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Lincoln Centennial Address 
 
 Delivered by Jesse Holdom 
 
 At McKinley High School, Chicago 
 
 February 12, 1909 
 
 Compliments of 
 JESSE HOLDOM 
 

 vV 
 
 2. 
 
LINCOLN CENTENNIAL ADDRESS 
 
 Delivered by Jesse Holdom 
 At McKinley High School, Chicago 
 February 12, 1909 
 
 E meet today to commemorate the Cen- 
 tennial of the birth of the Saviour of 
 the Union, through whose mighty 
 struggle and sagacious intellect the 
 Union was re-established and the seed 
 sown which has ripened into a Nation of world-wide 
 power and influence, and which will ever be in the van 
 of momentous activity in all that tends to the civilization 
 of mankind. The name and the fame of Abraham Lin- 
 coln are immortal. High on the scroll of imperishable 
 distinction his name and wondrous deeds shine forth 
 to illumine history and instruct and enthuse the people 
 of the world wherever righteousness and high ideals are 
 struggled for and attained. 
 
 Illinois and Chicago, its metropolitan city, have the 
 greatest incentive to participate in the tribute which 
 today is being paid to the memory of this great man 
 throughout the length and breadth of this Nation, for 
 whose preservation he toiled ceaselessly and finally 
 yielded up his life in sacrifice. For it was upon the 
 fertile soil of Illinois that he was nurtured, and in the 
 invigorating breezes of its flower bedecked prairies his 
 physical and mental powers were developed to the 
 majestic proportions which they ultimately attained. In 
 the courts of Chicago many triumphs in legal contests 
 stand accredited to him. After a political contest un- 
 
equalled in the annals of political strife, pitted as he was 
 against both the most crafty politicians and the wisest 
 statesmen of his time and country, in a Convention 
 remarkable for the gravity of the responsibilities resting 
 upon it, at a time when the Nation was threatened with 
 disruption, he received the nomination, as the first repre- 
 sentative of the Republican Party, for the Presidency 
 of the United States. 
 
 Here in Illinois, to the time of his nomination to the 
 Presidency in 1860, he spent most of the days of his 
 mentally conscious life. All that he was and all that 
 came to him as a lawyer, State and National legislator, 
 and finally as the Chief Executive of the Nation, he 
 gained as a citizen of Illinois. His forensic struggles 
 with the "Little Giant" of Illinois, the great Douglas, 
 took place before audiences throughout the State. He 
 fought the Indians in the Black Hawk war as Captain 
 Lincoln. To the time of his election to the Presidency, 
 save in the halls of Congress and in the Cooper Institute, 
 New York, where his matchless, convincing oratory and 
 pleasing and simple manners made him a national figure 
 of the most colossal type, his voice was not heard except 
 in the Capitol at Springfield or in the courts and upon 
 the stump in political debate in Illinois. How fitting, 
 therefore, is it, that we of Illinois should with gladness 
 and pride commemorate this centennial epoch of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln and join, with intensity of devotion to, and 
 reverence for, his name and deeds, in this national cele- 
 bration. And so we come today and lay upon the altar 
 of his memory our loving tribute, and worship at the 
 shrine of his glorious accomplishments. 
 
 This school house, dedicated to the memory of the 
 martyred President McKinley, one worthy to stand in 
 
the line of succession to the great Lincoln, and who 
 was himself a soldier in the great army in the fight for 
 liberty and a national government, of which Lincoln 
 was, in virtue of his office, the Commander in Chief, 
 is a place peculiarly appropriate for the conduct of 
 these exercises. The aroma of the memory of both these 
 martyred Presidents permeates the atmosphere of this 
 place, hallowed for the time being with holy thoughts 
 of the life and accomplishments of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 What shall I say to you today about Lincoln? What 
 can I say that has not already been better said? Lin- 
 colnian literature is bewildering for its immensity. All, 
 however, that has ever been written about Lincoln is 
 interesting to every lover of his country. And who has 
 not read and re-read of the wonderful attainments and 
 work of this great historical character? Had I been 
 commanded to tell you something new about Lincoln, 
 something not very generally known, I should have de- 
 clined the task. So, while what I may say to you is 
 but the old, old story of Lincoln, still, as you love and 
 admire him and glory in what he achieved for the perma- 
 nent good of our race and country, you will gladly listen, 
 with cheerful hearts, to whatever I may say, no matter 
 how well such incidents as I shall recite may linger in 
 your memory. 
 
 The life of Lincoln is more fascinating in its interest 
 than that of a Napoleon or a Caesar. It has more of 
 character, which virtue admires, and more of lessons 
 to be learned from noble acts of self-abnegation and 
 sacrifice, which incite our interest and stimulate our 
 patriotism and civic pride. 
 
