Class 5^7" 
 
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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 
 
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ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 
 
 The First American. 
 
 BY 
 
 D0>fo^THO]\IPSON, 
 
 Our children shall hehold his fame, 
 
 The kindly, earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
 
 Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame ; 
 New birth of our new soil — the first American. 
 
 —Lowell. 
 
 3 
 
 /> ^ 
 
 -^4^ WASH'.*^ 
 
 CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & CURTS. 
 
 NEW YORK : HUNT & EATON. 
 
 1894. 
 
 uv^ 
 

 Copyright 
 
 By CRANSTON & CURTS, 
 
 1894. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 / 'T\BIS volume is designed to entertain and in- 
 -*• form those who desire to read about Abraham 
 Lincoln, his words and deeds. Those who wish to 
 know more about him than is here related are re- 
 ferred to the following excellent books, to which 
 the writer acknowledges his indebtedness: 
 
 Nicola y and Hay: Life of Lincoln. The Century. 
 
 Nicola y & Hay: Complete Works of Lincoln. The 
 Century. 
 
 Isaac N. Arnold: Life of Lincoln. A. C. McClurg & Co., 
 Chicago. 
 
 W. 0. Stoddard: Life of Lincoln. Fords, Howard & 
 Hulbert, New York. 
 
 J. G. Holland: Life of Lincoln. 
 
 Herndon and "Weik: Story of a Great Life. Belford, 
 Clarke & Co., Chicago. 
 
 John Egbert Irelan : Life of Lincoln. 
 
 John T. Morse, Jr.: Liie of Lincoln. Houghton, Mif- 
 flin & Co., Boston. 
 
 Henry J. Raymond: Lincoln's Life and Times. Hurst 
 & Co., New York. 
 
 Allen Thorndike Rice : Reminiscences of Lincoln. 
 North American Review, New York. 
 
 L. E. Chittenden: Recollections of Lincoln. Harper 
 and Brothers, New York. 
 
 L. E. Chittenden : Personal Reminiscences. Richmond, 
 Croscup & Co., New York. 
 
 3 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 Noaii Brooks: Life of Lincoln. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
 New York. 
 
 Chas. W. French : Life of Lincoln. Funk and Wag- 
 nails, New York. 
 
 F. B. Carpenter: Six Months in the White House. 
 The Independent, New York. 
 
 M. Louise Putnam : Children's Life of Lincoln. A. C. 
 McClurg & Co., Chicago. 
 
 C. G. Leland : Life of Lincoln. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
 New York. 
 
 J. B. McClure: Anecdotes of Lincoln. Rhodes and 
 McClure, Chicago. 
 
 - G. M. Van Buren : Lincoln's Voice and Pen. Robert 
 Clarke & Co., Cincinnati. 
 
 J. H. Barrett: Life and Administration of Lincoln. 
 
 Much of the material here used was printed in 
 the Lincoln Birthday number of the Northwestern 
 Christian Advocate, Chicago, the interest in which, 
 and the great demand for extra copies, in part 
 led to the preparation of this volume. In a num- 
 ber of instances that issue of the paper was used in 
 public schools in connection with the celebration 
 
 of Lincoln's birthday. 
 
 D. D. T. 
 Chicago. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 Lincoln's Childhood, 9 
 
 Removal to Indiana, 13 
 
 Lincoln's Boyhood, 16 
 
 A Storekeeper in Illinois, 24 
 
 The Black Hawk War, 31 
 
 In Public Life, 33 
 
 Lincoln's "Keynote" Speech, 45 
 
 The Lincoln and Douglas Debate, 49 
 
 Lincoln's Cooper Institute Speech, 56 
 
 Secret of Lincoln's Power as a Speaker, 58 
 
 Lincoln's Nomination for the Presidency, 63 
 
 The Moral Aspects of the Campaign of 1S60, 68 
 
 "One War at a Time," . 73 
 
 Considering the Emancipation Proclamation, .... 77 
 
 The Gettysburg Speech, 81 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's Tenderness, 83 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's Religious Belief, 97 
 
 Lincoln and his Family, 105 
 
 5 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 Death of Lincoln, 109 
 
 Tribute to Methodism, 113 
 
 Lincoln's Autobiography, 120 
 
 LlNCOLNIANA, 127 
 
 My Captain, . . . . 215 
 
 Words of Lincoln, 216 
 
 Lincoln's Temperance Address, 223 
 
Hbrabam ^Lincoln, 
 
 Born in Bcnhttug., Tebruarg 12, 1809. 
 IKoueb fo 3nbiana in 1817. 
 Bloueb fo miinotB in 1830. 
 CEItrfcb fo flje Illinois legislature in 1834. 
 ^rrsibenital (Elector mx Wing. CirUet, 1840. 
 Uarrofc Bhtrg £obb, Booember 4, 1842. 
 (Elcrteb to (Congress, 184G. 
 Itntoln-^onglas debate, 1858. 
 Bominateb for presibent at Cljtcago, IDag 16, I860. 
 GBIerteb }9cesibent, Booember 6, 1860. 
 llnangnrateb presibent, Barrlj 4, 1861. 
 ^saueb first tall fa r 75,000 Bohmteers, Hpril 16, 1861. 
 3ssneb (Emancipation proclamation, September 23,1862. 
 ;Basassinateb, Xribag, Jlpril 14, 1865. 
 Bieb ;HpriI 15, 1865. 
 
 7 
 
Abraham Lincoln 
 
 LINCOLN'S CHILDHOOD. 
 
 " A LL that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my 
 £\. angel mother — blessings on her memory." 
 So spoke Abraham Lincoln of his mother, after he 
 had become famous. She died when he was yet a 
 child. From his father he inherited his name, his 
 humble condition, and his love of story-telling; but 
 from his mother the nobility of character which 
 made him great, and won the admiration of the 
 world. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, 
 in a floorless log-hut that was little better than a 
 hovel, that stood near the banks of a creek in what 
 is now La Rue County, Kentucky. His grand- 
 father, also named Abraham Lincoln, was one of 
 the pioneers of Kentucky, and had been killed 
 by the Indians in 1784, while plowing in his field. 
 The Indian who fired the shot seized the youngest 
 boy, Thomas, six years old, the father of the future 
 President, and started off, when suddenly he fell 
 
 9 
 
10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 dead, shot by an older brother, Mordecai, a boy 
 ten years old. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln grew to manhood in the wilds 
 of Kentucky, and when twenty-eight years old mar- 
 ried Nancy Hanks, daughter of Joseph Hanks, 
 whose ancestors and those of her husband had been 
 neighbors in the Shenandoah Valley half a century 
 before. 
 
 Nancy Lincoln is described as " tall, dark- 
 haired, comely, dignified, and winsome, by her 
 grace and kindness. She seemed at times as if 
 looking far away, seeing what others did not see. 
 She had attended school in Virginia, and stood 
 upon a higher intellectual plane than those around 
 her. The Bible was read morning and evening, 
 and her conduct was in accordance with its precepts. 
 She was on the frontier, where few books were to 
 be had to satisfy her thirst for knowledge, and 
 where there was little intellectual culture." 
 
 To Thomas and Nancy Lincoln were born three 
 children — a daughter and two sons. One boy died 
 in childhood. The sister, named Sarah, lived to 
 womanhood. Thomas and Nancy Lincoln were 
 very poor, and they began life together in very 
 humble circumstances. Their first home was a 
 cabin in Elizabethtown. In 1809, Thomas Lincoln 
 secured a quarter-section of land on Nolin's Creek, 
 near Hodgensville, on which he built a one-room 
 
LiyCOLN'S CHILDBOOD. 11 
 
 cabin. Their Deeds were few, and with a Dutch 
 oven, frying-pan, a few tin dishes, wooden plates, 
 and a bucket, the family lived in comparative 
 comfort. 
 
 Nancy Lincoln was wife, mother, and teacher. 
 From his wife, Thomas Lincoln learned the letters 
 of the alphabet, as did also her children. On Sun- 
 days Nancy Lincoln would gather her children 
 around her, and read to them the wonderful stories 
 in the Bible, and pray with them. After he had 
 become President, Lincoln, speaking of his mother, 
 said : " I remember her prayers, and they have al- 
 ways followed me. They have clung to me all my 
 life." 
 
 These Bible stories not only interested him, but 
 they molded his character, and aroused a desire to 
 be able to read for himself — a desire that, in later 
 years, developed into an almost insatiable thirst for 
 knowledge. 
 
 In the week evenings, Thomas Lincoln would 
 entertain his family with stories, many of which 
 related to the adventures of Daniel Boone and 
 other pioneers of Kentucky. The most interesting 
 were those of the boy's grandfather, and the most 
 thrilling of all, the account of the grandfather's 
 death, and the escape of little Thomas himself. 
 
 Traveling preachers occasionally visited the 
 neighborhood, and a log meeting-house had been 
 
12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 erected .at Little Mound, about three miles from 
 the Lincoln home. Here little Abe attended serv- 
 ices with his parents, and, when only five years old, 
 was so impressed with what he heard, that on his 
 return home he would mount a stool, and preach a 
 sermon of his own, shouting and pounding the 
 table with his little fist in imitation of the preacher. 
 His favorite among these itinerants was Rev. David 
 Elkin. 
 
 Little Abe started to attend school when about 
 five years old. It was " kept " by a Roman Cath- 
 olic priest, named Zachariah Riney, who traveled 
 through the settlements, teaching for a few weeks 
 at a time. The school did not amount to much ; 
 but such as it was, the boys and girls, and even 
 young men and young women of the country, for 
 many miles around, attended it. The only text- 
 book was a " Speller," with easy reading-lessons. 
 Thanks to the careful instruction of his intelli- 
 gent mother, little five-year-old Abe was soon 
 head of the class, to the great chagrin of the older 
 scholars. 
 
 In 1814, Thomas Lincoln, who had been unable 
 to pay for his land on Nolin's Creek, bargained for 
 a two-hundred-acre tract of land on Knob Creek, 
 a few miles away. Here his son attended a school 
 taught by George Hazel, whose only text-book was 
 also a " Speller." 
 
REMOVAL TO INDIANA. 
 
 SLAVERY and imperfect land-titles together 
 had made the lot of the poor white man in 
 Kentucky exceedingly unpleasant. When Thomas 
 Lincoln and his wife learned that fertile govern- 
 ment land could be bought in Indiana for $2 an 
 acre, they caught the " emigrant fever," and in 
 1817 decided to move to the free State where 
 rich and poor were alike respected, and where the 
 poorest could secure a home. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln had cleared a portion of the 
 Knob Creek farm, built a cabin, dug a well, and 
 made other improvements, and in consideration of 
 these he found a purchaser who would pay him his 
 price for the place — three hundred dollars. The 
 man had but little money, but Lincoln accepted the 
 terms offered — twenty dollars in money and ten 
 barrels of whisky worth $28 a barrel. Whisky in 
 those days was salable everywhere, and was consid- 
 ered as safe as money. But it was inconvenient to 
 carry. This compelled Lincoln to construct a raft 
 on which he placed his few carpenter tools and the 
 whisky. 
 
 13 
 
14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 The raft was built at the junction of Knob 
 Creek and the Rolling Fork River. Leaving his 
 family, Lincoln floated down the Rolling Fork to 
 Salt River; thence into the Ohio. The latter was 
 at flood height, and the current very swift. The 
 raft was capsized, and the whisky and the other 
 freight went to the bottom. Lincoln swam ashore. 
 He was penniless. What should he do? He de- 
 cided to wait until the waters should recede. This 
 they did in a few days, when he recovered his prop- 
 erty, secured another boat, and drifted down the 
 Ohio to Thompson's Landing. He then traveled 
 inland, until he reached Pigeon Creek, where he se- 
 lected a quarter-section of land, went to Yincennes 
 to enter it, and then returned to Kentucky. 
 
 The family moved to Indiana in November. 
 There was no house for them to occupy, not even 
 a cabin. Their only shelter was a shed or three- 
 faced "camp," one side of which was open to the 
 weather. This shelter was the home of the family 
 during the winter, while the father was hewing 
 timber and preparing it for the more pretentious 
 house he was to build. 
 
 The family moved into the new home before the 
 floor had been laid or the door hung. Soon after- 
 ward, an epidemic, known as " milk-sickness," 
 broke out. It was attributed to the poisoning of 
 the milk by herbs which the cows ate, and attacked 
 
REMOVAL TO INDIANA. 15 
 
 human beings and cattle alike. Physicians had no 
 remedy, and many people died. Nancy Lincoln was 
 stricken, and, after a brief illness, died, at the age 
 of thirty-three years. 
 
 Not long before her death, Mrs. Lincoln called 
 little Abe to her bedside, and said to him : " I am 
 going away from you, Abraham, and shall not re- 
 turn. I know that you will be a good boy; that 
 you will be kind to Sarah and to your father. I 
 want you to live as I have taught you, and to love 
 your Heavenly Father." The husband made a 
 coffin, and kind neighbors buried her on the sum- 
 mit of a hill within sight of her home. 
 
 That there was no religious service held weighed 
 on little Abe's heart. Some time after he wrote 
 to Rev. David Elkin, the itinerant he had heard 
 preach at Little Mound, Ky., and asked him to 
 preach the funeral sermon at his mother's grave. 
 The preacher replied that he would come. An 
 appoiutment was made, and the settlers from many 
 miles around gathered to hear the sermon at 
 Nancy Lincoln's grave. The grave is now marked 
 by a marble slab and iron fence, erected by P. E. 
 Studebaker, of South Bend, Indiana. On the stone 
 is the inscription : " Nancy Hanks Lincoln, mother 
 of President Lincoln; died October 5, A. D., 1818, 
 aged thirty-five years. Erected by a friend of her 
 martyred son, 1879." 
 
LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD. 
 
 THE death of his mother was the first great sor- 
 row of Abraham Lincoln's life. It left its 
 impression upon his character forever. It was soon 
 after that he began to exhibit that sadness and 
 sympathy which characterized him throughout his 
 life. His tenderness was also manifest at this early 
 age, aud he seldom indulged even in the most pop- 
 ular sport of the day — hunting — because it appeared 
 to him to be cruel. Once he shot a wild turkey, 
 bnt he fired through a crevice of the cabin so that 
 he might not see the bird die. 
 
 Not long after Mrs. Lincoln's death, Thomas 
 Lincoln, while visiting a friend about twenty miles 
 distant, observed an old, soiled copy of Bunyan's 
 " Pilgrim's Progress." " What a treasure that would 
 be to Abe !" he thought. He asked his friend to 
 loan him the book, and he did so. When he placed 
 the book in Abe's hands the boy was so delighted, 
 his eyes sparkled, and that day he could not eat, 
 and that night he could not sleep. 
 
 It did not take Abe a great while to read the 
 book through. So soon as he had finished it he 
 16 
 
LINCOLN >S BO YHO OD. 1 7 
 
 began a second time. When he was about half 
 through a lady friend, who heard of his love for 
 reading, presented him a copy of iEsop's Fables. 
 Of this, his first book that he might call his own, he 
 was no doubt more proud than of his election to the 
 Presidency of the United States in later years. He 
 read and re-read the fables until he knew them all 
 by heart. He not only learned the story of each 
 fable, but he caught the lesson it was designed to 
 teach. 
 
 It was from this book he learned the value of a 
 story as a teacher, of which he made such remarka- 
 ble use when, to make men understand him, he 
 would say, " That reminds me of a story," and 
 then relate some incident that would convey his 
 meaning as a statement of mere words could not. 
 
 A little more than a year after the death of his 
 wife, Thomas Lincoln suddenly left home. A few 
 weeks later he presented himself at the house of 
 Sarah Bush Johnson, in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. 
 Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Lincoln had been playmates 
 in childhood, but now she was a widow with three 
 children. Mr. Lincoln asked her to marry him. 
 She did not refuse, but said she owed some debts, 
 and could not go away until they were paid. Mr. 
 Lincoln inquired and found that the debts amounted 
 to $12, which was a large sum to Mrs. Johnson. 
 These he paid, and the next day they were married. 
 
18 ABRAHAM L'INCOLN. 
 
 Mrs. Sarah Lincoln's possessions consisted of a 
 bureau, a couple of feather-beds, a few chairs, and 
 a heart so large that it at once received as her 
 own the motherless children of Nancy Hanks. Her 
 arrival with her two girls and boy brought cheer 
 to the desolate home. 
 
 The new mother was a superior woman, and 
 Lincoln loved her dearly. After he had become 
 prominent as a lawyer, a friend who called at his 
 office found him sitting before a table, on which 
 was a small pile of money, which he was counting 
 over and over. 
 
 " Look here, Judge," said Lincoln ; " See what 
 
 a heap of money I 've got from the case. 
 
 Did you ever see anything like it? Why, I never 
 had so much money in my life before, put it all to- 
 gether !" Then crossing his arms upon the table, 
 his manner sobering down, he added : " I We got 
 just five hundred dollars; if it were only seven 
 hundred and fifty, I would go directly and purchase 
 a quarter-section of land, and settle it upon my old 
 stepmother." 
 
 His friend said that if the deficiency was all he 
 needed, he would loan him the amount, taking his 
 note, to which Mr. Lincoln instantly acceded. 
 
 His friend then said: "Lincoln, I would not do 
 just what you have indicated. Your stepmother is 
 getting old, and will not probably live many years. 
 
LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD. 19 
 
 I would settle the property upon her for her use 
 during her lifetime, to revert to you upon her death." 
 
 With much feeling, Mr. Liucoln replied : " I 
 shall do no such thing. It is a poor return, at the 
 best, for all the good woman's devotion and fidelity 
 to me, and there is not going to be any half-way 
 business about it;" and so saying, he gathered up 
 his money, and proceeded forthwith to carry his 
 long-cherished purpose into execution. 
 
 In 1822 a log school-house was built on Pigeon 
 Creek. The teacher was a youug man named Azel 
 Dorsey. He taught reading, writing, spelling, and 
 arithmetic. There is a tradition that Abe's mother 
 taught him to write, but he had not become pro- 
 ficient. His stepmother, who had noticed his love 
 of reading, gladly sent him to Dorsey's school, and 
 assisted him as best she could at home. It soon 
 became known that he was the best " speller " in 
 the school, and his fame went abroad. He also be- 
 came greatly interested in arithmetic, and, in the ab- 
 sence of a slate, worked his problems on the back 
 of a wooden shovel. His pencils were a piece of 
 chalk or the burnt end of a stick. For writing 
 books he used the top of his mother's table, the 
 stools in their cabin, the trunks of trees, and some- 
 times the ground. Once he wrote "Abraham Lin- 
 coln " on the ground in his father's cornfield, as 
 children write their names in the sand on the sea- 
 
20 ABU ARAM LINCOLN. 
 
 shore. He loved his books, but even they were Dot 
 
 too precious to be defaced. In his arithmetic were 
 
 found these lines : 
 
 " Abraham Lincoln, 
 His hand and pen ; 
 He will be good — 
 But God knows when." 
 
 Dorsey's school continued only a few weeks, and 
 there was no other for two years. In the meantime 
 Abe was reading everything that he could find. 
 The books he read were " Pilgrim's Progress/' 
 AVeems's " Life of Washington/' and " Robinson 
 Crusoe." The " Life of Washington " he borrowed 
 from Josiah Crawford. One day, during a rain- 
 storm, some of the leaves got wet. It is not prob- 
 able that Crawford really attached much value to 
 the book, but he charged Abe seventy-five cents 
 for the damage done. The boy had no money, and 
 paid the bill by pulling corn in Crawford's -field for 
 three days. This, the first book he bought, was 
 most highly prized. 
 
 Perhaps the most helpful school-teacher he had 
 was Andrew Crawford, who followed Dorsey. Craw- 
 ford trained the scholars, not only in reading, writ- 
 ing, and arithmetic, but in " manners" and elocution. 
 He greatly enjoyed "speaking pieces," and after 
 school would often mount a stump, and repeat some 
 piece from the " American Preceptor," or make an 
 
LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD. 21 
 
 impromptu speech. His audience usually consisted 
 of his own sister Sarah, his stepsisters Sarah and 
 Matilda Jo'.nson, his stepbrother John Johnson, 
 and his cousin Dennis Hanks, who lived with the 
 Liucoln family. A more appreciative audience no 
 speaker ever had. 
 
 The aggregate of Lincoln's schooling did not 
 amount to one year. His eagerness to learn led 
 him not only to read books, but to attend meetings 
 of all kinds where he might hear men speak. 
 Among the books that had fallen into his hands was 
 a copy of the Kevised Statutes of Indiana. This 
 was the beginning of his study of law. 
 
 Once he walked fifteen miles to Booneville, to 
 listen to the plea of the famous Kentuckian, John 
 Breckinridge, who defended a man accused of mur- 
 der. He was delighted with the speech, which was the 
 greatest he had ever heard. In his enthusiasm, so 
 soon as the plea was concluded, he pushed his way 
 to the front, to congratulate the orator. Mr. Breck- 
 inridge paid no attention whatever to the out- 
 stretched hand of the coatless young man, who was 
 expressing his thanks and commending the ability 
 and eloquence of the stranger, who had not only 
 pleased but instructed him. The presumption of 
 the boy was treated with silence, save a contemp- 
 tuous glance at one of those who, to him, were 
 " poor white trash/' 
 
22 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 He and Breckinridge met again in 1862, at the 
 "White House, in Washington. The coatless boy 
 had become President of the United States. He 
 reminded Mr. Breckinridge of their first meeting, 
 and again complimented him on his great effort. 
 This time the lawyer was pleased. 
 
