Despite Stubbins' images of heat, the most enthusiastic word Lincoln could in justice apply to the round of applause he got was tepid. That did not surprise him. Here in Great Falls, he would have been surprised had it proved otherwise. When he took his place behind the podium, he stood exposed to the crowd from the middle of his belly up. That didn't surprise him, either; almost every podium behind which he'd ever stood-and he'd stood behind a great forest of them-had been made for a smaller race of men.
He sipped at the glass of water thoughtfully placed there, then began: "My friends, they ran me out of Helena because they said I made a riot there. As God is my witness, I tell you I made no riot there."
No applause came from the crowd. Shouts of "Liar!" rang out. So did other shouts: "We have the telegraph!" and "We know what happened!"
Lincoln held up a hand. "I made no riot there," he repeated. "That riot made itself." More outcry rose from the audience. The young colonel in the second row wearing a red bandanna seemed ready to bounce out of his chair, if not out of his uniform. Lincoln waited for quiet. When he finally got something close to it, he went on, "Do you think, my friends, the honest labourers who heard me in Helena would have turned the town on its ear had they been happy with their lot? I did not make them unhappy with it. How could I have done so, having only just arrived? All I did was remind them of what they had, and what in law and justice they were entitled to, and invite them to compare the one to the other. If that should be inciting to riot, then Adams and Franklin and Washington and Jefferson deserved the hangings they did not get."
Sudden silence slammed down. He had hoped for as much. The people still remembered freedom, no matter how the plutocrats tried to make them forget. Heartened, Lincoln continued, "So many in Helena, like so many elsewhere in the United States-so many even here, in Great Falls-labour so that a few who are rich can become richer. Ignorant old man that I am, I have a moderately hard time seeing the fairness there.
"A capitalist will tell you that his wealth benefits everyone. Maybe he is even telling you the truth, although my experience is that these capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people. Or do you not think his wealth would benefit you more, were some part of it in your pocket rather than his?"
That got a laugh-not a large one, but a laugh. "Tell 'em, Abe!" somebody called. Somebody else hissed.
Lincoln held up his hand again. Quiet, this time, came quicker. He said, "Even before the War of Secession, I made my views on the matter clear. As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. Democracy has no place for slaves or masters. To whatever extent it makes such a place, it is no longer democracy. A man with silk drawers, a gold stickpin, and a diamond on his pinky may disagree. What of the miner in his tattered overalls or the shopkeeper in his apron? Does not the capitalist trample them down, by his own rising up?
"And does he not sow the seeds of his own destruction in the trampling? For when, through this means, he has succeeded in dehumanizing the labouring proletariat by whose sweat he eats soft bread, when he has again and again put the working man down and made him as nearly one with the beasts of the field as he can, when he has placed him where any ray of hope is extinguished and his soul sits in darkness like the souls of the damned… When the capitalist has done all this, does he not fear, while he sips his champagne, that the demon he has made will one day turn and rend him!"
That was the sentence upon which his speech in Helena had ended. He had not intended it to end there. He had planned to go on for some time. But the ragged miners there construed his words literally, and acted on what he had taken for (or part of him had taken for) a mere figure of speech.
Here in Great Falls, he got no riot. He did get an audience perhaps more attentive than it had planned on being. When he saw men leaning forward to hear him better, he knew he'd succeeded. "My friends, the defense of our nation lies not in our strength of arms, though 1 wish our arms every success in this war upon which we are engaged. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. If we let it perish, we grow the seeds of tyranny on our own soil. If we suffer our labourers to wear the chains of wage slavery, we look forward to the day when the nation is enchained.
"To our north, in Canada, we find a people with a different government from ours, being ruled by a Queen. Turning south to the Confederate States, we see a people who, while they boast of being free, continue to hold their fellow men in bondage. At present, we are at war with both these peoples, not least because we do not wish to permit their unfree power to be extended. If is altogether fitting and proper that we should struggle, if struggle we must, for such a cause.
"Yet will we fight for the cause of freedom abroad, while allowing the same cause to perish at home'} We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some, the word means for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and with the product of his labour. With others, the same word means for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labour. The fullness of time, I am convinced, will prove to the world which is the true definition of the word, and my earnest hope remains that the United States of America shall yet lead the way in the proving."
In Great Falls, he got applause, warmer than when he was introduced. In Helena, that passage might have touched off the riot had the previous one not done it. In a way, he appreciated the polite hearing. In another way, he would sooner have been booed off the platform. People who listened politely and forgot an hour later what they'd heard were no great asset to the cause of liberty.
"We shall have change in this country, my friends," he said. "I leave you tonight with this thought to take to your homes: if we cannot find a peaceable way to bring about this change, we shall find another way, as our forefathers did in 1776. We have now, as we had then, the revolutionary right to overthrow a government become a tyranny to benefit only to the rich. I pray we shall have no need to exercise this right. But it is there, and, if the need be there as well, we shall take it up, and the foundations of the nation shall tremble. Good night."
As he stepped down, he got about what he'd expected: cheers and catcalls mixed together. One fight started in the back of the hall. Instead of joining in, the men around the fighters pulled them apart and hustled them outside. Lincoln smiled, ever so slightly: no, it hadn't been like that in Helena.
Lancaster Stubbins came up to Lincoln and shook his hand. "That was very fine, sir, very fine indeed," he said. "You'll stay the night with my family and me?"
"I should be honored," Lincoln said. Stubbins was earnest and sincere, and, when and if the new revolution came, would undoubtedly be swept away. Still-"It will prove a better bed, I am sure, than the one I enjoyed-though that is scarcely the proper word-in Fort Douglas."
Getting to the promised bed would take a while. Some people came forward to congratulate him. Some people came forward to argue with him. Half an hour after the speech was done, he was still alternately shaking hands and arguing. That brash young cavalry colonel stuck a finger in his chest and growled, "You, sir, are a Marxian Socialist."
His tone was anything but approving. Lincoln found himself surprised; men who so emphatically disagreed with his positions seldom came so close to identifying their true nature. "That is near the mark-near, but not quite on it, Colonel…?" he said.