LOGAN, JOHN ALEXANDER. 



505 



"War. When that was over, he removed to the 

 Territory of Illinois, where he emancipated 

 slaves owned in Virginia. Mrs. Logan's fa- 

 ther, Oapt. John Cunningham, served in the 

 Black Hawk War, and in the war with Mexico, 

 after which he was a member of the Illinois 

 Legislature. His wife, Mrs. Logan's mother, 

 was descended from a family of Fontaines, 

 French people, who settled in Louisiana while 

 it belonged to France, and then came up the 

 Mississippi, settling in Missouri. There Miss 

 Fontaine met and married John Cunningham, 

 and their daughter Mary was born to the hard- 

 ships of frontier life. Although she assisted 

 her mother in all the complex duties that their 

 situation called for, the little girl had succeed- 

 .ed in gaining so much knowledge of the rudi- 

 ments of an education that on his return from 

 the wars her father sent her to the convent of 

 Sc. Vincent, in Kentucky, the best young ladies' 

 school of that region. The family were Bap- 

 tists; but, although the pupil did not enjoy the 

 religious services, she acquired friends as well 

 as knowledge. After leaving school she as- 

 sisted in preparing the papers needed by her 

 father as sheriff of the county, clerk of the 

 courts, and register of the land-office. Blank 

 forms for any legal documents were rare, and 

 Miss Cunningham wrote nearly all of these pa- 

 pers. While thus employed, she met John A. 

 Logan, who was prosecuting attorney. 



Mr. Logan, like his father before him, was 

 a Democrat, and in 1856 was chosen a presi- 

 dential elector for Buchanan and Breckin- 

 ridge. That autumn and in 1857 he was re- 

 turned to the Legislature. In the autumn of 

 1858, the year of the controversy between 

 Lincoln and Douglas, Mr. Logan received a 

 nomination to represent the Ninth District of 

 Illinois in Congress. He received much of 

 his support from old-line Whigs, and an over- 

 whelming majority fifteen thousand to two 

 thousand. Representative Logan became wide- 

 ly known as a defender of Senator Douglas 

 from personal attacks. Concerning his views 

 on national politics at this time, there is a 

 response in his own words: "I was born a 

 Democrat; and all my life I have learned to 

 believe that the Democratic party, in national 

 convention, never does wrong. I have buried 

 past issues. I have done with them. Ignor- 

 ing them, I say that I am a Democrat, with- 

 out a prefix to my name. I am for Stephen 

 A. Douglas for the next President of the 

 United States first, last, and all the time. If 

 he is not nominated, I am for the next man 

 that is, sir, the man who is nominated." It 

 was a time when old party lines were break- 

 ing up rapidly under the pressure of more tre- 

 mendous issues, and Logan made burning ap- 

 peals to his party to be true to the Union and 

 the Constitution. In an address in caucus, he 

 said : " I have been taught to believe that the 

 preservation of this Union, with its broad flag 

 waving over us as the shield for our protec- 

 tion on land and on sea, is paramount to all 



the parties and platforms that ever have ex- 

 isted or ever can exist. I would to-day, if I 

 had the power, sink my own party and every 

 other one, with all their platforms, into the 

 vortex of ruin, without heaving a sigh or 

 shedding a tear, to save the Union or even 

 stop the revolution where it is ! What shall I 

 say to my gallant constituents when I return 

 to them? Shall I bear the ill tidings that 

 nothing has been done in Congress to give 

 them a ray of hope for the future of our 

 country? Must I tell those gallant Tennes- 

 seeans, Kentuckians, and men from different 

 Southern States, that ere long, if they should 

 desire to visit the soil of their nativity, they 

 must be prepared to visit a foreign and per- 

 haps a hostile government? Shall I say to 

 the sons of gallant old Virginia, the mother 

 of our own State, that it is highly probable 

 that very soon, if they want to visit the soil 

 where their lathers and* mothers, the man 

 who wrote the Declaration of Independence, 

 the one who drafted the Constitution, and the 

 one who, with our poor and half -starved 

 armies, drove the British from our land, 

 signed the Constitution, and was our first 

 President, all lie buried that they will at 

 some future day have the opportunity, with 

 a passport in their pockets, or, in certain 

 events, they can do so with a torch in one 

 hand and a sword in the other? No, no! Let 

 me not bear this sad intelligence. In the name 

 of the patriotic sires who breasted the storms 

 and vicissitudes of the Revolution ; by all the 

 kindred ties of this country ; in the name of 

 the many battles fought for our freedom ; in 

 behalf of the young and the old ; in behalf of 

 the arts and sciences, civilization, peace, order, 

 Christianity, and humanity, I appeal to you to 

 strike from your limbs the chains that bind 

 them ; come forth from that loathsome prison, 

 the party caucus, and in this hour, the most 

 gloomy and disheartening to the lovers of free 

 institutions that has ever existed during our 

 country's history, arouse the drooping spirits 

 of our countrymen by putting forth your good 

 strong arms to assist in steadying the rocking 

 pillars of the mightiest republic that has ever 

 had an existence." 



In 1860 Mr. Logan was re-elected. He sup- 



S)rted Douglas with all his strength ; but when 

 r. Lincoln was declared elected he said, "I 

 would shoulder my musket to have him inau- 

 gurated, if any armed demonstration should 

 be made." With many others, Mr. Logan was 

 swept by the march of events into the ranks 

 of the Republican party ; or, at least, be acted 

 heart and soul with President Lincoln and his 

 advisers. He repeated the words uttered by 

 Douglas in his last public speech : " The con- 

 spiracy is now known, armies have been raised, 

 war is levied to accomplish it. There are only 

 two sides to the question. Every man must 

 be for the United States or against it. There 

 can be no neutrals in this war." In July, 

 1861, during the extra session of Congress, he 