 Lincoln related to Secretary Seward and a few 
 friends in the White House, one evening, the fol- 
 lowing incident in his life : 
 
 " Seward," the President said, " you never heard, 
 did you, how I earned my first dollar?" 
 
 " No," rejoined Mr. Seward. 
 
 " Well," continued Lincoln, " I belonged, you 
 know, to what they call down South, the ' scrubs.' 
 We had succeeded in raising, chiefly by my labor, 
 sufficient produce, as I thought, to justify me in 
 taking it down the river to sell. 
 
 " After much persuasion, I got the consent of 
 mother to construct a little flatboat, large enough 
 to take a barrel or two of things that we had gath- 
 ered, with myself and little bundle, down to the 
 Southern market. A steamer was coming down 
 the river. We have, you know, no wharves on the 
 Western streams ; and the custom was, if passen- 
 gers were at any of the landings, for them to go 
 out to the passing steamer in a boat. 
 
 "I was contemplating my new flatboat, and 
 wondering whether I could make it stronger, or 
 
LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD. 23 
 
 improve it in any particular, when two men came 
 down to the shore in carriages with trunks, and, 
 looking at the different boats, singled out mine. 
 "'Who owns this?' one asked: 
 " I answered, somewhat modestly, ' I do.' 
 "'Will you/ said one of them, 'take us and our 
 trunks out to the steamer V 
 
 "'Certainly/ said I. I was very glad to have 
 the chance of earning something. I supposed that 
 each of them would give me two or three bits. The 
 trunks were put on my flatboat, the passengers 
 seated themselves on the trunks, and I sculled 
 them out to the steamboat. 
 
 " They got on board, and I lifted up their 
 heavy trunks, and put them on deck. The steamer 
 was about to put on steam again, when I called out 
 that they had forgotten to pay me. Each of them 
 took from his pocket a silver half-dollar, and threw 
 it on the floor of my boat. I could scarcely be- 
 lieve my eyes as I picked up the money. Gentle- 
 men, you may think it was a very little thing, and 
 in these days it seems to me a trifle ; but it was a 
 most important incident in my life. I could scarcely 
 credit that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in less 
 than a day — that by honest work I had earned a 
 dollar. The world seemed wider and fairer before 
 me. I was a more hopeful and confident being 
 from that time." 
 
A STOREKEEPER IN ILLINOIS. 
 
 AFTER a few years Thomas Lincoln grew tired 
 of Indiana, and Illinois having been portrayed 
 to him as a veritable paradise, he pulled up stakes 
 and migrated thither in February, 1830, settling 
 near Decatur. Young Abraham accompanied his 
 father. On the way they crossed a shallow stream 
 that was covered with thin ice. After the family 
 had reached the shore, Abraham heard the cries 
 of their little dog, which was standing on the op- 
 opposite bank, and was afraid to step into the icy 
 water. "I can not bear to see even a puppy in 
 distress," he said, so he rolled up his trousers, and 
 barefoot waded the stream, took the dog in his 
 arms, and carried it safely across. 
 
 Abraham assisted his father in building his cabin, 
 clearing ground, and planting a crop. It was dur- 
 ing this time that Lincoln and John Hanks split 
 the rails which were introduced with such tremen- 
 dous effect at the Republican State Convention, held 
 in Decatur, 111., in 1860, which nominated delegates 
 to the ensuing National Convention. Lincoln had 
 scarcely taken his seat in the Convention, when 
 24 
 
A STOREKEEPER IN ILLINOIS. 25 
 
 General Oglesby announced that an old Democrat 
 of Macon County desired to make a contribution to 
 the Convention. At once several farmers entered 
 the hall carrying on their shoulders two old fence- 
 rails, bearing the inscription : " Abraham Lincoln, 
 the rail candidate for the Presidency in 1860. Two 
 rails from a lot of three thousand, made in 1830 by 
 Thomas Hanks and Abe Lincoln, whose father was 
 the first pioneer of Macon County." The effect 
 was thrilling. The cheering continued for fifteen 
 minutes, and the demonstration showed the Con- 
 vention and the country that Abraham Lincoln 
 was the only choice of the Republicans of Illinois 
 for the Presidency. 
 
 When Lincoln became of age, he thought it 
 time to do something for himself. Among his first 
 contracts was one to split rails for a woman who, 
 in payment, was to furnish cloth and make him a 
 pair of trousers. The terms were three hundred 
 rails for every yard of cloth used, and the bargain 
 w T as faithfully carried out. 
 
 Not long afterward a man named Offutt engaged 
 Lincoln to take a flatboat loaded with country 
 produce, and sell it. A herd of pigs constituted 
 part of the cargo, and as they refused to be driven, 
 Abraham took them, one by one, in his strong arms, 
 and carried them aboard. "While in New Orleans 
 he, for the first time, entered a slave-market, where 
 
26 ABB AH A3! LINCOLN. 
 
 he saw men, women, and children sold like cattle. 
 The anguish of fathers and mothers and children, as 
 they were torn from each other, fired him with in- 
 dignation, and he said to one of his companions : 
 "If I ever get a chance to hit that institution, I 
 will hit it hard, John." 
 
 After Lincoln's return Mr. Offutt offered him a 
 position as clerk in his store at New Salem, Illinois. 
 Mr. Offutt was very proud of his clerk, and praised 
 him so often that a gang of young roughs in the 
 neighborhood, known as the " Clary Grove boys," 
 determined to give him a thrashing. They finally 
 provoked Lincoln to engage in a wrestling match 
 with their leader, Jack Armstrong. Armstrong 
 was as strong as an ox, and was the champion 
 wrestler. To his great surprise Lincoln, seizing him 
 with both hands, held him at arms' length, and 
 shook him like a child. His friends rushed to his 
 assistance, but Armstrong shouted to them to stop, 
 saying : " Boys, Abe Lincoln is the best man that 
 ever broke into this settlement. He shall be 
 one of us." 
 
 One of Lincoln's greatest triumphs at the bar was 
 in defending William Armstrong, the son of this 
 Jack Armstrong. Young Armstrong had been in- 
 dicted, with another young man named Norris, for 
 a murder committed near a camp-meeting. The 
 crime had created great excitement and indigna- 
 
A STOREKEEPER IN ILLINOIS. 27 
 
 turn. Norris bad been convicted and sentenced to 
 State-prison. YoiiDg Armstrong bad few friends, 
 and no money to employ attorneys. His mother 
 had often befriended Lincoln in bis younger days, 
 and cheered him in his melancholy moods. Sbe 
 thought he might now befriend her boy in his need. 
 She believed that he could save Bill from disgrace 
 and death if any one could. So she went to him 
 and told him the story. He promised to do what 
 he could. At the trial the evidence against the boy 
 was very strong. The strongest point made was by 
 a witness who swore that at eleven o'clock at night 
 he saw Armstrong strike the murdered man on the 
 head. He declared the full moon was shining 
 brightly, and that he could not have been mistaken. 
 
 Lincoln quietly picked up an almanac, and ex- 
 amining it found there was no moon at all on that 
 night. This was Lincoln's only point for defense, 
 but upon this testimony rested the strength of the 
 case against his client. He told no one of his dis- 
 covery; but when he came to argue the case, he 
 gradually prepared the minds of the jury for the 
 climax of his speech, when he called for the al- 
 manac, and showed that the principal witness had 
 testified to what was absolutely false, and declared 
 his whole story a fabrication. What followed is 
 thus described in Barrett's " Life of Lincoln :'' 
 
 "An almost instantaneous change seemed to 
 
2 8 ABRAHA M LINCOLN. 
 
 have been wrought in the minds of his auditors, 
 and the verdict of ' not guilty ' was at the end of 
 every tongue. But the advocate was not content 
 with this intellectual achievement. .His whole be- 
 ing had for months been bound up in this work of 
 gratitude and mercy, and, as the lava of the over- 
 charged crater bursts from its imprisonment, so 
 great thoughts and burning words leaped forth from 
 the soul of the eloquent Lincoln. He drew a pic- 
 ture of the perjurer so horrid and ghastly that the 
 accuser could sit under it no longer, but reeled 
 and staggered from the court-room, while the au- 
 dience fancied they could see the brand upon his 
 brow. Then, in words of thrilling pathos, Lincoln 
 appealed to the jurors, as fathers of sons who might 
 become fatherless, and as husbands of wives who 
 might be widowed, to yield to no previous impres- 
 sions, no ill-founded prejudice, but to do his client 
 justice; and as he alluded to the debt of gratitude 
 which he owed the boy's sire, tears were seen to fall 
 from many eyes unused to weep. It was near 
 night when he concluded by saying, that if justice 
 was done — as he believed it would be — before the 
 sun should set it would shine upon his client, a 
 free man. 
 
 "The jury retired, and the court adjourned for 
 the day. Half an hour had not elapsed, when, as 
 the officers of the court and the volunteer attorney 
 
A STOREKEEPER IN ILLINOIS. 29 
 
 sat at the tea-table of their hotel, a messenger an- 
 nounced that the jury had returned to their seats. 
 All repaired immediately to the court-house, and 
 while the prisoner was being brought from the 
 jail, the court-room was filled to overflowing with 
 citizens of the town. "When the prisoner and his 
 mother entered, silence reigned as completely as 
 though the house were empty. The foreman of the 
 jury, in answer to the usual inquiry from the court, 
 delivered the verdict of ' Xot Guilty V 
 
 "The widow dropped into the arms of her son, 
 who lifted her up, and told her to look upon him as 
 before, free and innocent. Then, with the words, 
 ' Where is Mr. Lincoln?' he rushed across the 
 room and grasped the hand of his deliverer, while 
 his heart was too full for utterance. Lincoln 
 turned his eyes toward the west, where the sun still 
 lingered in view, and then, turning to the youth, 
 said : ' It is not yet sundown, and you are free/ I 
 confess that my cheeks were not wholly unwet by 
 tears, and I turned from the affecting scene. As I 
 cast a glance behind, I saw Abraham Lincoln obey- 
 ing the divine injunction by comforting the wid- 
 owed and the fatherless." 
 
 It was while employed in Offutt's store, in New 
 Salem, 111., that Lincoln began to be called " Honest 
 Abe." He was judge, arbitrator, referee, umpire, 
 authority in all disputes, games, and matches of 
 
30 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 man-flesh and horse-flesh ; a peacemaker in all quar- 
 rels ; everybody's friend; the best-natured, the most 
 sensible, the best-informed, the most modest and un- 
 assuming, the kindest, gentlest, roughest, strongest, 
 best young fellow in all the region round about. 
 
 Lincoln could not rest for an instant under the 
 consciousness that he had, even unwittingly, de- 
 frauded anybody. On o 4 ne occasion he sold a 
 woman a little bill of goods, amounting to two dol- 
 lars six and a quarter cents. He received the 
 money, and the woman went away. On adding the 
 items of the bill again, to make himself sure of cor- 
 rectness, he found that he had taken six and a quar- 
 ter cents too much. It was night, but he closed 
 and locked the store, and started on foot for the 
 house of his defrauded customer, two miles away, 
 and delivered to her the sum due her. Then he 
 returned home satisfied. 
 
 In 1832, Lincoln and a man named Berry 
 bought a store in New Salem. Berry had little 
 means, and Lincoln gave his personal note for the 
 amount involved. They failed iu a short time, and 
 Mr. Lincoln carried the burden of the debt for six- 
 teen years, when he paid the last cent out of his con- 
 gressional salary. He referred to this experience 
 in his life as " paying the national debt." 
 
THE BLACK HAl^K WAR. 
 
 THE Black Hawk War broke out in 1832, and 
 Lincoln enlisted in a company being formed in 
 New Salem. He was elected captain, and after his 
 elevation to the Presidency referred to this action of 
 his neighbors and friends as one of the proudest 
 moments of his life. He was mustered into service 
 by Lieutenant Robert Anderson, afterward com- 
 mander of Fort Sumter when it fell. 
 
 His company did not have an opportunity to 
 distinguish itself, but the experience enabled Mr. 
 Lincoln to enliven one of his speeches while in 
 Congress by the following allusion to it : 
 
 " By the way, Mr. Speaker/' said Lincoln, 
 " do you know I am a military hero ? Yes, sir; in 
 the days of the Black Hawk AVar, I fought, bled, 
 and came away. Speaking of General Cass's career 
 reminds me of my own. I was not at Still man's 
 defeat, but I was about as near it as Cass to Hull's 
 surrender ; and, like him, I saw the place very soon 
 afterward. It is quite certain I did not break my 
 sword, for I had none to break ; but I bent my 
 musket pretty badly on one occasion. ... If 
 
 31 
 
32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 General Cass went in advance of me in picking 
 whortleberries, I guess T surpassed him in charges 
 upon the wild onions. If he saw any live, fighting 
 Indians, it was more than I did, but I had a good 
 many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes; and al- 
 though I never fainted from loss of blood, I can 
 truly say I was often very hungry." Lincoln con- 
 cluded by saying that if he ever turned Demo- 
 crat, and should run for the Presidency, he hoped 
 they would not make fun of him by attempting to 
 make him a military hero ! 
 
 The war did, however, give au opportunity for 
 Lincoln to exhibit his moral courage. One day 
 there came into the camp an old Indian. He was 
 weary and hungry, aud had a safe conduct from 
 General Cass, but the men were so incensed against 
 the entire race, that they denounced him as a spy. 
 They were about to kill him, when Lincoln stepped 
 between them and their intended victim. He was 
 terribly angry, and his manner cowed them. After 
 a moment one shouted : 
 
 " Lincoln, this is cowardly of you." 
 Looking at him with contempt, Lincoln replied : 
 " If any man thinks I am a coward, let him test 
 me." 
 
 " You are bigger and braver than any of us." 
 " That you can guard against ; choose your own 
 weapons." 
 
IN PUBLIC LIFE. 
 
 SOON after his return from the Black Hawk TTar 
 in 1832, Lincoln announced himself as a Whiff 
 candidate for the Legislature in a speech delivered 
 at Pappsville, Sangamon County, Illinois. It was 
 his maiden effort, and was as follows: 
 
 "Gentlemen, Fellow-citizens, — I presume 
 you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham 
 Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to 
 become a candidate for the Legislature. My poli- 
 tics are short and sweet, like an ' old woman's 
 dance/ I am in favor of a national bank. I am 
 in favor of the international improvement system 
 and a high protective tariff. These are my senti- 
 ments and political principles. If elected, I will 
 be thankful. If defeated, it will be all the same." 
 
 He was defeated, but not dismayed. He studied 
 what he should do — thought of learning the black- 
 smith's trade — but the opportunity offering to buy 
 the store with Berry, he did so. After his failure, 
 while clerking in a Mr. Ellis's store, he bought 
 an old volume of Blackstone at a store in Spring- 
 field, and gave himself up to studying law. Other 
 books were loaned him by a friend, to secure which 
 
 3 33 
 
34 A BE AHA M LINCOLN. 
 
 he walked to Springfield, fourteen miles distant. 
 So absorbed would he become in reading his books 
 on the way home, that he would be oblivious of 
 everything around him. A favorite resort for study 
 was an old oak-tree, around which he moved to 
 keep in the shade. Often he would be found lying 
 flat on his back on the counter, absorbed in his 
 studies. A book w T as almost always his inseparable 
 companion. One day a friend called at his board- 
 ing-house, and found him stretched at full length 
 upon the bed, poring over a book, and rocking the 
 cradle of his landlady's baby with one foot. 
 
 In 1833 he was appointed postmaster of New 
 Salem. The remuneration was not large, and the 
 office w T as discontinued during Lincoln's term. 
 Some time later, and after Lincoln had begun 
 the practice of law, an agent of the Post-office De- 
 partment entered his office, and inquired if Abraham 
 Lincoln -was in. Lincoln was told that the agent 
 had called to collect a balance due the Department 
 from the New Salem, office. A shade of perplexity 
 passed over Lincoln's face, which did not escape 
 the notice of friends who were present. One of 
 them said at once : " Lincoln, if you are in want of 
 money, let us help you." He made no reply, but 
 suddenly rose, and pulled out from a pile of books 
 a little old trunk, and, returning to the table, 
 asked the agent how much the amount of his debt 
 
IN P UBLIC LIFE. 35 
 
 was. The sum was named, and then Lincoln opened 
 the trunk, pulled out a little package of coin 
 wrapped in a cotton rag, and counted out the exact 
 sum, araountiug to something more than seventeen 
 dollars. 
 
 After the agent had left the room, Lincoln re- 
 marked quietly that he never used any man's money 
 but bis own. Although this sum had been in his 
 hands for several years — during which he was in 
 great financial straits — he had never regarded it 
 as available, even for any temporary purpose of 
 his own. 
 
 After retiring from the post-office, Lincoln re- 
 sumed rail-splitting for a living. He was thus 
 working for a man named Short, when a neighbor 
 came along and told him he had been appoiuted 
 a government surveyor. 
 
 In 1834, Lincoln was again a candidate for the 
 Legislature. He made a thorough canvass, delighted 
 his audiences with his funny stories, and was tri- 
 umphantly elected. On one occasion, while speak- 
 ing to a number of men cradling wheat in a field, 
 one of them said : 
 
 " I won't vote for any man we can cut out of his 
 swath." 
 
 " Well, boys," replied Lincoln, " I guess you 
 will all vote for me then ;" aud seizing a cradle, he 
 led them around the field. 
 
36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Lincoln's finances were low, but his credit was 
 so good that he borrowed two hundred dollars with 
 which to buy clothes and pay his expenses during 
 the session of the Legislature. To save the ex- 
 pense, he walked to Vandalia, the capital, a dis- 
 tance of about one hundred miles, carrying his 
 clothes in a pack on his back. One of the first 
 persons he met at Springfield, though not as a 
 member of the Legislature, was Stephen A. Doug- 
 las, with whose name his own was afterward to be 
 intimately associated. 
 
 In a speech in 1856, Mr. Lincoln made the follow- 
 ing generous allusion to Douglas. He said : " Twenty 
 years ago Judge Douglas and I first became ac- 
 quainted. We were both young then, he a trifle 
 younger than I. Even then we were both ambi- 
 tious — I, perhaps, quite as much as he. With me 
 the race of ambition has been a failure. With him 
 it has been a splendid success. His name fills the 
 nation, and it is not unknown in foreign lands. I 
 affect no contempt for the high eminence he has 
 reached ; so reached that the oppressed of my species 
 might have shared with me in the elevation, I would 
 rather stand on that eminence than wear the richest 
 crown that ever pressed a monarch's brow." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was a candidate for re-election. 
 There was considerable interest, and the voters of 
 Sangamon County called upon each candidate to 
 
IN P UBL IC LIFE. 3 7 
 
 " show bis hand." In response Mr. Lincoln issued 
 the following address : 
 
 " Fellow-citizens, — The candidates are called 
 upon, I see, to show their hands. Here is mine. I 
 go for all sharing the privileges of government who 
 assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go 
 for admitting all the whites to the rights of suffrage 
 who pay taxes or bear arms, by no means excluding 
 the females. 
 
 " If elected, I shall consider the whole people of 
 Sangamon County my constituents, as well those 
 who oppose as those who support me. While act- 
 ing as their representative, I shall be governed by 
 their will on all subjects upon which I have the 
 means of knowing what their will is; and upon all 
 others, I shall do what my judgment tells me will 
 best advance their interests. 
 
 " Whether elected or not, I go for distributing 
 the proceeds of the sales of the public lands to the 
 several States, to enable our State, in common with 
 others, to dig canals and construct railroads without 
 borrowing money and paying the interest on it. 
 If alive on the first day of November, I shall vote 
 for Hugh L. White for President." 
 
 His opponent was George Forquar, of Springfield, 
 Illinois, who was celebrated for having " changed his 
 coat" politically, and as having introduced the first 
 and only lightning-rod in Springfield at this time. 
 
38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 He said in a speech, in Lincoln's presence : " This 
 young man [Lincoln] will have to be taken down, 
 and I am sorry the task devolves upon me ;" and 
 then proceeded to " take him down." 
 
 Lincoln replied, and in closing said: " Fellow- 
 citizens, it is for yon, not for me, to say whether I 
 am up or down. The gentleman has alluded to my 
 being a young man ; I am older in years than I am 
 in the tricks and trades of politicians. I desire to 
 live, and I desire place and distinction as a poli- 
 tician ; but I would rather die now than, like the 
 gentleman, live to see the day that I would have to 
 erect a lightning-rod to protect a guilty conscience 
 from an offended God." 
 
 This response was greeted with laughter and 
 cheers, and, lifting him upon their shoulders, Lin- 
 coln's friends carried him from the court-house. 
 Forquar made no reply. 
 
 In this Legislature, Lincoln took a somewhat 
 active part. His most notable action was the pre- 
 sentation of the following protest, dated March 3, 
 1837: 
 
 " Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slav- 
 ery having passed both branches of the General 
 Assembly, at its present session, the undersigned 
 hereby protest against the passage of the same. 
 
 " They believe that the institution of slavery is 
 founded on both injustice and bad policy; but that 
 
IN P UBLIC LIFE. 39 
 
 the promulgation of Abolition doctrines tends rather 
 to increase than abate its evils. 
 
