If you wish
to sketch from nature in reverse, put up a mirror on an easel, and
turn your back to the subject, drawing from the picture in the mirror,
for, you must remember, that any subject drawn, as you see it, on a
copper plate, or even a wood-block, prints in reverse.
Next, to bite or etch the drawing into the copper plate, take equal
parts of nitric acid and water and mix them in a glass-stoppered
bottle, some hours before you wish to use the mixture, for there is
enough heat produced by the chemical action to melt the ground if it
is used at once.
Or have a quantity of what is known as Dutch mordant made; this is
composed of—
Two parts Chlorate of Potash,
Ten parts Hydrochloric Acid,
Eighty-eight parts water.
Next, get an ordinary photographer’s porcelain or rubber bath or
tray; lay the plate in it, pour the acid over it; in a few seconds
bubbles will arise, in all the lines; brush them away with a feather;
leave the plate, if there is any fine work on it, in the bath for only
two or three minutes, say for a light sky; take it out with rubber
finger-tips or a stick, for the acid will burn your fingers and a drop
will rot your clothes, staining them light yellow; wash the plate
thoroughly in clean water, dry it carefully with blotting-paper. Take
some of your stopping-out varnish, thin it with a little (a very little)
turpentine, paint over the very lightest parts of the drawing with a
camel’s-hair brush dipped in the diluted varnish, and thus stop them
out—that is, stop them from biting any more by painting them with
the varnish. Wait till the places where you have painted the varnish
are thoroughly dry; then put the plate in the bath again and bite the
next stronger, nearer set of lines; of course, save where the lines are
covered by the stopping-out varnish, they will keep on biting.
Continue biting and stopping out till you get to the foreground,
where the lines should now be quite broad and deep; take off the
ground front and back by washing it with a rag dipped in turpentine,
dry it, and the plate is ready to print from.
Another method is to commence by drawing in the darks, biting
them, then drawing in the middle distance, the darks going on biting
all the while, and finally the extreme distance, when the whole plate
will be biting together; by this method no stopping out is necessary,
but in working out of doors it is awkward to carry baths and acid
around with one, otherwise one must run back to the studio, to bite
between each stage. But these two methods can be mixed up, and
frequently are, and you may also work in the bath, drawing lines
through or over others, thus getting richness while the biting is
going on. The bad fumes which are given off during the biting are
not dangerous. In working with the Dutch mordant, which bites
slower than nitric acid and makes no bubbles, but bites straight
down, while nitric acid enlarges the lines laterally, you will inhale
much of the fumes, but they won’t hurt you. Although you do not
see any action with the Dutch mordant, brush the lines with a
feather, else a deposit is formed and they will bite unevenly.
It is very difficult to tell when a plate is well bitten, the biting is very
difficult, but on taking it out of the bath and holding it on a level
with your eye, you can see the bitten lines; you can also feel the
biting with a needle, and you may take off a bit of the varnish with
your thumb-nail or turpentine and look at the lines, re-covering them
again with the stopping-out varnish; but after this, of course, they
will not bite in that place.
Again, the lines do not bite evenly; where they are close together
they bite faster, and, after the plate has been in the acid some time,
it may change its speed of biting; differences of atmosphere and
temperature affect it even with the same acid on the same day; if
the nitric acid is too weak add more acid; if too strong pour in water,
and quick, else the ground will come off: it is too strong when it
boils and bubbles all over; it is too weak when there are no bubbles.
Dutch mordant eats always slowly, and never, so far as I know,
destroys the ground. At the last, for very strong darks, you may
sometimes use a little pure nitric acid, but it will most likely tear up
the ground, and if you leave it long enough will spoil all your lines,
giving you only a great black hole. These are the systems employed
by all etchers; the lengthy dissertations about white ground, silver
ground, positive and negative processes, need not concern you, they
are never practised, and mostly unknown to the best men. These
simple directions should enable you to produce artistic plates, if you
have the necessary ability. Still, when you have had a proof of your
plate pulled—I will talk of printing in the next lecture—you will find
that there are all sorts of imperfections in it, possibly holes, places
where it is not bitten enough or too much bitten, or that it is too
dark or too light all over; it is but seldom that a plate is right when
the first proof is pulled. If you find a hole bitten in it, take a
burnishing tool, flatten the hole down as much as possible, find the
place on the back with a pair of calipers, hammer it up from the
back, placing it on an anvil, burnish it again and polish the surface
with charcoal, oil, and rags; revarnish the place, redraw, and rebite
it. If it is only a small place you may take up some nitric acid on a
feather, and paint the little spot to be rebitten with that. A few drops
of the acid have nearly as much power as a great deal. In fact you
may paint the face of your plate with acid and do your biting in that
way, without ever immersing it in the bath at all. If it is too much
bitten it must be rubbed down with charcoal and oil, a tedious
process. If it is too light it must be rebitten all over; then take a
rebiting roller, putting some liquid etching ground on a separate
plate, take the ground up on the roller and roll the face of the plate
very carefully; the ground should cover the face without going into
any of the lines; heat it very slightly to dry the ground, leave it for a
day or so and then bite as before. If there are places where lines
want joining or little touches of dark would be effective, put them in
with a graver or a point.