 Like the founder of the Christian religion, he was 
 "a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief." Trials 
 
stirred his fortitude and molded his character from the 
 cradle in a lowly cabin in Kentucky until he was basely 
 and wickedly assassinated at the moment of the triumph 
 of our armies in the holy cause of freedom, for which 
 a sanguine and bloody strife had been waged for four 
 long, weary and anxious years. 
 
 Lincoln belonged to the common people. When asked 
 for his lineage he replied, that "it was the short and 
 simple annals of the poor." He was cradled in poverty, 
 and to the time of his maturer manhood confronted with 
 the hardships of a pioneer life in what was then the 
 Western frontier of our country. Poverty and hardship 
 were, in his case, blessings in disguise. He lived the 
 outdoor life. He communed with Nature. His soul 
 thirsted for knowledge. His aims and ideals were lofty. 
 He lacked the vices of adolescence. His life was as pure 
 as the air of the prairies he inhaled. His body and mind 
 were unpolluted and free from vicious act or thought 
 and so remained to the end of his career. They were 
 uncontaminated even after his contact with politicians, 
 the diplomats of the world and the allurements of a gay 
 capital. 
 
 Lincoln's career will ever be an inspiration and en- 
 couragement to those who seek to burst the bonds of 
 lowly birth and go forth to higher things. Did he not 
 obtain the rudiments of his education under the most 
 discouraging conditions? Was it not a continual 
 struggle for him to procure books to read, and then to 
 obtain time in which to read them? He became, with- 
 out a teacher, the master of English diction, and some 
 of his writings and utterances today form part of the 
 classical literature of the English tongue. Without univer- 
 sity training or even a high school course, he is counted 
 
as one of the greatest orators of his age, which encom- 
 passed Webster, Clay, Calhoun and Senator Douglas, 
 the latter of whom he encountered in forensic discussion 
 of the burning questions of the time, and thrilled the 
 hearts of all who listened to his plain and forceful state- 
 ments, made without any attempt at oratorical effect. 
 His presence was not prepossessing, but he never spoke 
 to an audience he did not win, and although many were 
 the times he encountered gatherings which were hostile 
 never did he appeal to them without winning their ap- 
 plause and convincing their minds. 
 
 Lincoln was noted for his rugged honesty, his sim- 
 plicity, his directness, his good common sense and un- 
 erring judgment of men. The sense of humor he pos- 
 sessed in abundance. It was his solace in moments 
 of stress and difficulty. His stories were always told 
 to explain an otherwise embarrassing condition, or to 
 emphasize a point under discussion. He talked at times 
 in parables and they were as clean as those of Holy 
 Writ. Whenever you hear an off story credited to Lin- 
 coln you may be sure it never sullied his lips. To so 
 great a length did he carry this habit of telling humorous 
 stories that he is regarded by some eminent writers as 
 the father of American humor for which Americans have 
 since become so justly famed. 
 
 Lincoln was as homely in his habits, as careless of 
 his personal appearance, as any man who ever lived and 
 attained distinction of the first order. He put on no 
 style and assumed no airs. It is said that "he was his 
 own wood chopper, hostler, stable boy and cow boy, 
 clear down to, and even beyond the time he was Presi- 
 dent elect of the United States." In affirmance of his 
 utter oblivion to conventionality, an author informs us 
 
that "in Winter an old gray shawl was wrapped about 
 his neck. His hat had no nap, his boots were unblacked, 
 his clothes unbrushed; he carried a dilapidated carpet 
 bag for legal papers, a folded green umbrella with the 
 knob gone, a string tied about the middle, and the name 
 ' A. Lincoln ' cut out of white muslin in large letters 
 and sewed on the inside. He always wore short trousers 
 and usually a short circular blue coat, which he got in 
 Washington in 1849, and kept for ten years, and which, 
 like his vest, hung very loosely on his frame. He slept 
 in a warm yellow flannel shirt, which came half way 
 between his knees and his ankles. The changes which 
 gradually took place in his dress, which reached its 
 greatest elegance in his Presidency, were slight and 
 marked no decrease in his own innocence about appear- 
 ances, the improvements being usually suggested to him 
 by his wife and friends. Lying on the floor in his shirt 
 sleeves was a favorite attitude for reading. As he had 
 no library, and the parlor, with its sofa, six haircloth 
 chairs and marble table strewn with gift books in blue 
 and gilt, expressed not his spirit, but his wife's, he often 
 chose the hall for his recumbent study; and if women 
 happened to call, Lincoln would go to the door attired 
 as he was, and promise that he 'would trot the women 
 folks out.' " 
 
 This unconventional man, however, was an indulgent 
 parent, seemingly unwilling to cross his children in any- 
 thing, and would romp with them upon the floor and was 
 fond of taking walks with them and accompanying them 
 to light entertainments, such as minstrel and magic 
 lantern shows. Yet the tender-hearted parent, in the 
 trial of a cause, was "hurtful in denunciation and merci- 
 less in castigation," as many a dishonest litigant found 
 to his cost. 
 