 "They believe that the Congress of the United 
 States has no power, under the Constitution, to in- 
 terfere with the institution of slavery in the differ- 
 ent States. 
 
 " They believe that the Congress of the United 
 States has the power, under the Constitution, to 
 abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; but 
 that the power ought not to be exercised, unless at 
 the request of the people of said District. 
 
 "The difference between these opinions and those 
 contained in the said resolutions, is their reason for 
 entering this protest. 
 
 "(Signed,) Dan Stone, 
 
 "A. Lincoln, 
 "Representatives from the County of Sangamon." 
 
 A good illustration of the execution which Lin- 
 coln sometimes effected with a story occurred dur- 
 ing his career in the Legislature. There was a 
 troublesome member from Wabash County, who 
 gloried particularly in being a "strict construction- 
 ist." He found something " unconstitutional " in 
 every measure that was brought forward for discus- 
 sion. He was a member of the Judiciary Committee, 
 and was very apt, after giving every measure a heavy 
 pounding, to advocate its reference to this commit- 
 tee. No amount of sober argument could floor him. 
 
40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 At last the members determined to silence him, and 
 Lincoln was asked to undertake the task. 
 
 A measure was brought forward in which Lin- 
 coln's constituents were interested, when the mem- 
 ber from Wabash rose, and discharged all his bat- 
 teries upon its unconstitutional points. Lincoln 
 then took the floor, and, with a quizzical expression 
 of features, and a mirthful twinkle in his gray 
 eyes, said : 
 
 "Mr. Speaker, the attack of the member from 
 Wabash on the constitutionality of this measure 
 reminds me of an old friend of mine. He 's a pe- 
 culiar-looking old fellow, with shaggy, overhanging 
 eyebrows, and a pair of spectacles under them. 
 [Everybody turned to the member from Wabash, and 
 recognized a perdbnal description.] One morning, 
 just after the old man got up, he imagined, on look- 
 ing out of his door, that he saw rather a lively 
 squirrel on a tree near his house. So he took down 
 his rifle and fired at the squirrel, but the squirrel 
 paid no attention to the shot. He loaded and fired 
 again and again, until, at the thirteenth shot, he 
 set down his gun impatiently, and said to his boy, 
 who was looking on : 
 
 " ' Boy, there 's something wrong about this 
 rifle/ 
 
 "' Rifle's all right; I know 'tis/ responded the 
 boy ; ' but where 's your squirrel ?' 
 
W P UBLIC LIFE. 4 1 
 
 "'Don't you see him, humped up about half- 
 way up the tree?' inquired the old man, peering 
 over his spectacles, and getting mystified. 
 
 " k No, I do n't/ responded the boy ; and then 
 turning and looking into his father's face, he ex- 
 claimed: 'I see your squirrel! You've been firing 
 at a louse on your eyebrow !' " 
 
 The story needed neither application nor expla- 
 nation. The house was in convulsions of laughter. 
 The member from Wabash was very careful after- 
 wards not to provoke any allusion to his " eye- 
 brows." 
 
 Lincoln was a member of the Legislatures elected 
 in 1838 and 1840. lie had become the recognized 
 AVhig leader, and in the latter Legislature was the 
 candidate of his party for speaker. 
 
 During the campaign of 1840, Col. Dick Taylor, 
 a Democrat, in a political speech, characterized the 
 Whigs as pretentious " lords " and aristocrats. Lin- 
 coln, in replying, said: "I was a poor boy, hired 
 on a flatboat at eight dollars a month, and had only 
 one pair of breeches, and they w T ere buckskin — and 
 if you know the nature of buckskin when wet, and 
 dried by the sun, they shrink — and mine kept 
 shrinking until they left several inches of my legs 
 bare between the tops of my socks and the lower 
 part of my breeches; and whilst I was growing 
 taller, they were becoming shorter, and so much. 
 
42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 tighter, that they left a blue streak around my legs 
 that can be seen to this day. If you call this aris- 
 tocracy, I plead guilty to the charge." 
 
 While a member of the Legislature, February 
 22, 1842, Lincoln delivered an address on temper- 
 ance before the Washingtonian Temperance Society 
 of Springfield, 111., in which be said : " When the 
 victory shall be complete, when there shall be 
 neither a slave nor a drunkard on the earth, how 
 proud the title of that land which may claim to be 
 the birthplace and cradle of those resolutions that 
 shall have ended in that victory !" 
 
 Lincoln never used either liquor or tobacco in 
 any form. He is said to have often preached the 
 following "sermon," as he called it, to his boys: 
 
 "Don't drink, don't smoke, don't chew, don't 
 swear, do n't gamble, do n't lie, do n't cheat. Love 
 your fellow-men and love God. Love truth, love 
 virtue, and be happy." 
 
 In 1846, Lincoln became the candidate for Con- 
 gress from the Sangamon District. This included 
 the city of Springfield, to which he had removed in 
 1837. His Democratic opponent was Rev. Peter 
 Cartwright, the famous Methodist backwoods 
 preacher. The campaign was exciting, both^ being 
 popular speakers. Lincoln was elected by a major- 
 ity of 1,511 votes — the largest ever received in 
 that district, 
 
7iY P UBLIC LIFE. 43 
 
 The slavery question was uppermost in his 
 thoughts for many years, and he realized that the 
 struggle between slavery and abolition was to be to 
 the death. Where he himself stood, even before 
 Douglas startled the country with his Kansas-Ne- 
 braska Bill, or the Whig party had committed sui- 
 cide by accepting a compromise measure as a final- 
 ity, is indicated by his remark to his law partner, 
 Mr. Stuart, in 1850: "The time will come when 
 we must all be Democrats or Abolitionists. When 
 that time comes, my mind is made up. The slavery 
 question can't be compromised." The Whig political 
 leaders thought it could be, and drafted the " Com- 
 promise Measures of 1850." These prepared the 
 pro-slavery leaders, and it was supposed the minds of 
 the people also, for Douglas's Kansas-Xebraska Bill ; 
 but the irruption which followed the announcement 
 of the latter measure indicated that the politicians 
 had failed to read the public mind upon a moral 
 question, as they had before been able to do on 
 purely political questions. Surprised at the effect 
 of his bill, Senator Stephen A. Douglas started 
 for Springfield, 111., to explain. This he did in 
 October, before avast number of people during the 
 State Fair, delivering one of the greatest speeches of 
 his life. There was but one man who was able to 
 answer him, and that was Lincoln. He that day 
 made his first great political speech. Stoddard 
 
44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 gays : " All the smothered fire of his brooding days 
 and nights and years burst forth in a power and 
 with an eloquence which even those who knew him 
 best had not so much as hoped for. There was no 
 report made of that speech. Not a sentence of it 
 had been reduced to writing beforehand. He spoke 
 all that was in his heart to speak, and when he sat 
 down there had been a new party born in the State 
 of Illinois, and he was its father, its head, its un- 
 questioned and unquestionable representative and 
 leader. . . . It is a matter of historical record 
 that the existence of the Republican party, unnamed 
 but living, dates from the first collision at Spring- 
 field of Stephen A. Douglas with the man who, for 
 forty-seven years of toilsome development, had un- 
 wittingly prepared himself for that hour, and for 
 the long struggle which was to follow." So strong an 
 Abolition speech was this reply to Douglas, that the 
 Abolitionists announced a separate meeting of their 
 own for the same evening, and planned to have 
 Lincoln identify himself with them by a speech. 
 What would have been the result had not his part- 
 ner, Mr. Herndon, an ardent Abolitionist, urged 
 him to go into the country, it is impossible to say. 
 
LINCOLN'S " KEYNOTE" SPEECH. 
 
 THE Illino'S Republican State Convention met 
 at Springfield, June 16, 1858. The delegates 
 and alternates numbered about one thousand. Men 
 were present from every Northern State and from 
 several Southern States. The eyes of the Nation 
 were turned in the direction of this little city. 
 
 It was understood by all that Lincoln would be 
 the orator of the occasion, and that his speech before 
 the Convention would be a great political event. 
 H? realized this fact, and prepared his speech so 
 that there could be no misunderstanding of his 
 views upon the great issue then before the country — 
 slavery. 
 
 On the 16th of June the Convention unanimously 
 adopted the following resolution : 
 
 "That Abraham Lincoln is our first and only 
 choice for United States senator, to fill the vacancy 
 about to be created by the expiration of Mr. Doug- 
 las's term of office." 
 
 While Lincoln had taken neither advice nor 
 
 counsel in the preparation of his speech, he deemed 
 
 it wise to prepare some of bis nearer friends for 
 
 45 
 
46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 what it was to be. He read it first to Mr. Herndon, 
 an Abolitionist, and that gentleman said : 
 
 " It is true ; but is it entirely politic to speak it 
 or read it as it is written ?" 
 
 The question referred particularly to the " key- 
 note" of the speech, which was as follows: 
 
 "Gentlemen of the Convention, — If we 
 could first know where we are and whither we are 
 tending, we could then better judge what to do and 
 how to do it. We are now far on into the fifth 
 year since a policy was initiated with the avowed 
 object and confident promise of putting an end to 
 slavery agitation. Under the operation of that 
 policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but 
 has continually augmented. In my opinion it will 
 not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and 
 passed. 'A house divided against itself can not 
 stand/ I believe this Government can not 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 that it will cease 
 to be divided. It will become all one thing or all 
 the other. Either the opponents of slavery will ar- 
 rest the further spread of it, and place it where the 
 public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in 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." 
 
LINCOLN'S "KEYNOTE" SPEECH. 47 
 
 To Herndon's objection Lincoln replied : 
 
 "That makes no difference. That expression is 
 a truth of all human experience. 'A house divided 
 agaiust itself can not stand/ and i He that runs may 
 read/ The proposition is indisputably true, and 
 has been true for more than six thousand years; 
 and I will deliver it as it is written. I want to 
 use some universally known figure, expressed in 
 simple language as universally known, that may 
 strike home to the minds of men in order to rouse 
 them to the peril of the times. I would rather be 
 defeated with this expression in the speech, and it 
 held up and discussed before the people, than to be 
 victorious without it." 
 
 Lincoln afterward gathered a dozen leading men 
 in the library-room of the State-house, not to ask 
 their guidance, but to assure them of his purpose 
 by reading his speech to them. They listened, and 
 every man present except Mr. Herndon, who had 
 caught Lincoln's spirit, condemned the bold utter- 
 ance, and declared that its delivery would sound the 
 death-knell of Lincoln and the Republican party. 
 
 Lincoln heard them all respectfully, and then said 
 to them : 
 
 "Friends, I have thought about this matter a 
 great deal ; have surveyed the question well from all 
 corners, and am thoroughly convinced the time has 
 come when it should be uttered ; and if it must be 
 
48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 that I go down because of this speech, then let me 
 go down linked to truth — die in the advocacy of 
 what is right and just. This Nation can not live on 
 injustice. 'A house divided against itself can not 
 stand/ I say again and again. " 
 
 The speech was delivered without modification 
 the next day, Juue 17th, and it startled the Nation. 
 No such daring words, no such unequivocal state- 
 ment of the great problem, had yet been uttered 
 by any man of political prominence and power. 
 
 Mr. Lamon relates that, a day or two after the 
 delivery of the speech, a Dr. Long, representing 
 many others, came into Lincoln's law office to free 
 his mind. He said : 
 
 "Well, Lincoln, that foolish speech of yours will 
 kill you — will defeat you in this contest, and prob- 
 ably for all offices for all time to come. I am sorry, 
 sorry, very sorry. I wish it was wiped out of ex- 
 istence. Do n't you wish it now?" 
 
 Lincoln dropped the pen he had been writing 
 with, and turned his sad, earnest, half-contemptuous 
 smile upon the mourner : 
 
 " Well, Doctor, if I had to draw my pen across 
 and erase my whole life from existence, and I had 
 one poor gift or choice left as to what I should save 
 from the wreck, I should choose that speech, and 
 leave it to the world unerased." 
 
THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATE. 
 
 THE discussions between Lincoln and Douglas 
 in 1858 were the most famous political joint 
 debates in American history. These men were 
 rival candidates for the position of United States 
 senator from Illinois. They represented the con- 
 servative positions on the slavery question, though 
 at the time each was thought to be extremely rad- 
 ical — Lincoln being opposed to the extension of 
 slavery under any conditions, and Douglas being 
 in favor of leaving the people of a Territory to de- 
 cide it for themselves. The immediate issue involved 
 related to the extension of slavery into Kansas. 
 
 Douglas was the champion of what he termed 
 " squatter sovereignty;" that is, that the settlers of 
 a Territory at the time of its proposed admission to 
 the Union of States should, in the provisional con- 
 stitution, determine whether slavery should be per- 
 mitted in the new State or not. 
 
 The position of Douglas had arrayed against him 
 many anti-slavery Democrats in the North, and 
 pro-slavery Democrats in the South, besides Presi- 
 dent Buchanan, whom Douglas had antagonized. 
 
 4 49 
 
50 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 The campaign therefore, for these reasons, at- 
 tracted national attention, and was regarded, so far 
 as Douglas was concerned, the beginning of the 
 Presidential campaign of 1860, it being generally 
 understood that he hoped and expected to be the 
 Democratic candidate for the Presidency. 
 
 Both men were trained speakers, and popular. 
 Douglas's friends loved to call him " the Little 
 Giant," and the friends of Lincoln, who was phys- 
 ically and intellectually a giant, loved to call him 
 " Honest Old Abe." Lincoln believed that he and 
 his cause had more to gain than lose by compari- 
 son with Douglas before the people, and he forced 
 the issue by proposing the joint debate. Doug.las 
 accepted, and seven joint debates were arranged. 
 
 These debates were held in the open air. The 
 crowds attending them were so great that no hall 
 in the State of Illinois could have accommodated 
 them. Farmers with their sons rode twenty, thirty, 
 forty, and even fifty miles, carrying provisions with 
 them, and camping out in their wagons on the way. 
 
 Isaac N. Arnold in his "Life of Lincoln," says: 
 
 " The friends of Douglas who managed the ma- 
 chinery of the campaign, did it well. A special 
 train of cars, a band of music, a cannon to thunder 
 forth his approach, and a party of ardent and en- 
 thusiastic friends accompanied him to cheer and 
 encourage; so that his passage from place to place 
 
THE LIXCOLX A ND DO UGLAS DEB A TE. 5 1 
 
 was like that of a conquering hero. The Demo- 
 cratic party, so long dominant in Illinois, were 
 now, from Douglas down, confident, and his par- 
 tisans full of bluster and brag. They everywhere 
 boasted, and were ready to bet, that their ' Little 
 Giant' would i use up and utterly demolish' 'Old 
 Abe.' 
 
 "They were so noisy and demonstrative; they 
 seemed so absolutely sure of success, that many of 
 the Republicans, unconscious of the latent power 
 of Lincoln, became alarmed. Douglas had so uni- 
 formly triumphed, and his power over the people 
 was so great, that many were disheartened, and 
 feared the ordeal of a joint discussion, which would 
 certainly expose the weaker man. This feeling 
 was apparent in the editorials of some of the lead- 
 ing Republican newspapers. 
 
 " Just before the joint discussion, which was to 
 take place at Ottawa, there was a large gathering 
 at the Chenery House, then the leading hotel at 
 Springfield. The house was filled with politicians, 
 and so great was the crowd that large numbers were 
 out of doors, in the street and on the sidewalk. 
 Lincoln was there, surrounded by his friends; but 
 it is said that he looked careworn and weary. 
 
 u He had become conscious that some of his party 
 friends distrusted his ability to meet successfully a 
 man who, as the Democrats declared and believed, 
 
52 ABRAHA M LINCOLN. 
 
 had never had his equal on the stump. Seeing an 
 old friend from Vermilion County, Lincoln came 
 up, and, shaking hands, inquired the news. His 
 friend replied: 'All looks well; our friends are wide 
 awake; but/ he continued/ they are looking forward 
 with some anxiety to these approaching joint dis- 
 cussions with Douglas/ A shade passed over Lin- 
 coln's face, a sad expression came and instantly 
 passed, and then a blaze of light flashed from his 
 eyes, and his lips quivered. 'I saw/ said his friend, 
 'that he had penetrated my feelings and fears, and 
 that he knew of the apprehensions of his friends. 
 With his lips compressed, and with a manner pecul- 
 iar to him, half jocular, he said : " My friend, sit 
 down a minute, and I will tell you a story." We 
 sat down on the doorstep leading into the hotel, 
 and he then continued : " You and I, as we traveled 
 the circuit together attending court, have often seen 
 two men about to fight. One of them, the big or 
 the little giant, as the case may be, is noisy and 
 boastful; he jumps high in the air, strikes his feet 
 together, smites his fists, brags about what he is 
 going to do, and tries hard to sheer the other man. 
 The other says not a word." Lincoln's manner be- 
 came earnest, and his look firm and resolute. "The 
 other man says not a word, his arms are at his side, 
 his fists are clenched, his teeth set, his head settled 
 firmly on his shoulders, he saves his breath and 
 
THE LINCOLN AND DO UGLAS DEB A TE. 5 3 
 
 strength for the struggle. This man will whip, just 
 as sure as the fight conies off. Good-bye," said he, 
 " and remember what I say." From that moment J 
 felt as certain of Lincoln's triumph as after it was 
 won.' " 
 
 Both speakers knew how to interest a crowd, 
 and Lincoln was famous for his stories. But it 
 came to be noticed that as the debates continued, 
 Lincoln's stories diminished in number, while his 
 earnestness in presenting the great moral issue of 
 the campaign and his appeals for justice increased. 
 It was observed, too, that while the people laughed 
 at Douglas's stories, they went away after Lincoln's 
 speech with thoughtful faces, and talked seriously 
 among themselves of the points made by him. 
 
 The more important of the debates related to a 
 series of questions presented by each speaker to the 
 other. Those asked by Douglas are not of special 
 interest in this connection, but the entire debate 
 should be read by every young American. The 
 questions asked by Mr. Lincoln are of impor- 
 tance because Douglas's answers to these questions, 
 no doubt, led to the division of the Democratic 
 party in 1860, his defeat for the Presidency, and the 
 election of Lincoln. 
 
 These questions were : 
 
 "1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means en- 
 tirely unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a 
 
54 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 State Constitution, and ask admission into the Union 
 under it, before they have the requisite number of 
 inhabitants according to the English Bill — some 
 ninety-three thousand — will you vote to admit them ? 
 
 "2. Can the people of a United States Territory, 
 in any lawful way, agaiust the wish of any citizen 
 of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits 
 prior to the formation of a State Constitution? 
 
 "3. If the Supreme Court of the United States 
 shall decide that States can not exclude slavery from 
 their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in adopt- 
 ing and following such decision as a rule of political 
 action ? 
 
 "4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional 
 territory, in disregard of how such acquisition may 
 affect the Nation on the slavery question ?" 
 
 A friend to whom Lincoln submitted these ques- 
 tions, told him that Douglas would see that an an- 
 swer, giving practical force and effect to the Dred 
 Scott decision in the Territories, would inevitably 
 lose him the battle, and that he would therefore 
 reply by offering the decision as an abstract princi- 
 ple, but denying its practical application. 
 
 "If he does that," said Lincoln, "he can never 
 be President." 
 
 " But," said the friend, " that is not your look- 
 out ; you are after the senatorship." 
 
 " No, sir," he replied, " I am killing larger 
 
THE LINCOLN AXD DO UGLAS DEB A TE. 55 
 
 game. The battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of 
 this." 
 
 Lincoln received the larger popular vote, but 
 Douglas carried the Legislature, and was elected 
 United States senator. Two years later Lincoln's 
 prediction was fulfilled. Douglas's answer to Lin- 
 coln's questions did not satisfy the slaveholders 
 of the South. They refused to support him, se- 
 ceded from the Democratic National Gonvention, 
 and nominated a candidate of their own. 
 
 Lincoln's speeches attracted the attention of Re- 
 publicans throughout the country to him as an 
 available man for the Presidential nomination. 
 
LINCOLN'S COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH. 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S debate with Douglas had at- 
 tracted national attention. People in the 
 East had heard of him as a Western politician 
 famous for his jokes. But a man who could van- 
 quish Stephen A. Douglas, one of the ablest and 
 most polished speakers in the land, must, they 
 thought, be something more than " a teller of jokes." 
 There was great curiosity to hear him, and he was 
 invited to lecture in Plymouth Church. He con- 
 sented to do so, on condition that he might speak on 
 a political subject. 
 
 Before Lincoln arrived in New York, those in 
 charge of the lecture decided that it should be de- 
 livered in Cooper Institute, the largest hall in the 
 city. Mr. Lincoln was surprised, and expressed the 
 fear that he would not be able to meet the expecta- 
 tions which the change of place indicated. 
 
 There was a vast audience, including many of 
 the most distinguished men of the time. Perhaps 
 hundreds were drawn simply by curiosity to see the 
 man they had read so much about. That he was 
 a scholar or a statesman they did not suppose. 
 William Cullen Bryant, the poet, presided. 
 56 
 
IIXCOIX'S COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH. 57 
 
 Mr. Lincoln bad carefully prepared his speech. 
 Its object was to show that the fathers of the Repub- 
 lic knew as much about the slavery question as did 
 the people of I860, and that they desired to prevent 
 its extension. It contained incidents, but they were 
 designed to clinch his argument, not to amuse his 
 hearers. The audience was charmed with his elo- 
 quence, and impressed with his ability and states- 
 manship. His closing sentence was a bugle-blast: 
 " Let us have faith that right is might, and 
 let us in that faith, to the end, dare to do 
 our duty as we understand it." 
 