You may use a graver altogether, and produce a line engraving; or a
point, either steel or diamond, and make what is known as a dry-
point etching, that is, merely a scratched drawing on the copper; the
point throws up, as you draw with it, a furrow, which is greater or
less as you incline the point, and this holds the ink, and is called
burr, and gives for a few proofs great richness; a steel face can,
however, be put on the copper plate, and any number of pulls may
be taken. The difference between the cutting of lines with a graver
and the drawing of them with a point is this: the graver, both in
metal and wood, is pushed from one; the point in etching, and even
the knives in wood cutting, are drawn toward one.
Messrs. Roberson have invented a plate of celluloid which, for dry
point work, seems to be fairly good, and as this plate is white or
cream-coloured, as one draws on it the lines may be filled up with
paint, and one may thus see the drawing as one works. Of course,
the same thing may be done with dry point on copper. The great
advantage of the celluloid is its lightness. It must not, however, be
heated in printing, otherwise it will be ruined. Many etchers are now
making experiments with aluminium, but no certain results have as
yet been obtained.
There are many other forms of engraving included under the title of
Etching, although, properly speaking, they have nothing to do with
it.
Aquatint: a ground, made by depositing powdered resin in solution
with spirits of wine, is poured on the plate, slightly heated, and as it
dries the resin adheres to the plate and cracks up irregularly; a
drawing may be made on this, and stopped out in the usual way. Or
powdered resin may be sprinkled on the plate, heated, when it will
adhere, or the plate may be placed in a box containing resin in very
fine powder, heated, and the box shaken; the resin will settle on it
and produce the ground.
A very similar ground may be made by passing the ordinarily-
grounded plate through a copper-plate printing-press, with a piece
of sandpaper over it, three or four times, then the design may be
painted on it in stopping-out varnish, and at times a very good result
may be obtained. Lines may be put in, etched before the ground is
laid; but personally I don’t like the lines at all; without them the
result is rather like a bitten painting. Silk and canvas can also be
placed on the grounded plate, which is then run through the press,
to get tints in the ground.
Tints may be obtained after the plate is bitten by painting it with
olive oil and sprinkling flowers of sulphur on it, which gives a very
charming tint, but it does not last long; I believe that if acid is
poured over it, it may last better. Mr. Frank Short says so, but I have
never tried the experiment.
Soft ground etchings are made by mixing etching ground and tallow
together in equal proportions, covering the plate with this
composition by means of the roller: that is, put some of the
composition on a clean plate, pass the roller over it till it is covered
with the soft ground, and then roll it on to the plate on which you
propose to work, smoke it and then stretch a piece of rough-grained
or lined drawing paper over the face, as paper is stretched for
making water-colours, draw upon this with a lead pencil and then
carefully take the paper off; you must not rest on or touch the plate
with your fingers; the ground comes away with the paper where the
pencil has passed, and the design is seen on the copper, and is then
to be bitten in as in ordinary etching.
Mezzotint is also included, for some unknown reason, with etching.
The face of the plate is roughened in every direction by going over it
with a toothed instrument called a rocker, until it will print perfectly
black; the design is then traced on it; the drawing is made by
scraping down the lights, and finally by burnishing the whites quite
smooth.
Tint effects can also be obtained by a smooth-toothed wheel, the
roulette, the same as that used by process engravers; only here it
produces blacks, while they use it to get lights.
Monotypes, that is paintings made in colour or black and white on a
bare copper plate in the usual way, though they must be handled
thinly, may be passed through the press, and they will yield one
exquisitely soft and delicate impression. The electrotyping and
duplicating of them changes their character and value entirely: it is a
ridiculous and inartistic proceeding.
But after going through all this list,—I have barely referred to steel
engraving in line, which, as I have said, is only working with an
ordinary graver in steel, and is slow and tedious, unsatisfactory
drudgery; or to stipple engraving, dotting and biting in dots, instead
of lines, as practised by Bartolozzi,—one comes back to the simple
method I described at first, the method with some improvements of
Rembrandt, the method of Whistler, or in dry point the method of
Helleu; and what is good enough for those masters should be good
enough for you.
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