 6 
 
Lincoln had an inborn love of freedom and a natural 
 antipathy to the holding of any human being in slavery. 
 He was conservative in his course along these lines, for 
 he early realized the seemingly insuperable obstacles to 
 the abandonment of the slave traffic which was so 
 securely embedded in the policy of the South. He saw 
 the dangers of disunion, which he painstakingly sought 
 to avoid. But early in his debates with Douglas the 
 slave question was debated. As early as 1841 Lincoln 
 on a steamboat journey from Louisville to St. Louis, 
 saw twelve negro slaves shackled together with irons. 
 In commenting on this episode, he said that that sight 
 was a constant torture to him. Lincoln, in answering 
 a speech made by Douglas upholding the Dred Scott 
 decision, then lately decided by the Federal Supreme 
 Court, uttered these ever memorable words: "I protest 
 against the counterfeit logic which concludes that be- 
 cause I don't want a black woman for a slave, I must 
 necessarily want her for a wife. I need not have her 
 for either. I can just leave her alone. In some respects 
 she certainly is not my equal; but in her natural right 
 to eat the bread she earns with her own hands, without 
 asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the 
 equal of all others." 
 
 When Lincoln was the choice of the Illinois Repub- 
 lican State Convention in 1858, for United States Sen- 
 ator, against the protests of his friends, who feared that 
 this would jeopardize his political future, he gave utter- 
 ance to these sentiments in accepting that nomination: 
 "We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was 
 initiated with the avowed object and confident purpose 
 of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the opera- 
 tion of that policy, it has not only not ceased, but con- 
 
 7 
 
stantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease 
 until a crisis has been reached and passed. 'A house 
 divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this gov- 
 ernment cannot endure permanently half slave and half 
 free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do 
 not expect the house to fall. But I do expect it will 
 cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all 
 the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest 
 the further spread of it and place it where the public 
 mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of 
 ultimate extinction ; or its advocates will push it forward 
 till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as 
 well as new. North as well as South." Here was fore- 
 shadowed the gift of prophecy, and while Abraham Lin- 
 coln lost the election to the United States Senate, in 
 five short years thereafter he put pen to the Emancipa- 
 tion proclamation which struck the shackles which held 
 in the bondage of slavery every negro in the land. 
 
 When Lincoln left Springfield to assume the arduous 
 and difficult task for which the people had called him to 
 Washington, he little dreamed that he would never again 
 return to mingle in the business and social life of his old 
 friends and neighbors, for when he took leave of Hern- 
 don, his law partner, he requested that the old law office 
 sign of Lincoln & Herndon be allowed to remain, as in 
 four years they would go on practicing as if nothing 
 had happened. 
 
 A rather laughable incident occurred soon after Lin- 
 coln arrived at the Capital. He had prepared his in- 
 augural address in Springfield, and a search at first failed 
 to discover it, whereupon he remarked to a friend, "I 
 guess I have lost my certificate of good moral character, 
 written by myself. Bob has lost my gripsack containing 
 
 8 
 
my inaugural address. I want you to help me find it. I 
 feel a good deal as the old member of the Methodist 
 church did when he lost his wife at the camp meeting 
 and went up to an old elder of the church and asked 
 him if he could tell whereabouts in hell his wife was. In 
 fact, I am in a worse fix than my Methodist friend, for 
 if it were nothing but a wife that was missing, mine 
 would be sure to pop up serenely." I have some doubts 
 of the veracity of this story, but we all know that the 
 inaugural address popped up at the psychological mo- 
 ment, as well as Mrs. Lincoln. 
 
 At the threshold of his great responsibilities he real- 
 ized the impending attempt to dissolve the Union. He 
 did his utmost to avert it. In his inaugural he said, "I 
 hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the 
 constitution, the Union of the States is perpetual. To 
 the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Consti- 
 tution expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the 
 Union be faithfully executed in all the States. One 
 section of our country believes slavery is right, and 
 ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong 
 and ought not to be extended. This is the only substan- 
 tial dispute." To the South he said, "In your hands, my 
 dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the 
 momentous issue of civil war. The government will not 
 assail you. You can have no conflict without being your- 
 selves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in 
 Heaven to destroy the government, while I have the 
 most solemn one to 'preserve and defend it.' " Lincoln 
 concluded with this pathetic and mystic appeal: "I am 
 loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We 
 must not be enemies. Though passion may have 
 strained, it must not break, the bonds of affection. The 
 
mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle- 
 field and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth- 
 stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus 
 of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will 
 be, by the better angels of our nature." 
 