 This lecture directed the attention of the people 
 of the East to Lincoln as an available candidate 
 for President, and contributed very much to his 
 nomination at Chicago a lew months later. 
 
SECRET OF LINCOLN'S POWER AS A 
 SPEAKER. 
 
 ON the morning following Lincoln's great speech 
 in Norwich, Connecticut, Rev. J. P. Gulliver 
 met Mr. Lincoln on the cars, and entered into 
 conversation with him, which he afterward related 
 in the Independent. In speaking of his speech, 
 Mr. Gulliver remarked to Mr. Lincoln that he 
 thought it the most remarkable one he ever heard. 
 
 "Are you sincere in what you say ?" inquired 
 Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 " I mean every word of it," replied the minister. 
 "Indeed, sir," he continued, " I learned more of the 
 art of public speaking last evening than I could 
 from a whole course of lectures on rhetoric." 
 
 Then Mr. Lincoln informed him of "a most ex- 
 traordinary circumstance" that occurred at New 
 Haven a few days previously. A professor of rhet- 
 oric in Yale College, he had been told, came to hear 
 him, took notes of his speech, and gave a lecture 
 on it to his class the following day; and, not sat- 
 isfied with that, followed him to Meriden the next 
 evening, and heard him again for the same purpose. 
 58 
 
LINCOLN'S POWER AS A SPEAKER. 59 
 
 All this seemed to Mr. Lincoln to be " very ex- 
 traordinary." He had been sufficiently astonished 
 by his success in the West; but he had no expecta- 
 tion of any marked success in the East, particu- 
 larly among literary and learned men. 
 
 "Now," said Mr. Lincoln, "I should very much 
 like to know what it was in my speech which you 
 thought so remarkable, and which interested my 
 friend the professor so much?" 
 
 Mr. Gulliver's answer was: 
 
 "The clearness of your statements, the unan- 
 swerable style of your reasoning, and, especially, 
 your illustrations, which were romance and pathos, 
 and fun and logic, all welded together." 
 
 After Mr. Gulliver had fully satisfied his curi- 
 osity by a further exposition of the politician's 
 peculiar power, Mr. Lincoln said: 
 
 " I am much obliged to you for this. I have 
 been wishing for a long time to find some one who 
 would make this analysis for me. It throws light 
 on a subject which has been dark to me. I can un- 
 derstand very readily how such a power as you have 
 ascribed to me will, account for the effect which 
 seems to be produced by my speeches. I hope you 
 have not been too flatteriug in your estimate. Cer- 
 tainly, I have had a most wonderful success for a 
 man of my limited education." 
 
 " That suggests, Mr. Lincoln, an inquiry which 
 
60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 has several time been upon my lips during this 
 conversation," said Mr. Gulliver. " I want very 
 much to know how you got this unusual power of 
 putting things. It must have been a matter of ed- 
 ucation. No mau has it by nature alone. What 
 has your education been ?" 
 
 " Well, as to education, the newspapers are cor- 
 rect/' replied Lincoln; "I never went to school 
 more than six months in my life. But, as you say, 
 this must be a product of culture in some form. I 
 have been putting the question you ask me to my- 
 self, while you have been talking. I can say this, 
 that among my earliest recollections I remember 
 how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated 
 when anybody talked to me in a way I could not 
 understand. I do n't think I ever got angry at 
 anything else in my life. But that always disturbed 
 my temper, and has ever since. I can remember 
 going to my little bedroom, after hearing the 
 neighbors talk of an evening with my father, and 
 spending no small part of the night walking up 
 and down, and trying to make out what was the 
 exact meaning of some of their, to me, dark say- 
 ings. I could not sleep, though I often tried to, 
 when I got on such a hunt after an idea, until I 
 had caught it ; and when I thought I had got it, I 
 was not satisfied until I had repeated it over and 
 over, until I had put it in language plain enough, as 
 
LINCOLN'S POWER AS A SPEAKER. 61 
 
 I thought, for any boy I knew to comprehend. 
 This was a kind of passion with me, and it has 
 stuck by me ; for I am never easy now, when I 
 am handling a thought, till I have bounded it 
 north, and bounded it south, and bounded it east, 
 and bounded it west, Perhaps that accounts for 
 the characteristic you observe in my speeches, 
 though I never put the two things together before." 
 
 " Mr. Lincoln," said Mr. Gulliver, " I thank you 
 for this. It is the most spkmdid educational fact I 
 ever happened upon. This is genius, with all its 
 impulsive, inspiring, dominating power over the 
 mind of its possessor, developed by education into^ 
 talent, with its uniformity, its permanence, and its 
 disciplined strength — always ready, always availa- 
 ble, never capricious — the highest possession of the 
 human intellect. But, let me ask, did you prepare 
 for your profession ?" 
 
 " O yes ! I read law, as the phrase is ; that is, 
 I became a lawyer's clerk in Springfield, and copied 
 tedious documents, and picked up what I could of 
 law in the intervals of other work. But your 
 question reminds me of a bit of education I had, 
 which I am bound in honesty to mention. In the 
 course of my law-reading, I constantly came upon 
 the word demonstrate. I thought at first that I un- 
 derstood its meaning, but soon became satisfied that 
 I did not. I said to myself, MVhat do I mean 
 
62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 when I demonstrate more than when I reason or 
 prove? How. does demonstration differ from any- 
 other proof?' I consulted Webster's Dictionary. 
 That told of certain proof, proof beyond the possi- 
 bility of doubt ; but I could form no idea what 
 sort of £roof that was. I thought a great many 
 things were proved beyond a possibility of doubt, 
 without recourse to any such extraordinary process 
 of reasoning as I understood demonstration to be. 
 I consulted all the dictionaries and books of ref- 
 erence I could find, but with no better results. You 
 might as well have defined blue to a blind man. At 
 last I said: ' Lincoln, you can never make a law- 
 yer if you do not understand what demonstrate 
 means ;' and I left my situation in Springfield, went 
 home to my father's house, and staid there till I 
 could give any proposition in the six books of 
 Euclid at sight. I then found out what demon- 
 strate means, and went back to my law-studies." 
 
LINCOLN'S NOMINATION FOR THE 
 PRESIDENCY. 
 
 ISAAC' X. ARNOLD, in his"Life of Lincoln," 
 thus describes the nomination of Lincoln : 
 
 "The leading candidates for the Presidency were 
 William H. Seward, of Xew York ; Abraham Liu- 
 coln, of Illinois; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio; Simon 
 Cameron, of Pennsylvania; and Edward Bates, of 
 Missouri; but it early became apparent that the 
 contest was between Seward and Lincoln. 
 
 " On the first day of the Convention the friends 
 of Lincoln discovered that there was an organized 
 body of Xew Yorkers and others in the ' Wigwam' 
 who cheered vociferously whenever Seward's name 
 was mentioned, or any allusion was made to him. 
 The New Yorkers did the shouting, Lincoln's 
 friends were modest and quiet. 
 
 "At the meeting of the Illinois delegation at 
 the Tremont, on the evening of the first day, at 
 which Jndd, Davis, Cook, and others were present, 
 it was decided that on the second day Illinois and 
 the West should be heard. There was then living 
 in Chicago a man whose voice could drown the 
 
 63 
 
64 ABE A HA U L IXCOLX. 
 
 roar of Lake Michigan in its wildest fury ; nay, it 
 was said that his shout could be heard, on a calm 
 day, across that lake. Cook, of Ottawa, knew an- 
 other man, living on the Illinois River, a Dr. 
 Ames, who had never found his equal in his ability 
 to shont and huzzah. He was, however, a Demo- 
 crat. 
 
 " Cook telegraphed for him to come to Chicago 
 by the first train. These two men with stento- 
 rian voices met some of the Illinois delegation at 
 the Tremont House, and were instructed to organize 
 each a body of men to cheer and shout, which they 
 speedily did out of the crowds which were in at- 
 tendance from the Northwest. They were placed 
 on opposite sides of the l Wigwam,' and instructed 
 that when Cook took out his white handkerchief 
 they were to cheer, and not to cease until he re- 
 turned it to his pocket. Cook was conspicuous on 
 the platform, and, at the first utterance of the name 
 of Lincoln, simultaneously with the wave of Cook's 
 handkerchief, there went up such a cheer, such a 
 shout as never before had been heard, and which 
 startled the friends of Seward as the cry of ' Mar- 
 mion,' on Flodden Field, ' startled the Scottish foe.' 
 The Xew Yorkers tried to follow when the name 
 of Seward was spoken, but, beaten at their own 
 game, their voices were instantly and absolutely 
 drowned by cheers for Lincoln. This was kept 
 
JfOMIHTATIOH FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 65 
 
 up until Lincoln was nominated, amid a storm of 
 applause never before equaled. 
 
 "Ames was so carried away with his enthusiasm 
 for Lincoln that he joined the Republican party, 
 and continued to shout for Lincoln during the 
 whole campaign ; he was afterward rewarded with 
 a country post-office. 
 
 " While the Convention was in session Lincoln 
 was at his home in Springfield. The proceedings 
 and the result of each ballot were immediately 
 communicated to him by a telegraph wire extend- 
 ing from the ' Wigwam.' At the time of the second 
 ballot Lincoln was with some friends in the office 
 of the Sangamon Journal. Soon a gentleman hast- 
 ily entered from the telegraph office, bearing a slip 
 of paper on which his nomination — the result of the 
 third ballot— was written. He read the paper to 
 himself, and then aloud, and then, without stopping 
 to receive congratulations of his friends, he said : 
 ' There is a little woman down at our house who 
 would like to hear this. I '11 go down and tell her.' 
 The incident speaks relatively of the affectionate 
 relations between him and his wife. She was far 
 more anxious that he should be President than he 
 himself was, and her early dream was now to be 
 realized. 
 
 " No words can adequately describe the enthu- 
 siasm with which this nomination was received in 
 
 6 
 
66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Chicago, in Illinois, and throughout the Northwest. 
 A man who had been placed on top of the Wigwam 
 to announce to the thousands outside the progress 
 of the balloting, as soon as the secretary read the 
 result of the third ballot, shouted to those below : 
 ' Fire the salute — Lincoln is nominated/ 
 The cannon was fired, and before its reverberations 
 died away a hundred thousand voters of Illinois 
 and the neighboring States were shouting, scream- 
 ing, and rejoicing at the result." 
 
 Immediately after the Convention adjourned, a 
 committee visited Mr. Lincoln in Springfield, 111., to 
 inform him officially of his nomination. After this 
 ceremony had passed, Mr. Lincoln remarked that, 
 as an appropriate conclusion to an interview so im- 
 portant and interesting, he supposed good manners 
 would require that he should furnish the committee 
 something to drink ; and opening a door, he called 
 out, " Mary ! Mary !" A girl responded to the 
 call, to whom Mr. Lincoln spoke a few words in an 
 undertone. In a few minutes the maiden entered, 
 bearing a large waiter, containing several glass 
 tumblers and a large pitcher, and placed it upon 
 the center-table. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln arose, and gravely addressing the 
 company, said : " Gentlemen, we must pledge our 
 mutual healths in the most healthy beverage which 
 God has given to man. It is the only beverage I have 
 
NOMINATION FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 67 
 
 ever used or allowed in my family, and I can not 
 conscientiously depart from it on the present oc- 
 casion ; it is pure Adam's ale from the spring f* 
 and, taking a tumbler, he touched it to his lips, and 
 pledged them his highest respects in a cup of cold 
 water. 
 
THE MORAL ASPECT OF THE CAM- 
 PAIGN OF 1860. 
 
 " TOURING the campaign of I860," says J. G. 
 \J Holland, in his "Life of Lincoln/' "Mr. 
 Newton Bateman, Superintendent of Public In- 
 struction for the State of Illinois, occupied a room 
 adjoining and opening into the executive chamber 
 at Springfield, and he saw Mr. Lincoln nearly every 
 day. Often when Mr. Lincoln was tired, he closed 
 the door against all intruders, and called Mr. Bate- 
 man into his room for a quiet talk. On one ot 
 these occasions, Mr. Lincoln took up a book con- 
 taining a careful canvass of the city of Springfield, 
 in which he lived, showing the candidate for whom 
 each citizen had declared it his intention to vote in 
 the approaching election. Mr. Lincoln's friends 
 had, doubtless at his own request, placed the result 
 of the canvass in his hands. This was only a few 
 days before election. Calling Mr. Bateman to a 
 seat by his side, having previously locked all the 
 doors, he said : i Let us look over this book ; I 
 wish particularly to see how the ministers of Spring- 
 field are going to vote.' The leaves were turned, 
 68 
 
CAMPAIGN OF 1860. 
 
 69 
 
 one by one, and as the names were examined, Mr. 
 Lincoln frequently asked if this one and that were 
 not a minister or an elder, or a member of such or 
 such Church, and sadly expressed his surprise on 
 receiving an affirmative answer. In that manner 
 they went through the book, and then he closed it, 
 and sat silently for some minutes regarding a mem- 
 orandum in pencil which lay before him. At 
 length, he turned to Mr. Bateman, with a face full 
 of sadness, and said : 
 
 "'Here are twenty-three ministers, of different 
 denominations, and all of them are against me but 
 three ; and here are a great many prominent mem- 
 bers of the Churches, a very large majority are 
 against me. Mr. Bateman, I am not a Christian — 
 God knows I would be one— but I have carefully 
 read the Bible, and I do not so understand this 
 book/ and he drew forth a pocket New Testament. 
 < These men well know/ he continued, * that I am 
 for freedom in the Territories, freedom everywhere 
 as free as the Constitution and the laws will permit, 
 and that my opponents are for slavery. They know 
 this, and yet, with this book in their hands, in the 
 light of which human bondage can not live a mo- 
 ment, they are going to vote against me. I do not 
 understand it at all/ 
 
 "Here Mr. Lincoln paused — paused for long 
 minutes — his features surcharged with emotion. 
 
70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Then he rose and walked up and down the recep- 
 tion-room in the effort to retain or regain his self- 
 possession. Stopping at last, he said, with a trem- 
 bling voice and cheeks wet with tears : ' I know 
 there is a God, and that he hates injustice and 
 slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that 
 his hand is in it. If he has a place and work for 
 me — and I think he has — I believe I am ready. I 
 am nothing, but truth is everything. I know I am 
 right, because I know that liberty is right; for Christ 
 teaches it, and Christ is God. I have told them 
 that a house divided against itself can not stand ; 
 and Christ and reason say the same; and they will 
 find it so. Douglas don't care whether slavery is 
 voted up or down; but God cares, and humanity 
 cares, and I care, and, with God's help, I shall not 
 fail. I may not see the end, but it will come, and 
 I shall be vindicated ; and these men will find that 
 they have not read their Bible right.' 
 
 " Much of this was uttered as if he was speaking 
 to himself, and with a sad, earnest solemnity of 
 manner impossible to be described. After a pause, 
 he resumed : ' Does n't it appear strange that men 
 can ignore the moral aspect of this contest? A rev- 
 elation could not make it plainer to me that slavery 
 or the Government must be destroyed. The future 
 would be something awful, as I look at it, but for 
 this rock on which I stand ' — alluding to the Testa- 
 
CAMPAIGN OF 1860. 71 
 
 merit which he still held in his hand — ' especially 
 with the knowledge of how these ministers are going 
 to vote. It seems as if God had borne with this 
 thing [slavery] until the very teachers of religion 
 had come to defend it from the Bible, and to claim 
 for it a divine character and sanction ; and now the 
 cup of iniquity is full, and the vials of wrath will be 
 poured out.' After this the conversation was con- 
 tinued for a long time. Everything he said was of a 
 peculiarly deep, tender, and religious tone, aud all 
 was tinged with a touching melancholy. He re- 
 peatedly referred to his conviction that the day of 
 wrath was at hand, and that he was to be an actor 
 in the terrible struggle which would issue in the 
 overthrow of slavery, though he might not live to 
 see the end. 
 
 " After further reference to a belief in Divine 
 providence and the fact of God in history, the 
 conversation turned upon prayer. He freely stated 
 his belief in the duty, privilege, and efficacy of 
 prayer, and intimated, in no mistakable terms, that 
 he had sought in that way the Divine guidance and 
 favor. The effect of this conversation upon the 
 mind of Mr. Bateman, a Christian gentleman whom 
 Mr. Lincoln profoundly respected, was to convince 
 him that Mr. Lincoln had, in his quiet way, found 
 a path to the Christian standpoint — that he had 
 found God, and rested on the eternal truth of God. 
 
72 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 As the two men were about to separate, Mr. Bate- 
 man remarked : ' I have not supposed that you 
 were accustomed to think so much upon this class 
 of subjects. Certainly your friends generally are 
 ignorant of the sentiments you have expressed to 
 me.' He replied quickly : ' I know they are, but 
 I think more on these subjects than upon all others, 
 and I have done so for years; and I am willing you 
 should know it.' " 
 
 Mr. Lincoln, however, did receive the general 
 support of the religious people of the North. Not 
 only did they vote for him, but upon his inaugura- 
 tion as President, prayers were offered in thousands 
 of churches and at many family altars that he might 
 be divinely guided. 
 
" ONE WAR AT A TIME." 
 
 NEXT to the Emancipation Proclamation, the 
 most important act of Mr. Lincoln's Adminis- 
 tration was that in regard to England's demand for 
 the release of Mason and Slidell. 
 
 These gentlemen were the accredited envoys of 
 the Confederacy to England and France. They 
 ran the blockade at Charleston, and reached Havana. 
 There they took passage on the British Royal Mail 
 steamship Trent, November 7, 1861. Captain 
 Wilkes, of the United States steam sloop-of-war San 
 Jacinto, who knew of their movements, lay in wait 
 for the Trent, and the next day, in the Bahama 
 Channel, fired a shot across her bows and brought 
 her to. He then boarded the vessel, and, against 
 the angry protests of the English captain, took off 
 Messrs. Mason and Slidell, who were soon after- 
 ward confined in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor. 
 
 Captain Wilkes's action was received with enthu- 
 siasm throughout the North, and he was congratu- 
 lated by the Secretary of the Navy and praised by 
 Secretary Stanton. Congress passed a vote of 
 thanks for his" brave, adroit, and patriotic conduct." 
 
74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 President Lincoln did not join in the congratu- 
 lations. Mr. John T. Morse, Jr., in his " Life of 
 Lincoln," says : 
 
 " He was scarcely even non-committal. On the 
 contrary, he is said at once to have remarked that it 
 did not look right to stop the vessel of a friendly 
 power on the high seas and take passengers out of 
 her; that he did not understand whence Captain 
 Wilkes derived authority to turn his quarter-deck 
 into a court of admiralty ; that he was afraid the cap- 
 tives might prove to be white elephants on our hands ; 
 that we had fought Great Britain on the ground of 
 like doings upon her part, and that new we must 
 stick to American principles ; that if England in- 
 sisted upon our surrendering the prisoners, we must 
 do so, and must apologize, and bind her over to 
 keep the peace in relation to neutrals, and to admit 
 that she had been wrong for sixty years." 
 
 What pleased the Americans angered the Britons. 
 Orders were at once issued to the English navy- 
 yards to make immediate preparations for war, and 
 the English newspapers were filled with abuse of 
 and threats against the United States. Lord Pal- 
 merston, in the heat of passion, hastily wrote a dis- 
 patch to Lord Lyons, directing him to demand im- 
 mediate reparation. The missive was couched in 
 such threatening and insolent language, that Mr. 
 Lincoln must have refused to comply with its de- 
 
OXE WAR AT A TIME. 75 
 
 mand, and war would probably have been the re- 
 sult. Fortunately, Lord Palmerston, before send- 
 ing the dispatch to Lord Lyons, submitted it to the 
 Queen, who secured the elimination of the offensive 
 language, though the tone remained peremptory. 
 
 Lord Lyons received the dispatch December 
 19th. Before delivering it officially he talked over 
 its contents with Secretary of State Seward, inform- 
 ally. Mr. Lincoln suggested arbitration, which was 
 refused, Lord Lyons having no authority for such 
 action. 
 
 Having admitted that England was right, Mr. 
 Lincoln felt that no other course could be pursued 
 than to surrender the envoys. To those who pro- 
 tested and did not view the legal aspects of the 
 case as himself, he said : " One war at a time." It 
 would have been more agreeable to him to have 
 protracted the diplomatic settlement"; but this, un- 
 der the circumstances, was not possible. 
 
 In his official reply, Secretary of State Seward 
 reminded the English Government that the United 
 States, in 1812, had fought against England for ex- 
 ercising the right she claimed to stop their vessels 
 on the high seas and search them for British sub- 
 jects. He was glad to find her renouncing this old- 
 time error. Captain Wilkes had acted without in- 
 structions, and had made a mistake. 
 
 " No one," says Arnold ; " can calculate the re- 
 
76 ABRAHA M LINCOLN. 
 
 suits which would have followed upon a refusal to 
 surrender these men." Morse expresses the opin- 
 ion that " an almost certain result would have been 
 a war with England ; and a highly probable result 
 would have been that erelong France also would 
 find pretext for hostilities, since she was committed 
 to friendship with England in this matter, and, 
 moreover, the emperor seemed to have a restless 
 desire to interfere against the North." 
 
CONSIDERING THE EMANCIPATION 
 PROCLAMATION. 
 
 « TT was the purpose of the President" wrote Ex- 
 1 Secretary Usher in the New York Tribune, 
 "to issue a proclamation looking to the emancipa- 
 tion of slaves during the summer of 1862, but 
 in consequence of the unexpected misadventure of 
 General McClellan in the Peninsula before Rich- 
 mond, it was considered prudent to delay the proc- 
 lamation until some decisive advantage should be 
 gained by the armies in the field. Accordingly, 
 soon after the Battle of Antietam, the first Procla- 
 mation of Emancipation was made. By that, one 
 hundred days were given the States in rebellion to 
 resume their normal condition in the Government. 
 " In the preparation of the final Proclamation of 
 Emancipation, of January 1, 1863, Mr. Lincoln 
 manifested great solicitude. He had his original 
 draft printed, and furnished each member of his 
 Cabinet with a copy, with the request that each 
 should examine, criticise, and suggest any amend- 
 ments that occurred to them. 
 
 "At the next meeting of the Cabinet, Mr. Chase 
 
 77 
 
78 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 said : ' This paper is of the utmost importance, 
 greater than any State paper ever made by this 
 Government. A paper of so much importance, and 
 involving the liberties of so many people, ought, I 
 think, to make some reference to Deity. I do not 
 observe anything of the kind in it.' 
 
 "Mr. Lincoln said: 'No, I overlooked it. Some 
 reference to Deity must be inserted. Mr. Chase, 
 won't you make a draft of what you think ought 
 to be inserted?' 
 
 "Mr. Chase promised to do so, and at the next 
 meeting presented the following : 'And upon this 
 Act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, war- 
 ranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, 
 I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and 
 the gracious favor of Almighty God/ 
 
 "When Mr. Lincolu read the paragraph, Mr. 
 Chase said : * You may not approve it, but I thought 
 this, or something like it, would be appropriate/ 
 
 "Lincoln replied: 'I do approve it; it can not 
 be bettered, and I will adopt it in the very words 
 you have written/ 
 
 "When the parts of the Proclamation contain- 
 ing the exception from its operation of States and 
 parts of States were considered, Mr. Montgomery 
 Blair spoke of the importance of the Proclamation 
 as a state paper, and said that persons in after times 
 in seeking correct information of the occurrences of 
 
THE EM A XCTPA TIOX PROCLA MA TIOX. * 9 
 
 those times, would read and wonder why the thir- 
 teen parishes and the city of New Orleans, in 
 Louisiana, and the counties in Virginia about Nor- 
 folk, were excepted from the Proclamation, that they 
 were in the ' very heart and back of slavery/ and 
 unless there was some good reason which was then 
 unknown to him, he hoped they would not be ex- 
 cepted. Mr. Seward said: 'I think so too; I think 
 they should not be excepted.' 
 
 "Mr. Lincoln replied: ' Well, upon first view, 
 vmir objections are clearly good; but after I issued 
 the Proclamation of September 22d, Mr. Boulignv, 
 of Louisiana, then here, came to see me. He was 
 a great invalid and had scarcely the strength to 
 walk up-stairs. He wanted to know of me, if these 
 parishes in Louisiana and New Orleans should hold 
 an election, and elect members of Congress, whether 
 I would not except them from this Proclamation. 
 I told him I would.' Continuing he said: 'No, I 
 did not do that in so many words ; if he was here now 
 he could not repeat any words I said which would 
 amount to an absolute promise. But I know he 
 understood me that way, and that is just the same 
 to me. They have elected members and they are 
 here now — Union men, ready to take their seats — 
 and they have elected a Union man from the Nor- 
 folk District.' 
 
 " Mr. Blair said : ' If you have a promise out, I 
 
80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 will not ask you to break it/ Seward said : l No, 
 no ; we would not have you do that/ Mr. Chase 
 then said : i Very true, they have elected Hahn and 
 Flanders, but they have not yet got their seats, and 
 it is not certain that they will/ 
 
 "Mr. Lincoln arose from his seat, apparently 
 irritated, and walked rapidly back and forth across 
 the room. Looking over his shoulder at Mr. Chase, 
 he said: i There it is, sir. I am to be bullied by 
 Congress, am I? If I do, I'll be durned/ 
 
 "Nothing more was said. A month or more 
 thereafter, Hahn and Flanders were admitted to their 
 seats." 
 
THE GETTYSBURG SPEECH. 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S most famous speech was the 
 short one delivered at the dedication of the 
 Soldiers' Cemetery on the battle-field at Gettys- 
 burg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863. 
 
 The oration of the occasion was delivered by the 
 distinguished scholar, Edward Everett. His speech 
 lasted two hours, Mr. Lincoln's less than five min- 
 utes. The latter had been thought out, but was 
 changed slightly during its delivery. As revised 
 afterward by Mr. Lincoln for the Baltimore Fair, 
 it is as follows: 
 
 " Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers 
 brought forth on this continent a new nation, con- 
 ceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition 
 that all men are created equal. 
 
 "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, test- 
 ing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived 
 and so dedicated, can long endure. "We are met on 
 a great battle-field of that war. We have come to 
 dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting- 
 place for those who here gave their lives that that 
 nation might live. It is altogether fitting and 
 
 proper that we should do this. 
 
 6 81 
 
82 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 "But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we 
 can not consecrate— *-we can not hallow — this ground. 
 The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here 
 have consecrated it far above our poor power to 
 add or detract. The world will little note nor long 
 remember what we say here, but it can never forget 
 what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, 
 to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which 
 they who fojight here have thus far so nobly ad- 
 vanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to 
 the great task remaining before us — that from these 
 honored dead we take increased devotion to that 
 cause for which they gave the last full measure of 
 devotion — that we here highly resolve that these 
 dead shall not have died in vain — that this Nation, 
 under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — 
 and that government of the people, by the people, 
 for the people, shall not perish from the earth. " 
 
 A few hours after the delivery of these few 
 words Mr. Everett said : " I would rather be the 
 author of those twenty lines than to have all the 
 fame my oration of to-day will give me." He 
 spoke truly. Everett's oration is almost forgotten, 
 while Lincoln's is read wherever the English lan- 
 guage is spoken. 
 
MR. LINCOLN'S TENDERNESS. 
 
 SCHUYLER COLFAX, Vice-President of the 
 United States, wrote in " Rice's Reminiscences 
 of Lincoln :" 
 
 "No man clothed with such vast power ever 
 wielded it more tenderly and more forbearingly. 
 No man holding in his hands the key of life and 
 death ever pardoned so many offenders, and so 
 easily. Judge Bates, of Missouri, his Attorney- 
 General, insisted that lack of sternness was a 
 marked defect in Lincoln's character. He told Mr. 
 Lincoln once in my presence that this defect made 
 him unfit to be trusted with the pardoning power. 
 Any touching story, especially one told by a 
 woman, was certain to warp, if not to control, his 
 decision. 
 
 " Oue winter night, while Congress was in ses- 
 sion, I left all other business and asked him to 
 pardon the son of a former constituent sentenced 
 to be shot at Davenport Barracks, Iowa, for deser- 
 tion. He heard the story with his usual patience, 
 although worried out with incessant calls and cares, 
 then replied : 
 
 " ' Some of my generals complain that I impair 
 
 83 
 
84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 discipline by my frequent pardons and reprieves ; 
 but it rests me, after a day's hard work, that I 
 can find some excuse for saving some poor fellow's 
 life; and I shall go to bed happy to-night as I 
 think how joyous the signing of this name will 
 make himself, his family, and friends/ And with 
 a smile beaming on his care-furrowed face, he signed 
 that name and saved that life." 
 
 A personal friend of Mr. Lincoln says : " I 
 called on him one day in the early part of the 
 war. He had just written a pardon for a youug 
 man who had been sentenced to be shot for sleep- 
 ing at his post as a sentinel. He remarked as he 
 read it to me : 
 
 "'I could not think of going into eternity with 
 the blood of the poor young man on my skirts.' 
 Then he added : ( It is not to be wondered at that 
 a boy, raised on a farm, probably in the habit of 
 going to bed at dark, should, when required to 
 Avatch, fall asleep; and I can not consent to shoot 
 him for such an act.'" 
 
 Rev. Newman Hall, in a sermon upon Mr. 
 Lincoln's death, said that the dead body of this 
 boy was found among the slain on the field of 
 Fredericksburg, wearing next to his heart a photo- 
 graph of his preserver, beneath which he had writ- 
 ten, " God bless President Lincoln !" 
 
 Mr. Hall in the same sermon stated that 
 
MR. LINCOLN'S TENDERNESS. 85 
 
 an officer of the army, in conversation with the 
 preacher, said : 
 
 "The first week of my command, there were 
 twenty- four deserters sentenced by court-martial 
 to be shot, and the warrants for their execution 
 were sent to the President to be signed. He re- 
 fused. I went to Washington and had an inter- 
 view. I said : 
 
 " ' Mr. President, unless these men are made an 
 example of, the army itself is in danger. Mercy 
 to the few is cruelty to the many/ 
 
 "He replied: 'General, there are already too 
 many weeping widows in the United States. For 
 God's sake, do n't ask me to add to the number, 
 for I won't do it.'" 
 
 One day, Mr. Alley, a member of Congress, who 
 called at the White House on business, saw in the 
 crowd an old man crying as if his heart would 
 break. Such a sight w T as so common that the con- 
 gressman paid no attention to it. The next day he 
 again called at the White House, and found the old 
 man still there, crying. His heart was touched, 
 and he asked him : " What is the matter, old 
 
 man .' 
 
 •>v 
 
 The old man told him the story of his boy, a 
 soldier in General Butler's Army of the James, 
 who had been convicted of some crime, and sen- 
 tenced to be shot the next week. His congress- 
 
86 A BRA HAM LINCOL N. 
 
 man was convinced of the boy's guilt, and would 
 not interfere. 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Alley, " I will take you into 
 the Executive chamber after I have finished my 
 business, and you can tell Mr. Lincoln all about it." 
 
 On being introduced into Mr. Lincoln's pres- 
 ence, he was asked : " Well, my old friend, what can 
 I do for you to-day ?" 
 
 The old man then repeated to Mr. Lincoln what 
 he had already told the congressman in the ante- 
 room. A cloud of sorrow came over the President's 
 face, as he replied : 
 
 "lam sorry to say lean do nothing for you. 
 Listen to this telegram received from General But- 
 ler yesterday : ' President Lincoln, I pray you not 
 to interfere with the courts-martial of the army. 
 You will destroy all discipline among our soldiers. — 
 B. F. Butler.' " 
 
 Every word of this dispatch seemed like a death- 
 knell to the old man. Mr. Lincoln watched his 
 grief for a minute, and then exclaimed : 
 
 " By jingo, Butler or no Butler, here goes!" — 
 writing a few words and handing them to the old 
 man. 
 
 The confidence created by Mr. Lincoln's words 
 broke down when he read : " Job Smith is not to 
 be shot until further orders from me. — Abraham 
 Lincoln." 
 
MB. LINCOLN'S TENDERNESS. 87 
 
 " Why," said the old man, " I thought it was to 
 be a pardon; but you say, 'not to be shot until 
 further orders/ and you may order him to be shot 
 next week." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln smiled, and replied : " Well, my old 
 friend, I see you are not very well acquainted with 
 me. If your son never looks on death till further 
 orders come from me to shoot him, he will live to 
 be a great deal older than Methuselah." 
 
 General McClellan sent for the President in a 
 critical hour, and he responded by starting at once, 
 accompanied by Stanton. They had no sooner 
 alighted from the car on reaching army headquar- 
 ters, than Stanton approached General McClellan, 
 and brusquely addressed him by saying : " Why 
 are you delaying an advance ? What keeps you 
 from hurling this army on to the foe ?" 
 
 " I have asked the President and you to come 
 personally," said the general, " that you might see 
 for yourself the necessity for re-enforcements, the 
 depleted ranks of our army, the broken condition 
 to which the last engagement has reduced us." 
 Meanwhile the dead and wounded were being car- 
 ried from the battle-field. The lanterns of the men 
 who moved among the slain shone out like fireflies 
 as they progressed. 
 
 As one stretcher was passing Mr. Lincoln, he 
 heard the voice of a lad calling to his mother in 
 
88 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 agonizing tones. His great heart filled. He for- 
 got the crisis of the hour. His very being concen- 
 trated itself in the cries of the dying boy. Stop- 
 ping the carriers, he knelt, and bending over him, 
 asked : 
 
 " What can I do for you, my poor child ?" 
 
 " O, you will do nothing for me," he replied. 
 " You are a Yankee. I can not hope that my mes- 
 sages to my mother will ever reach her." 
 
 "Mr. Lincoln's tears, his voice full of the ten- 
 derest love, convinced the boy of his sincerity, and 
 he gave his good-bye words without reserve. The 
 President directed them copied, and ordered that 
 they be sent that night, with a flag of truce, into 
 the enemy's lines. He only told the soldier who 
 he was to convince him that his word would be 
 obeyed, and when told that time was precious, as 
 the distant outposts must yet be visited, he arose 
 reluctantly and entered the ambulance. With sobs 
 and tears he turned to Mark Lemon, his friend, and 
 said : 
 
 " Mark, my heart is breaking. Sing me some- 
 thing ; sing the old song I love, ' Oft in the stilly 
 night.' " 
 
 " I was waiting my turn to speak to the Presi- 
 dent one day, some three or four weeks since," said 
 Mr. M , " when my attention was attracted by 
 
MR. LINCOLN'S TENDERNESS. 89 
 
 the sad, patient face of a woman advanced in life, 
 who, in a faded hood and shawl, was among the ap- 
 plicants for an interview. 
 
 " Presently Mr. Lincoln turned to her, saying, 
 in his accustomed manner, ' Well, my good woman, 
 what can I do for you this morning V ' Mr. Pres- 
 ident/ said she, l my husband and three sons all 
 went into the army. My husband was killed in 
 
 the fight at . I get along very badly since 
 
 then, living all alone, and I thought I would come 
 and ask you to release to me my oldest son.' Mr. 
 Lincoln looked into her face a moment, and in his 
 kindest accents responded : * Certainly ! certainly ! 
 If you have given us all, and your prop has been 
 taken away, you are justly entitled to one of your 
 boys V He immediately made out an order dis- 
 charging the young man, which the woman took, 
 and thanking him gratefully, went away. 
 
 " I had forgotten the circumstance," continued 
 
 M , " till last week, when happening to be here 
 
 again, who should come in but the same woman. 
 It appeared that she had gone herself to the front, 
 w T ith the President's order, and found the son she 
 was in search of had been mortally wounded in a 
 recent engagement, and taken to a hospital. She 
 found the hospital, but the boy was dead, or died 
 while she was there. The surgeon in charge made 
 
90 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 a memorandum of the facts upon the back of the 
 President's order, and, almost broken-hearted, the 
 poor woman had found her way again into Mr. Lin- 
 coln's presence. He was much affected by her appear- 
 ance and story, and said : i I know what you wish 
 me to do now, and I shall do it without your ask- 
 ing ; I shall release to you your second son.' Upon 
 this, he took up his pen aud commenced writing 
 the order. While he was writing, the poor woman 
 stood by his side, the tears running down her face, 
 and passed her hand softly over his head, stroking 
 his rough hair, as I have seen a fond mother caress 
 a son. By the time he had finished writing, his 
 own heart and eyes were full. He handed her the 
 paper : ' Now,' said he, i you have one and /one of 
 the other two left ; that is no more than right.' 
 She took the paper, and reverently placing her hand 
 again upon his head, the tears still upon her cheeks, 
 said : • The Lord bless you, Mr. Lincoln. May 
 you live a thousand years, and may you always be 
 the head of this great Nation !"' 
 
 Thaddeus Stevens, " the Great Commoner," often 
 criticised Mr. Lincoln very severely for not being 
 aggressive and destructive enough. One day Mr. 
 Stevens went with an old lady from Lancaster 
 County, Pa. (his district), to the White House, to 
 ask the pardon of her son, condemned to die for 
 sleeping on his post. 
 
MR. LINCOLN'S TENDERNESS. 91 
 
 Mr. Lincoln suddenly turned upon his Pennsyl- 
 vania critic, and said : 
 
 "Now, Thad, what would you do in this case, 
 if you happened to be President ?" 
 
 Mr. Stevens knew that many hundreds of his 
 constituents were waiting anxiously to hear the re- 
 sult of that old woman's visit to Washington. He 
 did not relish the President's appeal, but replied 
 that, as he knew of the extenuating circumstances, 
 in this particular case he would certainly pardon him. 
 
 "Well, then," said Mr. Lincoln, after a mo- 
 ment's writing in silence, " here, madam, is your 
 son's pardon." 
 
 The old lady's gratitude filled her heart to over- 
 flowing. It seemed to her as though her son had 
 been snatched from the gateway of the grave. She 
 could only thank the President with her tears as 
 she passed out ; but when she and Mr. Stevens had 
 reached the outer door of the White House she 
 burst out excitedly : 
 
 " I knew it was a lie ! I knew it was a lie !" 
 
 " What do you mean ?" asked Mr. Stevens, in 
 astonishment. 
 
 "Why, when I left my country home in old 
 Lancaster yesterday, the neighbors told me that I 
 would find that Mr. Lincoln was an ugly man, 
 when he is really the handsomest man I ever saw 
 in my life." 
 
92 ABE AHA M LINCOLN. 
 
 Rev. Wayland Hoyt, D. D., in the Standard, re- 
 lates the following, which he says is the tenderest 
 story he ever heard about Mr. Lincoln : 
 
 " Private William Scott had had a long day's 
 march, and had been a sentry all the night before, 
 but when the night came again, and a sick friend of 
 his was chosen sentry, he volunteered to take his 
 friend's place. But Private Scott was a farmer's 
 boy, and he had not been used to being awake 
 nights, and he was found asleep at his post. The 
 army was in a dangerous neighborhood at Chain 
 Bridge, and discipline must be preserved. He 
 was sentenced to be shot. They sent to Mr. Lin- 
 coln to see if he could do anything, if he could 
 pardon him. At first he said he could not; then 
 he told them that he would go down to Chain 
 Bridge to see the boy. 
 
 "Private Scott was in his tent waiting to be 
 shot, when the flap was raised, and there stood 
 Mr. Lincoln. Scott said he knew him to be Mr. 
 Lincoln by a medal he wore of him. He said 
 he was very much frightened to be in the pres- 
 ence of so great a man. Mr. Lincoln began to 
 talk to him, and asked where he was from. He 
 told him from Vermont. Mr. Lincoln asked him 
 about the farm, and he asked him about his 
 mother. Private Scott told him he was very glad 
 he had the picture of his mother in his blouse, 
 
MR. LINCOLN'S TENDERNESS. 93 
 
 and he took it out and showed it to Mr. Lincoln. 
 He looked at it, and said : i My boy, you ought 
 to be very proud and glad that your mother is liv- 
 ing; you never ought to act so as to make her 
 cheeks blush. ' 
 
 "As he went on talking, Private Scott said he 
 had made up his mind that he was goiug to die, and 
 he was just about to ask Mr. Lincoln if he would 
 not see to it that none of the boys of his regiment 
 shot him, because he said, i I thought I could not 
 stand that. But/ he says, ' Mr. Lincoln told me to 
 stand up, and I stood up ; and he put his hands on 
 my shoulders, aud said: "Private Scott, look me 
 in the eye." Then he said," Private Scott, I do n't 
 believe you are a coward, but you are a good sol- 
 dier; I am not going to have you shot; I am going 
 to send you back to your regiment. How will you 
 pay my bill ?"' And Private Scott said : 1 1 am very 
 much obliged to you. I had made up my mind I 
 must die ; but I guess we can pay your bill. I can 
 put a mortgage on the farm, and when pay-day 
 comes around some of the boys will help, and I 
 will give you all of my pay, and it may be $500 or 
 $600, and I guess we can pay your bill. 1 
 
 " Mr. Lincoln said : i Private Scott, there is only 
 one man who can pay my bill, and that is AVilliam 
 Scott. If from this moment you promise to be the 
 best soldier that you possibly can be ; if you are 
 
94 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 true to the old flag, and if, when you come to die, 
 and I were there, you could look me in the eye 
 and say, " Mr. Lincoln, I have kept my promise, 
 and been the best soldier to the old flag that I pos- 
 sibly could be," then you will pay my bill.' Mr. 
 Lincoln left, and afterwards there was never such a 
 soldier as Private Scott. He asked that he might 
 do the hardest kind of duty in the hospital, so that 
 he might teach himself how to keep awake nights. 
 There was never a man whose uniform was more 
 clean than his. And when the battle struck there 
 never was a braver man. It was at the awful 
 battles of the Wilderness, and he had accomplished 
 prodigies of valor, and had carried back officer after 
 officer from the bloody field ; where at last he fell, 
 shattered all to pieces. At last the battle was 
 done. They bore him back, and his comrades 
 gathered around him. He looked at them with a 
 sweet smile, and said : ' Boys, I have fought my 
 last battle, and I think I tried to do my duty. I 
 guess you can tell my mother that ; and then, boys ' — 
 and he breathed heavily — 'it you should ever any 
 of you see Mr. Lincoln, I wish you would tell him 
 that I — tried to keep — my promise — and be true to 
 the old flag — good-bye, boys/ and he died." 
 