 The patience of Lincoln was comparable only to 
 Job's. He met with opposition from all sources. Seward, 
 Stanton and Chase, able and loyal men as they were, 
 were thorns in the side of the President. He knew their 
 worth and ability to serve the country in its distressed 
 condition, and by his gentle forbearance and shrewd 
 management of these great minds, never taking umbrage 
 or showing any temper at their often displayed hostility, 
 moulded them in such tactful fashion as to bring into 
 play their exalted ability in the carrying out of the 
 policies of the government in crushing the rebellion and 
 restoring the unity of the States arrayed against each 
 other in the death clutch of war. After the war was 
 well started, there were talks of peace. Lincoln, realiz- 
 ing the impossibility of a cessation of hostilities, punc- 
 tured the situation by telling a story about an Illinois 
 man who was chased by a rampant bull in a pasture, and 
 while dodging around a tree caught the tail of the pur- 
 suing beast. After pawing the earth for awhile, the bull 
 broke into a run, bellowing at every jump, while the 
 man clinging to its tail cried, "Darn you, who com- 
 menced this fuss?" Lincoln was so pestered with seekers 
 after office that he was provoked to exclaim, "If our 
 American society and the United States government 
 are demoralized and overthrown, it will come from the 
 voracious desire for office, this wriggle to live without 
 toil, work and labor, from which I am not free myself." 
 This class of persons, unfortunately, is not yet quite 
 
 10 
 
extinct. Then there were squabblers for promotions in 
 the army and navy, and the pulling of political wires 
 from all over the country. Even the women took a hand 
 in these distractions. A General once reproached the 
 President for his exercise of the pardoning power, say- 
 ing, "Why do you interfere? Congress has taken from 
 you all the responsibility." Lincoln replied, "Yes, Con- 
 gress has taken the responsibility and left the women to 
 howl about me." Once he wrote to the officer in charge 
 of the Adjutant General's office: "On this day Mrs. 
 
 called upon me. She is the wife of Major 
 
 . She wants her husband made a brigadier 
 
 general. She is a saucy little woman, and I think she 
 will torment me until I have to do it," and the sequel 
 shows she succeeded. 
 
 Lincoln was a natural diplomat and showed it by his 
 actions in domestic and foreign affairs. In the Slidell- 
 Mason-Trent affair he was instant in correcting a fatal 
 mistake made by an over-zealous officer of the navy, and 
 thereby averted a threatened war with Great Britain. 
 Seward, the great New York statesman, concluded that 
 with the inexperienced President from the West, he 
 would be dictator in the Cabinet. Within a year Seward 
 wrote, "There is but one vote in the Cabinet, and that 
 is cast by the President." Soon after that he wrote to 
 his wife, "The President is the best of us all." 
 
 Lincoln was a man who was lucid to the very core in 
 all matters, in his messages to Congress and advice to 
 generals, and while he at times bore insults from his 
 inferiors, yet he ruled them inexorably and showed a 
 character of greatness that the world saw for the first 
 time. 
 
 Lincoln's sympathetic ear was ever sensible to the 
 
 11 
 
cry of distress. Those in trouble found in him a help- 
 ful friend. Many a poor woman in the depths of despair, 
 interceding with Lincoln for husband or son, withdrew 
 from his presence with a heart freed from trouble, her 
 desires granted. 
 
 But a few weeks before his untimely death Lincoln 
 delivered his inaugural address upon entering into his 
 second term of office. The concluding clause of his 
 address reaches to the sublime and breathes a benedic- 
 tion. Emphasizing his belief in an omnipotent Ruler, 
 he quotes this passage of Scripture: "The judgments 
 of the Lord are true and righteous altogether," and 
 proceeds: "With malice toward none; with charity for 
 all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see 
 the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; 
 to bind up the Nation's wounds; to care for him who 
 shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his 
 orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just 
 and lasting peace among ourselves and all nations." 
 
 General Grant, the great commander of the Federal 
 Army, speaking at the dedication of the Lincoln monu- 
 ment at Springfield, paid this tribute to Lincoln : "With 
 all his disappointments from failures on the part of those 
 to whom he entrusted commands, and treachery on the 
 part of those who had gained his confidence but to be- 
 tray it, I never heard him utter a complaint nor cast a 
 censure for bad conduct or bad faith. It was his nature 
 to find excuses for his adversaries. In his death the 
 Nation lost its greatest hero; in his death the South 
 lost its most just friend." 
 
 Lowell, in a beautiful poem on the death of Lincoln, 
 written under the spell of a view of Mount Blanc as the 
 mists slowly cleared away, revealing its might and 
 
 12 
 
strength and grandeur, concludes with this ennobling 
 stanza : 
 
 "Great Captains, with their guns and drums, 
 
 Disturb our judgment for the hour, 
 But at last silence comes; 
 
 These all are gone and, standing like a tower, 
 Our children shall behold his fame. 
 
 The kindly, earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
 Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, 
 
 New birth of our new soil, the first American." 
 
 13 
 
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