 "A few days before the assassination," wrote a 
 correspondent of the Indejjendent, " when the Presi- 
 dent was on his return from Richmond, he stopped 
 
MB. LIXCOLN'S TENDERNESS. 95 
 
 at City Point. Calling upon the bead surgeon at 
 that place, Mr. Lincoln told him that lie wished to 
 visit all the hospitals under his charge, and shake 
 hands with every soldier. The surgeon asked if he 
 knew what he was undertaking, there being five or 
 six thousand soldiers at that place, and it would be 
 quite a tax upon his strength to visit all the wards 
 and shake hands with every soldier. Mr. Lincoln 
 answered, with a smile, he 'guessed he was equal to 
 the task ; at any rate he would try, and go as far 
 as he could ; be should never, probably, see the boys 
 again, and he wanted them to know that he appre- 
 ciated what they had done for their country.' 
 
 "Finding it useless to try to dissuade him, the 
 surgeon began his rounds with the President, who 
 walked from bed to bed, extending his hand to all, 
 saying a few words of sympathy to some, making 
 kiud inquiries of others, and welcomed by all with 
 the heartiest cordiality. 
 
 "As they passed along, they came to a ward in 
 which lay a rebel who had been wounded and was 
 a prisoner. As the tall figure of the kindly visitor 
 appeared in sight, he was recognized by the rebel 
 soldier, who, raising himself on his elbow in bed, 
 watched Mr. Lincoln as he approached, and extend- 
 ing his hand exclaimed, while tears ran down his 
 cheeks : 
 
 " * Mr. Lincoln, I have long wanted to see you, 
 
96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 to ask your forgiveness for ever raising my hand 
 against the old flag.' 
 
 "Mr. Lincoln was moved to tears. He heartily 
 shook the hand of the repentant rebel, and assured 
 him of his good-will, and with a few words of kind 
 advice passed on. After some hours the tour of the 
 various hospitals was made, and Mr. Lincoln re- 
 turned with the surgeon to his office. They had 
 scarcely entered, however, when a messenger came 
 saying that one ward had been omitted, and ' the 
 boys' wanted to see the President. The surgeon, 
 who was thoroughly tired, and knew Mr. Lincoln 
 must be, tried to dissuade him from going ; but the 
 President said he must go back. He would not 
 knowingly omit one ; ' the boys' would be so disap- 
 pointed. So he went with the messenger, accom- 
 panied by the surgeon, and shook hands with the 
 gratified soldiers, and then returned to the office. 
 
 "The surgeon expressed the fear that the Presi- 
 dent's arm would be lamed with so much handshak- 
 ing, saying that it certainly must ache. Mr. Liuco^n 
 smiled, and saying something about his 'strong 
 muscles,' stepped out at the open door, took up a 
 very large, heavy ax which lay there by a log of wood, 
 and chopped vigorously for a few moments, sending 
 the chips flying in all directions; and then, pausing, 
 he extended his right arm to its full length, hold- 
 ing the ax out horizontally, without quivering." 
 
MR. LINCOLN'S RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN had the good fortune to 
 be trained by a godly mother and stepmother. 
 The two books which made the most impression 
 upon his character were the Bible and Weems's 
 "Life of Washington." The former he read with 
 such diligence that he knew it almost by heart, and 
 the words of Scripture became so much a part of 
 his nature that he rarely made a speech or wrote a 
 paper of any length without quoting its language 
 or teaching. 
 
 Mr. Arnold, in his "Life of Lincoln," says: "It 
 is very strange that any reader of Lincoln's speeches 
 and writings should have the hardihood to charge 
 him with a want of religious feeling." In his opin- 
 ion " no more reverent Christian than he ever sat 
 in the Executive chair, not excepting Washing- 
 ton. . . . From the time he left Springfield to 
 his death he not only himself continually prayed for 
 Divine assistance, but constantly asked the prayers 
 of his friends for himself and his country. . . . 
 Doubtless, like many others, he passed through 
 periods of doubt and perplexity; but his faith in a 
 F 7 97 
 
98 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Divine providence began at his mother's knee, and 
 ran through all the changes of his life. . . . 
 When the unbeliever shall convince the people that 
 this man, whose life was straightforward, clear, and 
 honest, was a sham and a hypocrite, then, but not 
 before, may he make the world doubt his Chris- 
 tianity." 
 
 That Mr. Arnold's description of Mr. Lincoln's 
 religious character is correct is evidenced by quota- 
 tions found in various books on Lincoln. 
 
 In a letter written January 12, 1851, when his 
 father was dangerously ill, Mr. Lincoln says: "I 
 sincerely hope father may yet recover his health ; 
 but, at all events, tell him to remember and call 
 upon and confide in our great and good and merci- 
 ful Maker, who will not turn away from him in any 
 extremity. He will not forget the dying man who 
 puts his trust in him. . . . Say to him, if it be 
 his lot to go now, he will soon have a joyous meet- 
 ing with loved ones gone before, and where the rest 
 of us, through the help of God, hope erelong to 
 join him." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln one day said to a lady in whose 
 piety he had great confidence : " Mrs. — — , I have 
 formed a high opinion of your Christian character, 
 and now, as we are alone, I have a mind to ask you 
 to give me, in brief, your idea of what constitutes 
 a true religious experience." The lady replied at 
 
MR. L IXCOL X ' S RELIGIO US BELIEF. 9 9 
 
 some length, stating in substance that, in her judg- 
 ment, it consisted of a conviction of one's own sin- 
 fulness and weakness and personal need of the 
 Savior for strength and support ; that views of mere 
 doctrine might and would differ, but when one was 
 really brought to feel his need of Divine help, and 
 to seek the aid of the Holy Spirit for strength and 
 guidance, it was satisfactory evidence of his having 
 been born again. "When she had concluded, Mr. 
 Lincoln w T as very thoughtful for a few moments, 
 and then said very earnestly : " If what you have 
 told me is really a correct view of this great sub- 
 ject, I think I can say with sincerity that I hope I 
 am a Christian. I had lived until my boy ^Willie 
 died without fully realizing these things. That blow 
 overwhelmed me. It showed me my weakness as 
 I had never felt it before ; and if I can take what 
 you have statedas a test, I think I can safely say 
 that I know 7 something of that change of which you 
 speak ; and I will further add that it has been my 
 intention for some time, at a suitable opportunity, 
 to make a public religious profession." Why he 
 never did so is explained by Mr. Arnold, who 
 quotes Mr. Deming, a member of Congress from 
 Connecticut, as saying that, when asked why, with 
 his marked religious character, he did not unite 
 with some Church, Lincoln said : " I have never 
 united myself with any Church because I found 
 
100 ABE A HA M LINCOLN, 
 
 difficulty in giving my assent, without mental res- 
 ervation, to the long and complicated statements of 
 Christian doctrine which characterize their articles 
 of belief and confessions of faith. When any 
 Church will inscribe over its altars, as its sole qual- 
 ification for membership, the Savior's condensed 
 statement of the substance of both law and gospel, 
 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
 heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and 
 thy neighbor as thyself/ that Church shall I join 
 with all my heart and soul." 
 
 James F. Rusling relates in the New York Tribune 
 the following impressive utterance, which was made 
 in his hearing during Mr. Lincoln's visit to General 
 Sickles, who had been wounded at the battle of 
 Gettysburg a day or two before. It was Sunday 
 morning, July 5, 1863. Mr. Lincoln greeted Sickles 
 right cordially and tenderly, though cheerfully, and 
 it was easy to see that they held each other in high 
 esteem. Greetings over, Mr. Lincoln dropped into 
 a chair, aud, crossing his prodigious legs, soon fell to 
 questioning Sickles as to all the phases of the com- 
 bat at Gettysburg. When Mr. Lincoln's inquiries 
 seemed ended, General Sickles resumed the conver- 
 sation substantially as follows : 
 
 "Well, Mr. President, I beg pardon, but what 
 do you think about Gettysburg? What was your 
 opinion of things while we were campaigning and 
 
MR. LINCOLN'S RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 101 
 
 fighting up there in Pennsylvania?" " O," replied 
 Mr. Lincoln, "I didn't think much about it. I 
 was not much concerned about you \" " You were 
 not?" rejoined Mr. Sickles, as amazed. "Why, we 
 heard that you Washington folks were a good deal 
 excited, and you certainly had good cause to be, for 
 it was ' nip and tuck' with us up there a good deal 
 of the time!" "Yes, T know that, and I suppose 
 some of us were a little ' rattled/ Indeed, some of 
 the Cabinet talked of Washington's being captured, 
 and ordered a gunboat or two here, and even went 
 so far as to send some Government archives aboard, 
 and wanted me to go too, but I refused. Stanton 
 and Welles, I believe, were both ' stampeded ' some- 
 what, and Seward, I reckon, too. But I said, ' Xo, 
 gentlemen, we are all right, and are going to win at 
 Gettysburg ;' and we did, right handsomely. No, 
 General Sickles, I had no fears of Gettysburg." 
 " Why not, Mr. President ? How was that ? Pretty 
 much everybody down here, Ave heard, was more or 
 less panicky." " Yes, I expect, and a good many 
 more than will own up now. But actually, General 
 Sickles, I had no fears of Gettysburg, and if you 
 really want to know I will tell you why. Of course, 
 I do n't want you and Colonel Rusling to say any- 
 thing about this — at least, not now. People might 
 laugh if it got out, you know. But the fact is, 
 in the stress and pinch of the campaign there, I 
 
102 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 went to my room, and got down on my knees and 
 prayed Almighty God for victory at Gettysburg. 
 I told him that this was his country, and the war 
 was his war, but that we really could n't stand 
 another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. And 
 then and there I made a solemn vow with my Maker 
 that if he would stand by you boys at Gettysburg, 
 I would stand by him. And he did, and I will ! 
 And after this, I do n't know how it was, and it is 
 not for me to explain, but somehow or other a sweet 
 comfort crept into my soul that God Almighty had 
 taken the whole thing into his own hands, and we 
 were bound to win at Gettysburg ! No, General 
 Sickles, I had no fears of Gettysburg; and that is 
 the reason why !" 
 
 Mr. Lincoln said all this with great solemnity 
 and impressiveness, almost as Moses might have 
 spoken when first down from Sinai ; and when he 
 had concluded, there was a pause in the talk that 
 nobody seemed disposed to break. All were busy 
 with their thoughts, and the President especially 
 appeared to be communing with the Infinite One 
 again. The first to speak w r as General Sickles, 
 who presently resumed as follows : " Well, Mr. 
 President, w r hat are you thinking about Yicksburg, 
 nowadays?' 7 " O," answered Mr. Lincoln, very 
 gravely. "I don't quite know. Grant is still 
 pegging away down there, and making some head- 
 
MR. LINCOLN'S RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 103 
 
 way, I believe. As we used to say out in Illinois, 
 I think ' he will make a spoon or spoil a horn ' be- 
 fore he gets through." " So, then, you have no 
 fears about . Vicksburg, either Mr. President?" 
 added General Sickles. " Well, no ; I can 't say that 
 I have," replied Mr. Lincoln very soberly. " The 
 fact is — but don't say anything about this either 
 just now — I have been praying to Almighty God 
 for Vicksburg also." Of course Mr. Lincoln did 
 not then know that Vicksburg had already fallen 
 on July 4th. 
 
 Soon after his second election to the Presidency 
 it was remarked by one with whom he was convers- 
 ing that in all his cares he was daily remembered 
 by those who prayed not be heard of men, as no 
 man had ever before been remembered. He caught 
 at that homely phrase, and said: "Yes, I like that 
 phrase, ( not to be heard of men/ and guess it is 
 generally true, as you say. At least I have been 
 told so, and I have been a good deal helped by 
 just that thought." Then he solemnly and slowly 
 added : " I should be the most presumptuous block- 
 head upon this footstool if I, for one day, thought 
 that I could discharge the duties which have come 
 upon me since I came into this place without the 
 aid and enlightenment of One who is stronger and 
 wiser than all others." 
 
 One of Mr. Lincoln's notable religious utterances 
 
104 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 was his reply to a deputation of colored people at 
 Baltimore who presented him a Bible. He said: 
 " In regard to the Great Book I have only to say it 
 is the best gift which God has ever given man. All 
 the good from the Savior of the world is communi- 
 cated to us through this Book. But for this Book 
 we could not know right from wrong. All those 
 things desirable to man are contained in it." Other 
 expressions could be given to show the deep religious 
 character of Mr. Lincoln. "We refer to only three. 
 One was the noble reply to the remark of a clergy- 
 man that he hoped " the Lord was on our side." 
 "I am not concerned about that," replied Lincoln, 
 "for I know that the Lord is always on the side of 
 the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer 
 that I and this Xation should be on the Lord's 
 side." The second was the sentence in his reply to 
 the deputation from the Methodist General Confer- 
 ence of 1864: "God bless the Methodist Church- 
 bless all the Churches — and blessed be God who, 
 in this our great trial, giveth us the Churches." 
 The last was his second inaugural, than which a 
 more sublime speech, or one containing more of the 
 spirit of Christ and his gospel, was never uttered 
 by emperor, king, or ruler, if indeed there be any 
 which can compare with it. Xo unbeliever could 
 have written it. 
 
LINCOLN AND HIS FAMILY. 
 
 "1\/[R. LINCOLN," says Noah Brooks, one of 
 1*A his secretaries, in his "Life of Lincoln," 
 
 "cared little for the pleasures of the table, and 
 seldom 'partook of any but the plainest and sim- 
 plest food, even when a more elaborate repast than 
 usual was spread upon the board. Wine was set 
 on the table when those who used it were guests ; 
 but Lincoln only maintained the form of touching 
 it. When engrossed with the cares of his office, 
 which was almost habitually, he ate irregularly, and 
 the family were accustomed to see him come to the 
 table or stay away as it suited his convenience. 
 Even when his anxious wife had sent to his Cabinet, 
 where he was engaged, a tray of food, he was often 
 too busy or too abstracted to touch it. And when 
 Mrs. Lincoln was away from home, as sometimes 
 happened, he neglected his meals altogether, or, as 
 he expressed it, ' browsed around/ eating when 
 his hunger moved, when and how he could most 
 conveniently. His youngest son — ' Tad/ as he 
 was called — could bring him out of his working or 
 
 meditative moods more readily than any other 
 
 105 
 
106 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 member of the family. When the Lincolns en- 
 tered the White House in 1861, there were three 
 sons and no other children. The eldest was Robert, 
 eighteen years old; Willie, a little more than ten; 
 and Thomas, or * Tad,' then nearly eight years 
 old. This little fellow celebrated his eighth birth- 
 day in the White House, April 4, 1863. Robert 
 was a student in Phillips Academy, Exeter, N. H., 
 when his father became President, and he eutered 
 Harvard University soon after that time. He was 
 graduated subsequently, studied law, and was ap- 
 pointed Secretary of War several years after his 
 father's death, serving under President Garfield and 
 President Arthur. 
 
 "Willie, the second son, died in February, 1862, 
 during the darkest and most gloomy time of the 
 long and oppressive era of the war. Possibly this 
 calamity made Lincoln less strict with his youngest 
 boy than he should have been. He found it well- 
 nigh impossible to deny Tad anything. But the 
 little fellow, always a hearty, happy, and lovable 
 boy, did not abuse his privileges. He roamed the 
 White House at will, a tricksy and restless spirit, 
 as well known to habitual visitors as the President 
 himself. Innumerable stories might be told of the 
 child's native wit, his courage, his adventurousness, 
 and his passionate devotion to his father. He in- 
 vaded Cabinet councils with his boyish grief or tales 
 
LINCOLN AND HIS FA MIL Y. 107 
 
 of adventure, climbed on his father's lap when the 
 President was engaged with aifairs of state, and 
 doubtless diverted and soothed the troubled mind 
 of the President, who loved his boy with a certain 
 tenderness that was inexpressible. It was Tad, the 
 mercurial and irrepressible boy of the White House, 
 on friendly terms with the great and the lowly, who 
 gave to the Executive mansion almost the only joy- 
 ous note that echoed through its corridors and 
 stately drawing-rooms in those troublous times. 
 The boy survived his father, dying at the age of 
 eighteen years, after the family had left Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 " The President and Mrs. Lincoln -usually ad- 
 dressed each other in the old-fashioned manner as 
 ' Father ' and ' Mother/ and it was very seldom 
 that Mrs. Lincoln spoke of her husband as 'the 
 President.' And Lincoln, on his part, never, if he 
 could avoid it, spoke of himself as President. If 
 he had occasion to refer to his high office he spoke 
 of it as ' this place.' When the occasion required, 
 however, his native dignity asserted itself, and a 
 certain simple and yet influential grandeur was 
 manifested in his deportment aud demeanor. One 
 soon forgot in his immediate presence the native 
 ungainliness of his figure, and felt that he was in 
 the personal atmosphere of one of the world's great 
 men. Although Lincoln was genial and free in his 
 
108 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 manner, even with strangers, there was something 
 in his bearing that forbade familiarity. Much has 
 been said about his disregard for dress and per- 
 sonal appearance, but much of this is erroneous. 
 He was neat in his person, scrupulously so, and his 
 garb was that of a gentleman always. If, in the 
 seclusion of his home, he was called out late at 
 night to hear an important message, or decide in- 
 stantly an affair of great moment, he did not wait 
 to array himself; something was excused to his pre- 
 occupation and anxiety." 
 
DEATH OF LINCOLN. 
 
 FRIDAY, April 14, 18G5, was the most exciting 
 clay to the people of the North since the clay, 
 April 1? 1861, just four years before, when the first 
 shot of the war had been fired at Fort Sumter, m 
 Charleston harbor. Lee had surrendered to Grant 
 five days before, and the people were celebrating 
 the end of the war. Everybody was happy, and 
 when Mr. Lincoln and his wife took a carnage- 
 ride in the afternoon, they were greeted everywhere 
 with demonstrations of patriotic affection. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was happy, too, and to his w.fe he 
 said- "Mary, God has been very good to us. 
 When these four years are over, we will go back to 
 Illinois, aud I will be a country lawyer." 
 
 In the evening, Mr. Lincoln, with his wife, at- 
 tended Ford's Theater to witness Miss Laura 
 Keene's play of " Our American Cousin." As the 
 curtain rose for the second scene of the last act, a 
 pistol-shot was beard. Immediately following, a man 
 was seen to leap from the President's box and fall 
 
110 ABE AHA M LINCOLN". 
 
 upon the stage. Rising, he flourished a knife 
 which he had drawn, and shouted : 
 
 " Sic semper tyrannis ! The South is avenged !" 
 
 It was John Wilkes Booth. He had shot the 
 President. Mr. Lincoln was carried, unconscious, 
 to a small house across the street, where he died 
 the next morning. As his spirit took its flight, 
 Secretary Stanton, standing by the bedside, said : 
 " Now he belongs to the ages." 
 
 Saturday, April loth, was one of-the most dread- 
 ful days in American history. Many men, who the 
 day before were like children in their joy, appeared 
 to have been turned into fiends. 
 
 No one knew what the asasssination of the Presi- 
 dent and the attack on the Secretary of State might 
 portend. Some feared that England would take 
 advantage of it, and revive the war by recognizing 
 the Southern Confederacy. A spirit of riot was in 
 the air. An impromptu indignation meeting was 
 held in AVall Street, Xew York, and an excited 
 mob had started toward the office of the Daily 
 World, bent on its destruction, when its attention 
 was arrested by a young man standing on the bal- 
 cony of the Board of Trade, and waving a small 
 flag. He held in the other hand a telegram. Be- 
 fore reading it, however, he lifted his right arm 
 and in a loud and clear voice, said : 
 
 " Fellow-citizens ! Clouds and darkness are 
 
DEATH OF LINCOLN. Ill 
 
 round about him ! His pavilion is dark waters 
 and thick clouds of the skies ! Justice and judg- 
 ment are the establishment of his throne ! Mercy 
 and truth shall go before his face ! Fellow-citi- 
 zens ! God reigns, and the Government at Wash- 
 ington still lives !" 
 
 The passions of the mob were instantly stilled. 
 Then came the question : " Who is he ?" and the 
 answer: "General Garfield, of Ohio." 
 
 The funeral services were held in the East Room 
 of the White House. The Scriptures were read by 
 Rev. Dr. Hale, of the Episcopal Church. The 
 opening prayer was offered by Bishop Simpson, of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church. The funeral ad- 
 dress was delivered by Rev. Dr. Gurley, of the 
 Presbyterian Church, which Mr. Lincoln and his 
 family had attended. The closing prayer was offered 
 by Rev. Dr. Gray, of the Baptist Church, chaplain 
 of the Senate. At the close, a regiment of colored 
 soldiers escorted the body to the Capitol, where the 
 exercises were completed, and the remains lay in 
 state until the next day. Memorial services were 
 held throughout the country, in many cities a 
 funeral procession being a feature. 
 
 April 25th the funeral train left Washington for 
 the President's Western home, wdiich was to be his 
 final resting-place. Everywhere it was received 
 with demonstrations of grief and love. 
 
112 A BR AH AX LINCOLN. 
 
 The remains reached Springfield, 111., May 3d. 
 As the coffin -was borne to the hearse, a choir of 
 two hundred and fifty voices sang the familiar hymn, 
 
 11 Children of the Heavenly King." 
 
 The religious exercises at the cemetery were pro- 
 foundly impressive. Bishop Simpson, one of Mr. 
 Lincoln's most intimate personal friends, delivered 
 an eloquent address, after which was read the de- 
 parted President's second Inaugural Address, which 
 the London Spectator declared to be " the noblest 
 political document kuowu to history." 
 
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LINCOLN'S TRIBUTE TO METHODISM. 
 
 WE present herewith the copy of a document 
 rightly regarded as one of the treasures of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church. The history of 
 the action in General Conference, which elicited the 
 tribute from Mr. Lincoln, is thus giveu by Dr. 
 Cummings, secretary of the deputation : 
 
 "On May 14, 18G4, Joseph Cummings, chair- 
 man of the Committee on the State of the Country, 
 presented an address prepared by him, and ap- 
 proved by the committee, and the nomination of a 
 deputation to bear the address to Washington, and, 
 in behalf of the Conference, to present it to the 
 Chief Magistrate of the United States. The ad- 
 dress was adopted, and the nominated delegation, 
 consisting of Bishop Ames, Joseph Cummings, 
 George Peck, Charles Elliott, and Granville Moody 
 was confirmed. The committee was organized by 
 the appointment of Bishop Ames as chairman, and 
 Joseph Cummings as secretary. Before reaching 
 Washington Dr. Moody requested the secretary to 
 let him have a copy of the address, which he would 
 present as soon as practicable to the President. On 
 
 8 113 
 
114 A BE A HA M L INCOLtf. 
 
 our arrival he went immediately to the President's 
 house, and represented to Mr. Nicolay, Mr. Lin- 
 coln's private secretary, that it was important that 
 he should see the President immediately. He said 
 that on the next day a delegation of a Conference 
 of ministers assembled in Philadelphia, representing 
 the largest, most loyal, and influential Church of 
 the country, would call and present an address. 
 Mr. Nicolay was much interested, and went imme- 
 diately to consult the President and secure an in- 
 terview for Dr. Moody. This was soon granted, 
 and Dr. Moody made to the President similar 
 statements to those made to the secretary, and pre- 
 sented a copy of the address. Mr. Lincoln thanked 
 him, and said he would think about his reply. On 
 the next day, by previous arrangement, Mr. Seward, 
 the Secretary of State, introduced the committee, 
 and the address was formally read and presented." 
 
 ADDRESS OF THE GENERAL CONFERENCE. 
 
 To His Excellency, Abraham Lincoln t President of the United 
 States: 
 
 The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church now in session in the city of Philadelphia, repre- 
 senting nearly seven thousand ministers, and nearly a 
 million of members, mindful of their duty as Christian 
 citizens, takes the earliest opportunity to express to you 
 the assurance of the loyalty of the Church, her earnest 
 devotion to the interests of the country, and her sym- 
 
LINCOLN'S TRIBUTE TO 3IETH0DISM. 115 
 
 pathy with you in the great responsibilities of your high 
 position in this trying hour. With exultation we point 
 to the record of our Church as having never been tar- 
 nished by disloyalty. She was the first of the Churches 
 to express, by a deputation of her most distinguished 
 ministers, the promise of support to the Government in 
 the days of Washington. In her articles of religion she 
 has enjoined loyalty as a duty, and has ever given to the 
 Government her most decided support. 
 
 In this present struggle for the Nation's life many 
 thousands of her members, and a large number of her 
 ministers, have rushed to arms to maintain the cause of 
 God and humanity. They have sealed their devotion to 
 their country with their blood on every battle-field of 
 this terrible war. We regard this dreadful scourge now 
 desolating our land and wasting the Nation's life as a 
 result of a most unnatural, utterly unjustifiable rebell- 
 ion, involving the crime of treason against the best of 
 human governments, and sin against God. It required 
 our Government to submit to its own dismemberment 
 and destruction, leaving it no alternative but to pre- 
 serve the national integrity by the use of the national 
 resources. If the Government had failed to use its 
 power to preserve the unity of the Nation, and maintain 
 its authority, it would have been justly exposed to the 
 wrath of Heaven, and to the reproach and scorn of the 
 civilized world. 
 
 Our earnest and constant prayer is that this cruel 
 and wicked rebellion may be speedily suppressed ; and 
 we pledge you our hearty co-operation in all appropriate 
 means to secure this object. 
 
 Loyal and hopeful in national adversity, in pros- 
 
116 A BR AH AM LINCOLN. 
 
 perity thankful, we most heartily congratulate you on 
 the glorious victories recently gained, and rejoice in the 
 belief that our complete triumph is near. We believe 
 that our national sorrows and calamities have resulted, 
 in a great degree, from our forgetfulness of God and 
 oppression of our fellow-men. Chastened by affliction, 
 may the Nation humbly repent of her sins, lay aside her 
 haughty pride, honor God in all future legislation, and 
 render justice to all who have been wronged ! 
 
 We honor you for your proclamations of liberty, and 
 rejoice in all the acts of the Government designed to 
 secure freedom to the enslaved. We trust that when 
 military usages and necessities shall justify interference 
 with established institutions, and the removal of wrongs 
 sanctioned by law, the occasion will be improved, not 
 merely to injure our foes and increase the national re- 
 sources, but also as an opportunity to recognize our ob- 
 ligations to God and to honor his law. We pray that 
 the time may speedily come when this shall be truly a 
 republican and free country, in no part of which, either 
 State or Territory, shall slavery be known. The prayers 
 of millions of Christians, with an earnestness never man- 
 ifested for rulers before, daily ascend to heaven that 
 you may be endued with all needed wisdom and power. 
 Actuated by the sentiments of the loftiest and purest 
 patriotism, our prayers shall be continually for the 
 preservation of our country undivided, for the triumph 
 of our cause, and for a permanent peace, gained by the 
 sacrifice of no moral principles, but founded on the 
 Word of God, and securing in righteousness liberty and 
 equal rights to all. 
 
LINCOLN'S TRIBUTE TO METHODISM. 117 
 
 " In his reply the President playfully remarked, 
 much to the surprise of those members of the com- 
 mittee who knew nothing of the arrangement, that 
 he had seen the address before, and had prepared 
 his reply. He took from his desk and read the 
 answer that is so highly and justly prized, as 
 follows: 
 
 ut Gentlemen, — In response to your address, 
 allow me to attest the accuracy of its historical 
 statements, indorse the sentiments it expresses, and 
 thank you, in the Nation's name, for the sure prom- 
 ise it gives. 
 
 "' Nobly sustained as the Government has been 
 by all the Churches, I would utter nothing which 
 might, in the least, appear invidious against any. 
 Yet, without this, it may fairly be said that the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, not less devoted than 
 the best, is, by its greater numbers, the most impor- 
 tant of all. It is no fault in others that the Meth- 
 odist Church sends more soldiers to the field, more 
 nurses to the hospital, and more prayers to heaven 
 than any. God bless the Methodist Church — bless 
 all the Churches — and blessed be God, who, in this, 
 our great trial, giveth us the Churches ! 
 
 "'A. Lincoln. 
 
 '"May 18, 1864.' 
 
 "This paper is due to the advance notice that the 
 address would be presented. As we took leave of 
 
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LINCOLN'S TRIBUTE TO METHODISM. 119 
 
 the President, Dr. Moody, in his usual style, said : 
 ' Mr. President, we all hope the country will rest 
 in Abraham's bosom for the next four years.' This 
 produced a general smile, and the interview closed." 
 
LINCOLN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.* 
 
 I WAS born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, 
 Kentucky. My parents were both born in Vir- 
 ginia, of undistinguished families — second families, 
 perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my 
 tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, 
 some of whom now reside in Adams, and others in 
 Macon Counties, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, 
 Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham 
 
 * Concerning Mr. Lincoln's autobiography, we have the 
 following interesting particulars from a statement made by Mr. 
 Jesse W. Fell, of Normal, 111., in 1872 : " In the autumn of 
 1858, during the celebrated discussion between Senator 
 Douglas and Mr. Lincoln, I had occasion to travel in the 
 Middle and Eastern States, and finding there a laudable curi- 
 osity to learn something more of the latter than was then 
 generally known, and looking, too, to the possibilities of his 
 becoming an available candidate for the Presidency in 1860, 
 I applied to him for a brief history of his early life. After 
 repeated efforts on my part, in December, 1859, he placed in 
 my hands a manuscript, of which the following is a copy in 
 facsimile, written with that freedom and unreserve which one 
 friend would exercise in talking to another, and in which his 
 peculiar conversational style is so happily set forth. I need 
 scarcely add that this simple, unadorned statement of his 
 was not intended for publication, but merely to give a few 
 facts relating to his early history." 
 120 
 
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122 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 County, Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or '82, 
 where, a year or two later, he was killed by In- 
 dians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was 
 laboring to open a farm in the forest. His ances- 
 tors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from 
 Berks County, Pennsylvania. An effort to identify 
 them with the Kew England family of the same 
 name, ended in nothing more definite than a simi- 
 larity of Christian names in both families, such as 
 Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and 
 the like. 
 
 My father, at the death of his father, was but 
 six years of age ; and he grew up literally without 
 education. He removed from Kentucky to what 
 is now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year. 
 We reached our new home about the time the State 
 came into the Union. It was a wild region, with 
 many bears and other wild animals still in the 
 woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, 
 so-called, but no qualification was ever required of 
 a teacher beyond " reading writing and cipherin' " 
 to the Rule of Three. If a straggler, supposed to 
 understand Latin, happened to sojourn in the neigh- 
 borhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There 
 was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for educa- 
 tion. Of course, when I came of age, I did not 
 know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, 
 
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124 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 and cipher to the Rule of Three, but that was all. 
 I have not been to school since. The little advance 
 I now have upon this store of education, I have 
 picked up, from time to time, under the pressure of 
 necessity. 
 
 I was raised to farm- work, which I continued 
 till I was twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to 
 Illinois, and passed the first year in Macon County. 
 Then I got to New Salem, at that time in Sanga- 
 mon, now in Menard County, where I remained a 
 year as a sort of clerk in a store. Then came the 
 Black Hawk War, and I was elected a captain of 
 volunteers — a success which gave me more pleasure 
 than any I have had since. I went into the 
 campaign, was elected ; ran for the Legislature the 
 same year (1832), and was beaten — the only time I 
 ever have been beaten by the people. The next, and 
 three succeeding biennial elections, I was elected to 
 the Legislature. I was not a candidate afterwards. 
 During this legislative period I had studied law, and 
 removed to Springfield to practice it. In 1841 I was 
 once elected to the Lower House of Congress — was 
 not a candidate for re-election. From 1849 to 1854, 
 both inclusive, practiced law more assiduously than 
 ever before. Always a Whig in politics, and gen- 
 erally on the Whig electoral tickets, making active 
 canvasses. I was losing interest in politics when 
 
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126 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me 
 again. What I have done since then is pretty well 
 known. 
 
 If any personal description of me is thought de- 
 sirable, it may be said, I am, in height, six feet four 
 inches, nearly ; lean in flesh, weighing, on an aver- 
 age, one hundred and eighty pounds; dark-com- 
 plexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes ; no 
 other marks or brands recollected. 
 
 Yours very truly, A. Lincoln. 
 
 Hon. J. W. Fell. 
 
LINCOLNIANA 
 
L1NC0LNIANA. 
 
 LINCOLN'S STORY OF A NEW SALEM GIRL. 
 
 Among the numerous delegations which visited the 
 President was one from New York, which urged very 
 strenuously the sending of a fleet to the Southern coast 
 cities with the object of drawing the rebel army from 
 Washington. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln said the object reminded him of the case 
 of a girl in New Salem, who was greatly troubled with 
 a "singing" in her head. Various remedies were sug- 
 gested by the neighbors, but nothing tried afforded any 
 relief. At last a man came along — " a common-sense 
 sort of man," said Lincoln, inclining his head toward 
 the gentleman complimentarily — who was asked to pre- 
 scribe for the difficulty. After due inquiry and exam- 
 ination, he said the cure was very simple. 
 
 "What is it?" was the question. 
 
 " Make a plaster of psalm-tunes, and apply to her 
 feet, and draw the 'singing' down" was the reply. 
 
 CARING FOR A DRUNKARD. 
 An exhibition of Lincoln's practical humanity oc- 
 curred while a boy. One evening, while returning from 
 a " raising" with a number of companions, he discovered 
 a straying horse, with saddle and bridle upon him. The 
 horse was recognized as belonging to a well-known 
 
 9 129 
 
130 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 drunkard, and it was suspected that the owner was not 
 far off. The fellow was found in a perfectly helpless 
 condition, upon the cold ground. Lincoln's companions 
 intended to leave him to his fate, but young Lincoln 
 would not hear to it. At his demand, the miserable 
 man was lifted to his shoulders, and he actually carried 
 him eighty rods to the nearest house. He then sent 
 word to his father that he would not be back that night. 
 He nursed the man until the morning, and believed that 
 he had saved his life. 
 
 LINCOLN'S FIRST APPEARANCE IN THE SUPREME COURT. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's conduct in the presentation of his 
 first case before the Supreme Court illustrates his high 
 sense of justice and duty. He addressed the court as 
 follows : 
 
 " Your Honor, — This is the first case I have ever 
 had in this court, and I have examined it with great 
 care. As the court will perceive by looking at the ab- 
 stract of the record, the only question in the case is one 
 of authority. I have not been able to find any author- 
 ity sustaining my side of the case, but I have found sev- 
 eral cases directly in point on the other side. I will now 
 give the citations, and then submit the case." 
 
 "THE AGE IS NOT DEAD." 
 
 One of Mr. Lincoln's most interesting speeches was 
 delivered in the court-house at Springfield, 111., in 1855, 
 to an audience of three persons. Mr. Herndon had 
 endeavored to secure a large audience by the use of 
 huge posters, and the parade of a brass baud, and the 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 131 
 
 ringing of bells. The address, as announced, was to be 
 on the subject of slavery. Mr. Lincoln spoke as 
 follows : 
 
 " Gentlemen, — This meeting is larger than I knew 
 it would be, as I knew Herndon [Lincoln's partner] aud 
 myself would come, but I did not know that anyone else 
 would be here; and yet another has come — you, John 
 Paine [the janitor]. 
 
 "These are bad times, and seem out of joint. All 
 seems dead, dead, dead; but the age is not yet dead; 
 it liveth as sure as our Maker liveth. Under all this 
 seeming want of life and motion, the world does move 
 nevertheless. Be hopeful. And now let us adjourn and 
 appeal to the people." 
 
 ȣo 
 
 THREATENS AGITATION IN ILLINOIS. 
 
 One afternoon an old negro woman came into the 
 office of Lincoln & Herndon, in Springfield, and told 
 the story of her trouble, to which both lawyers listened. 
 It appeared that she and her offspring were born slaves 
 in Kentucky, and that her owner, one Hinkle, had 
 brought the whole family into Illinois and given them 
 their freedom. Her son had gone down the Mississippi 
 as a waiter or deck-hand on a steamboat. Arriving at 
 New Orleans, he had imprudently gone ashore, and had 
 been snatched up by the police, in accordance with the 
 law then in force concerning free negroes from other 
 States, and thrown into confinement. Subsequently he 
 was brought out and tried. Of course he was fined, 
 and, the boat having left, he was sold, or was in imme- 
 diate danger of being sold, to pay his fine and the 
 expenses. 
 
132 ABRAHA K LINCOLN. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was very much moved, and requested 
 Mr. Herndon to go over to the State-house, and inquire 
 of Governor Bissell if there was not something he could 
 do to obtain possession of the negro. Mr. Herndon 
 made the inquiry, and returned with the report that the 
 governor regretted to say that he had no legal or con- 
 stitutional right to do anything in the premises. Mr. 
 Lincoln rose to his feet in great excitement, and ex- 
 claimed : " By the Almighty, I'll have that negro back 
 soon, or I'll have a twenty-years' agitation in Illinois, 
 until the governor does have a legal and constitutional 
 right to do something in the ^premises." 
 
 He was saved from the latter alternative — at least, 
 in the direct form which he proposed. The lawyers 
 sent money to a New Orleans correspondent — money of 
 their own — who procured the negro, and returned him 
 to his mother. 
 
 LINCOLN'S LETTER TO HIS STEPBROTHER. 
 
 Springfield, January 12, 1851. 
 Dear Brother, — On the day before yesterday, I 
 received a letter from Harriet, written at Greenup. 
 She says she has just returned from your house, and 
 that father is very low, and will hardly recover. She 
 also says that you have written me two letters, and that, 
 although you do not expect rm to come now, you won- 
 der that I do not write. I received both your letters, 
 and, although I have not answered them, it is not be- 
 cause I have forgotten them, or been uninterested about 
 them, but because it appeared to me I could write 
 nothing which could do any good. You already know 
 I desire that neither father nor mother shall be in want 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 133 
 
 of any comfort, either in health or sickness, while they 
 live; and I feel sure you have not failed to use my 
 name, if necessary, to procure a doctor, or anything else 
 for father in his present sickness. My business is such 
 that I could hardly leave home now, if it was not as it 
 is, that my own wife is sick abed. I sincerely hope 
 father may yet recover his health ; but, at all events, 
 tell him to remember to call upon and confide in our 
 great and good and merciful Maker, who will not turn 
 away from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of 
 a sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our heads, and he 
 will not forget the dying man w r ho puts his trust in him. 
 Say to him that if we could meet now it is doubtful 
 whether it would not be more painful than pleasant ; but 
 that, if it be his lot to go now, he will soon have a joy- 
 ous meeting with many loved ones gone before, and 
 where the rest of us, through the help of God, hope 
 erelong to join them. 
 
 Write to me again when you receive this. 
 
 Affectionately, A. Lincoln. 
 
 BEATEN IN A HORSE-TRADE. 
 
 At one time Lincoln and a judge w T ere bantering 
 one another about trading horses, and it was agreed that 
 the next morning at nine o'clock they should make a 
 trade, and there was to be no backing out, under pen- 
 alty of twenty-five dollars. 
 
 At the hour appointed the judge came up, leading 
 the sorriest looking specimen of a horse ever seen in 
 those parts. In a few minutes Mr. Lincoln was seen 
 approaching, with a wooden saw-horse upon his shoul- 
 ders. Great were the shouts and the laughter of the 
 
134 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 crowd, and both were greatly increased when Mr. Lin- 
 coln, on surveying the judge's animal, set down his saw- 
 horse, and exclaimed : 
 
 "Well, Judge, this is the first time I ever got the 
 worst of it in a horse-trade." 
 
 TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN'S HOMELINESS. 
 
 It is said that Lincoln was always ready to join in a 
 laugh at his own expense. He used to tell the follow- 
 ing story with great glee : 
 
 "In the days when I used to be on the circuit," said 
 he, "I was accosted on the cars by a stranger who said : 
 
 " 'Excuse me, sir, but I have an article in my pos- 
 session which belongs to you.' 
 
 " 'How is that?' I asked, considerably astonished. 
 
 "The stranger took a jack-knife from his pocket. 
 1 This knife,' said he, ' was placed in my hands some 
 years ago, with the injunction that I was to keep it until 
 I found a man uglier than myself. I have carried it 
 from that time to this. Allow me to say, sir, that I 
 think you are fairly entitled to the property.'" 
 
 ACCOUNTS WITH PARTNERS. 
 
 Lincoln always had a partner in his professional 
 life, and when he went out upon the circuit, the partner 
 usually remained at home. While out, says Mr. J. B. 
 McClure, he frequently took up and disposed of cases 
 that were never entered at the office. In these cases, 
 after receiving his fees, he divided the money in his 
 pocket-book, labeling each sum (wrapped in a piece of 
 paper), that belonged to his partner, stating his name 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 135 
 
 and the case on which it was received. He could not 
 be content to keep an account. He divided the money, 
 so that if he, by any accident, should fail to pay it over, 
 there could be no dispute as to the exact amount that 
 was his partner's due. 
 
 FAIR DEALING WITH CLIENTS. 
 
 Lincoln did not make his profession lucrative to 
 himself. To a poor client he was quite as apt to give 
 money as to take it from him. He never encouraged 
 the spirit of litigation. One of his clients says that he 
 went to Lincoln with a case to prosecute, and that 
 Lincoln refused to have anything to do with it because 
 he was not strictly in the right. " You can give the 
 other party a great deal of trouble," he said, " and per- 
 haps beat him ; but you had better let the suit alone." 
 
 About the time Lincoln came to be known as a suc- 
 cessful lawyer, he was waited upon by a lady who held 
 a real estate claim which she wished him to prosecute, 
 putting into his hands, with the papers, a check for 
 two hundred aud fifty dollars as a retaining fee. Lin- 
 coln promised to look the case over, and asked her to 
 call again next day. AVhen presenting herself, Lincoln 
 told her that he had gone through the papers very 
 carefully, and he must tell her frankly that there was 
 not a "peg" to hang her claim upon, and he could not 
 conscientiously advise her to bring the action. The lady 
 was satisfied, and, thanking him, rose to go. 
 
 "Wait," said Lincoln, fumbling in his vest pocket, 
 "here is the check you left with me." 
 
 "But, Mr. Lincoln," returned the lady," I think you 
 have earned that." 
 
136 ABRA HA M LINCOLN. 
 
 "No, no," he responded, handing it back to her; 
 "that would not be right. I can't take pay for doing 
 my duty." 
 
 A SMALL CROP. 
 
 Senator McDonald states that he saw a jury trial 
 in Illinois, at which Lincoln defended an old man 
 charged with assault and battery. No blood had been 
 spilled, but there was malice in the prosecution, and the 
 chief witness was eager to make the most of it. On 
 cross-examination, Lincoln asked him how long the fight 
 lasted and how much ground it covered. The witness 
 thought the fight must have lasted half an hour, and 
 covered an acre of ground. Lincoln called his attention 
 to the fact that nobody was hurt, and then, with an in- 
 imitable air, asked him if he didn't think it was "a 
 mighty small crop for an acre of ground." The jury re- 
 jected the case with contempt, as beneath the dignity of 
 
 a court. 
 
 — _$, 
 
 MR. LOGAN'S "BOSOM SHIRT." 
 
 Two farmers, who had a misunderstanding about 
 a horse-trade, went to law, employing Lincoln and his 
 partner on the opposite sides. On the day of the trial, 
 Logan, having bought a new shirt, open in the back, 
 with a huge standing collar, dressed himself in extreme 
 haste, and put on the shirt with the bosom at the back, 
 a linen coat concealing the blunder. He dazed the jury 
 with his knowledge of "horse points," and, as the day 
 was sultry, took off his coat and concluded his speech in 
 his shirt sleeves. 
 
 Lincoln, sitting behind him, took in the situation, 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 137 
 
 and, when his turn to speak came, remarked to the 
 jury: 
 
 "Gentlemen, Mr. Logan lias been trying, for more 
 than an hour, to make you believe he knows more about 
 a horse than these honest farmers who are witnesses. 
 He has quoted largely from his ' horse-doctor.' And 
 now, gentlemen, I submit to you [here he lifted Logan 
 out of the chair, and turned him with his back to the 
 jury and the crowd, at the same time turning up the 
 enormous standing collar,] what dependence can you 
 place in his horse knowledge, when he does n't know 
 enough to put on his shirt?" 
 
 The roars of laughter that greeted his exhibition, 
 and the verdict that Lincoln got soon after, gave Logan 
 a permanent prejudice against "bosom shirts." 
 
 DEFENDING COLONEL BAKER. 
 
 On one occasion, when Colonel Baker was speaking 
 in a court-house which had been a storehouse, and, on 
 making some remarks that were offensive to certain po- 
 litical rowdies in the crowd, they cried: "Take him oft 
 the stand." Confusion ensued, and an attempt was 
 made to carry the demand into execution. Directly 
 over the speaker's head was an old scuttle, at which 
 Lincoln had been listening to the speech. In an instant 
 Lincoln's feet came through the scuttle, and he was soon 
 standing by Colonel Baker's side. He raised his hand; 
 the assembly subsided immediately into silence. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Mr. Lincoln, " let us not disgrace 
 the age and country in which we live. This is a land 
 where freedom of speech is guaranteed. Mr. Baker has 
 
138 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 a right to speak, and ought to be permitted to do so. 
 I am here to protect him, and no man shall take him 
 from this stand if I can prevent it." 
 
 His perfect calmness and fairness, and the knowledge 
 that he would do what he had promised to do, quieted 
 all disturbance, and the speaker went on with his re- 
 marks. 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S POEM. 
 
 The following poem was written by Mr. Lincoln 
 when he was about thirty-five years old. The occasion 
 was a visit to the neighborhood of his old Indiana home 
 to make a political speech in behalf of Henry Clay : 
 
 " My childhood's home I see again, 
 And sadden with the view ; 
 And still, as memory crowds my brain, 
 There 's pleasure in it, too. 
 
 memory ! thou midway world 
 
 'Twixt earth and paradise, 
 Where things decayed, and loved ones lost, 
 
 In dreamy shadows rise ; 
 
 And, freed from all that 's earthly vile, 
 
 Seem hallowed, pure, and bright, 
 Like scenes in some enchanted isle, 
 
 All bathed in liquid light. 
 
 As dusky mountains please the eye, 
 
 When twilight chases day ; 
 As bugle notes that, passing by, 
 
 In distance die away ; 
 
 As leaving some grand waterfall, 
 
 We, lingering, list its roar ; 
 So memory will hallow all 
 
 We 've known, but know no more. 
 
LIXCOLXIANA. 139 
 
 Near twenty years have passed away, 
 
 Since here I bid farewell 
 To woods and fields, and scenes of play, 
 
 And playmates loved so well ; 
 
 Where many were, but few remain, 
 
 Of old familiar things ; 
 But seeing them to mind again 
 
 The lost and absent brings. 
 
 The friends I left that parting day, 
 
 How changed ! as time has sped ; 
 Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray, 
 
 And half of all are dead. 
 
 I hear the loud survivors tell 
 
 How naught from death could save, 
 Till every sound appears a knell, 
 
 And every spot a grave. 
 
 I range the fields with pensive tread, 
 
 And pace the hollow rooms, 
 And feel (companion of the dead), 
 
 I'm living in the tombs." 
 
 LINCOLN AND THE PIG. 
 
 An amusing incident occurred while Lincoln was 
 riding the circuit. As he was passing a deep slough, to 
 his exceeding distress he saw a pig struggling in vain to 
 extricate himself from the mud. Lincoln looked at the 
 pig and the mud which enveloped him, and then at his 
 own new clothes, which he had purchased but a short 
 time before. Deciding against the claims of the pig, he 
 rode on ; but he could not get rid of the vision of the 
 poor brute. At last, after riding several miles, he turned 
 back, determined to release the animal, even at the ex- 
 pense of his new suit. Arriving at the spot, he tied 
 
140 A BE AHA M L TXCOLN. 
 
 his horse, and, with considerable difficulty, succeeded 
 in rescuing the pig from its predicament. Then he 
 washed his hands in the nearest- brook, remounted his 
 horse, and rode on. He then began to inquire as to 
 the motive that sent him back to release the pig. He 
 at first thought it pure benevolence, but finally came to 
 the conclusion that it was selfishness, for he said to him- 
 self that he went to the pig's relief in order to " take 
 a pain out of his own mind." 
 
 BLAINE'S PREDICTION. 
 
 In the famous Douglas-Lincoln campaign, in 1858, 
 Mr. Blaine reported the speeches and the incidents of 
 the canvass for a Philadelphia newspaper. In his last 
 letter before the election he wrote: "The State will go 
 for Douglas. He will be elected senator; but Lincoln 
 will be the next President." The prediction was ridi- 
 culed. Two years later he was present when the com- 
 mittee informed Mr. Lincoln of his nomination, ami was 
 gratified to hear the future War President say, as he took 
 out a printed slip containing the prophecy: "Young 
 man, you see that I have kept your prediction." 
 
 GENEROSITY TO A CLIENT. 
 
 A Mr. Cogdal met w T ith a financial wreck in 1843. 
 He employed Lincoln as his lawyer, and, at the close of 
 the business, gave him a note to cover the regular law r - 
 yer's fees. He soon afterwards lost his hand by an acci- 
 dental discharge of powder. Meeting Lincoln after the 
 accident, the lawyer asked how he was getting along. 
 
LIXCOLNIANA. 141 
 
 " Badly enough," replied Mr. Cogdal, "lam both 
 broken up in business and crippled." Then he added: 
 " I have been thinking about that note of yours." 
 
 Lincoln took out his pocket-book, and saying, with 
 a laugh, " Well, you need n't think any more about it," 
 handed him the note. 
 
 Mr. Cogdal protested; but Lincoln said, " If you 
 had the money, I would not take it," and hurried away. 
 
 A SURPRISED ENGLISHMAN. 
 
 As is usually the case, some of Mr. Lincoln's neigh- 
 bors did not look upon him as a great man. One of 
 them, an Englishman, upon hearing of his nomination 
 by the Chicago Convention, exclaimed: 
 
 "What! Abe Lincoln nominated for President of 
 the United States ! Can it be possible ? A man that 
 buys a ten-cent beefsteak for breakfast, and carries it 
 home himself!" 
 
 LINCOLN'S KINDNESS TO BIRDS. 
 
 The following incident is related by one who knew 
 Lincoln, and who, at the time of the incident, was his 
 fillow-traveler : 
 
 "We passed through a thicket of wild-plum and 
 crab-apple trees, and stopped to water our horses. One 
 of the party came up alone, and we inquired : ' Where 
 is Lincoln ?' 
 
 " ' O,' he replied, 'when I saw him last he had 
 caught two young birds which the wind had blown out 
 of their nest, and he was hunting for the nest, that he 
 might put them back in it.' 
 
142 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 "In a short time Lincoln came up, having found the 
 nest and restored the birds. The party laughed at his 
 care of the young birds; but Lincoln said: 'I could 
 not have slept to-night if I had not restored those little 
 birds to their mother.'" 
 
 LINCOLN'S NEW HAT. 
 
 Mr. G. B. Lincoln tells of an amusing circum- 
 stance which took place at Springfield, soon after Mr. 
 Lincoln's nomination in 1860. A hatter in Brooklyn 
 secretly obtained the size of the future President's head, 
 and made for him a very elegant hat, which he sent by 
 his townsman, G. B. Lincoln, to Springfield. About 
 the time it was presented, various other testimonials of 
 a similar character had come in from different sections. 
 Mr. Lincoln took the hat, and, after admiring its texture 
 and workmanship, put it on his head and walked up to 
 a looking-glass. Glancing from the reflection to Mrs. 
 Lincoln, he said, with his peculiar twinkle of the eye: 
 
 " Well, wife, there is one thing likely to come out of 
 this scrape, anyhow. We are going to have some new 
 clothes I" 
 
 LINCOLN'S LOVE FOR CHILDREN. 
 
 Soon after his election as President, and while vis- 
 iting Chicago, one evening at a social gathering Mr. 
 Lincoln saw a little girl timidly approaching him. He 
 at once called her to him, and asked what she wished. 
 
 She replied that she wanted his name. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln looked back into the room and said: 
 "But here are other little girls; they would feel badly 
 if I should give my name only to you." 
 
LINCOLmAJSTA. 143 
 
 The little girl replied that there were eight of them 
 in all. 
 
 "Then," said Mr. Lincoln, "get me eight sheets of 
 paper, and a pen and ink, and I will see what I can do 
 for you." 
 
 The paper was brought, and Mr. Lincoln sat down 
 in the crowded drawing-room, and wrote a sentence 
 upon each sheet, appending his name ; and thus every 
 little girl carried off her souvenir. 
 
 During the same visit, and while giving a reception 
 at one of the hotels, a fond father took in a little boy 
 by the hand, who was anxious to see the new President. 
 The moment the child entered the parlor door he, of 
 his own accord, and quite to the surprise of his father, 
 took off his hat, and, giving it a swing, cried : 
 
 "Hurrah for Lincoln!" 
 
 There was a crowd ; but, as soon as Mr. Lincoln 
 could get hold of the little fellow, he lifted him in his 
 hands, and, tossing him toward the ceiling, laughingly 
 shouted : 
 
 "Hurrah for you!" 
 
 ADVICE TO A YOUNG MAN. 
 
 After Mr. Lincoln's speech at Leavenworth, Kan- 
 sas, in the winter of 1859, Mr. Lincoln and friends, 
 among whom was Captain J. R. Fitch, of Evanston, 
 111., then a young man, were invited to the home of 
 Judge Delahay, where Mr. Lincoln was entertained. 
 The refreshments included wine, of which almost every 
 one except Mr. Lincoln partook. 
 
 "The next day," says Captain Fitch, in the North- 
 
144 A BE A HA M LINCOLN. 
 
 western Christian Advocate, " we escorted him back to the 
 train ; and, to my dying day, I shall never forget our 
 parting. I was only twenty-two years old. Mr. Lin- 
 coln bade each one good-bye, and gave each a hearty 
 grasp of the hand. He bade me good-bye last, and, as 
 he took my hand in both of his, and stood there tower- 
 ing above me, he looked down into my eyes with that 
 sad, kindly look of his, and said : 
 
 "'My young friend, do not put an enemy in your 
 mouth to steal away your brains.' " 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S MODESTY. 
 
 In a letter to T. J. Pickett, dated April 16, 1859, 
 Mr. Lincoln w r rote : "As to the other matter which 
 you kindly mention, I must, in candor, say I do not 
 think myself fit for the Presidency. I certainly am 
 flattered and gratified that some partial friends think of 
 me in that connection ; but I really think it best for 
 our cause that no concerted effort, such as you suggest, 
 should be made. Let this be considered confidential." 
 
 LINCOLN AT A FIVE POINTS MISSION. 
 
 While Mr. Lincoln was in New York, in 1860, he 
 visited, unattended, the Five Points House of Industry. 
 The superintendent of the Sabbath-school there gave 
 the following account of the event: 
 
 " One Sunday morniug I saw a tall, remarkable- 
 looking man enter the room, and take a seat among us. 
 He listened w r ith fixed attention to our exercises, and his 
 countenance expressed such genuine interest that I ap- 
 proached him, and suggested that he might be willing 
 
LINCOLNIANA 145 
 
 to say something to the children. He accepted the in- 
 vitation with evident pleasure; and, coming forward, 
 began a simple address, which at once fascinated every 
 little hearer, and hushed the room into silence. His 
 language was strikingly beautiful, and his tones musical 
 with intense feeling. The little faces would droop into 
 sad conviction as he uttered sentences of warning, and 
 would brighten into sunshine as he spoke cheerful words 
 of promise. Once or twice he attempted to close his 
 remarks, but the imperative shout of ' Go on ! O, do go 
 on!' would compel him to resume. 
 
 1 'As I looked upon the gaunt and sinewy frame of 
 the stranger, and marked his powerful head and deter- 
 mined features, now touched into softness by the im- 
 pressions of the moment, I felt an irrepressible curiosity 
 to learn something more about him, and, while he was 
 quietly leaving the room, I begged to know his name. 
 He courteously replied : ' It is Abraham Lincoln, from 
 
 Illinois.'" 
 
 ^ 
 
 A MINISTERIAL CHARGE. 
 Early in the war it became Rev. Dr. Arthur Edwards's 
 duty, for a brief period, to carry certain reports to the 
 War Department, in Washington, at about nine in the 
 morning. Being late one morning, he was in a desperate 
 hurry to deliver the papers, in order to be able to catch 
 the train returning to camp. On the winding, dark 
 staircase of the old War Department it was his misfor- 
 tune, while taking about three stairs at a time, to run 
 his head like a catapult into the body of the President, 
 striking him in the region of the right lower vest pocket. 
 The usual surprised and relaxed human grunt of a man 
 
 10 
 
146 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 thus assailed came promptly. Mr. Edwards quickly- 
 sent an apology in the direction of the dimly seen form, 
 feeling that the ungracious shock was expensive, even to 
 the humblest clerk in the department. A second glance 
 revealed to him the President as the victim of the col- 
 lision. Then followed a special tender of " ten thousand 
 pardons," and the President's reply : 
 
 " One 's enough ; I wish the whole army would charge 
 
 like that." 
 
 •*< 
 
 A MAST-FED LAWYER. 
 
 Once, when an eminent lawyer was presented to 
 him, Mr. Lincoln courteously said he was familiar with 
 the judge's professional reputation. The judge re- 
 sponded : 
 
 "And we do not forget that you, too, Mr. President, 
 are a distinguished member of the bar." 
 
 "0," said Mr. Lincoln, modestly, "I'm only a 
 mast-fed lawyer." 
 
 NOT SICK ENOUGH FOR THE POSITION. 
 
 A delegation one day called on Mr. Lincoln to ask 
 the appointment of a gentleman as Commissioner to the 
 Sandwich Islands. They presented their case as ear- 
 nestly as possible, and, besides his fitness for the place, 
 they urged that he was in bad health, and a residence in 
 that balmy climate would be of great benefit to him. 
 The President closed the interview with the discourag- 
 ing remark : " Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that there 
 are eight other applicants for that place, and they are 
 all sicker than your man." 
 
LIXCOLXIAXA. 
 
 147 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S WHISKERS. 
 
 Charles Carleton Coffin* relates the following 
 interesting story : 
 
 "If we had been in the village of Westfield, on the 
 shore of Lake Erie, Chautauqua County, N. Y., on an 
 October evening, we might have seen little Grace Be- 
 dell looking at a 
 portrait of Mr. 
 Lincoln, and a pic- 
 ture of the log- 
 cabin which he 
 helped build for 
 his father in 1830. 
 
 "'Mother/said 
 Grace, 'I think 
 that Mr. Lincoln 
 would look better 
 if he w r ore whis- 
 kers, and I mean 
 to write and tell 
 him so.' 
 
 " ' Well, you may if you want to,' the mother an- 
 swered. 
 
 11 Grace's father was a Republican, and w r as going to 
 vote for Mr. Lincoln. Two older brothers were Demo- 
 crats, but she was a Republican. 
 
 "Among the letters going West the next day was one 
 with this superscription, 'Hon. Abraham Lincoln, Esq., 
 Springfield, Illinois.' It was Grace's letter, telling him 
 
 *Life of 
 Brothers. 
 
 Lincoln. Copyright, 1892, by Harper & 
 
148 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 how old she was, where she lived, that she was a Re- 
 publican, that she thought he would make a good Pres- 
 ident, but would look better if he would let his whiskers 
 grow. If he would, she would try to coax her brothers 
 to vote for him. She thought the rail fence around the 
 cabin very pretty. ' If you have not time to answer 
 my letter, will you allow your little girl to reply for. 
 you V wrote Grace, at the end. 
 
 "A day or two later Grace Bedell comes out of the 
 Westfield post-office with a letter in her hand, postmarked 
 Springfield, 111. Her pulse beat as never before. It is 
 a cold morning, the wind blowing bleak and chill across 
 the tossing waves of the lake. Suowflakes are falling. 
 She can not wait till she reaches home, but tears open 
 the letter. The melting flakes blur the writing ; but this 
 is what she reads : 
 
 " ' Springfield, III., October 19, 1860. 
 " ' Miss Grace Bedell : 
 
 " *My Dear Little Miss, — Your very agreeable letter 
 of the 15th is received. I regret the necessity of saying 
 I have no daughter. I have three sons — one seventeen, 
 one nine, and one seven years of age. They, with their 
 mother, constitute my whole family. As to the whis- 
 kers, having never worn any, do you not think people 
 would call it a piece of silly affection [affectation] if I 
 should begin it now ? 
 
 " ' Your very sincere well-wisher, 
 
 "'A. Lincoln.' 
 
 "When the train on which Mr. Lincoln was going 
 to Washington, to become President of the United States, 
 left Cleveland, Mr. Patterson, of Westfield, was invited 
 into Mr. Lincoln's car. 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 149 
 
 " 'Did I understand that your home is in Westfield? 
 Mr. Lincoln asked. 
 
 11 ' Yes, sir, that is my home.' 
 
 " * O, by the way, do you know of any one living 
 there by the name of Bedell V 
 
 " ' Yes, sir, I know the family very well.' 
 
 " 'I have a correspondent in that family. Mr. Be- 
 dell's little girl, Grace, wrote me a very interesting let- 
 ter, advising me to wear whiskers, as she thought it 
 would improve my looks. You see that I have followed 
 her suggestion. Her letter was so unlike many that I 
 received — some that threatened assassination in case I 
 was elected — that it was really a relief to receive it and 
 a pleasure to answer it.' 
 
 "The train reached Westfield, and Mr. Lincoln 
 stood upon the platform of the car to say a few words to 
 the people. 
 
 " 'I have a little correspondent here, Grace Bedell, 
 and if the little miss is present I would like to see her/ 
 
 "Grace was far down the platform, and the crowd 
 prevented her seeing or hearing him. 
 
 "'Grace, Grace, the President is calling for you!' 
 they shouted. 
 
 "A friend made his way with her through the crowd. 
 
 " ' Here she is.' 
 
 "Mr. Lincoln stepped down from the car, took her 
 by the hand, and gave her a kiss. ' You see, Grace, I 
 have let my whiskers grow for you.' 
 
 "The kindly smile was upon his face. The train 
 whirled on. His heart was lighter. For one brief mo- 
 ment he had forgotten the burdens that were pressing 
 him with their weight." 
 
150 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 "TAD" GUARDING THE WHITE HOUSE. 
 
 In the summer the Lincoln family lived in a stone 
 cottage on the reservation belonging to the Government, 
 in the suburbs of Washington, known as the Soldiers' 
 Home. 
 
 The drives to and from the Soldiers' Home and the 
 White House were often undertaken in the darkness of 
 late hours, and friends of the President, alarmed by ru- 
 mors of attempted attacks upon the person of the chief, 
 insisted that he should have a small body-guard of cav- 
 alry to accompany him to and fro. The proposition was 
 most unpalatable to Lincoln, and he resisted it as long 
 as he could. When he finally consented, the little show 
 of the cavalry escort was most distressful to him, and 
 he repeatedly expressed his disgust at the ''jingling and 
 jangling" of the troop. A guard was also mounted at 
 the main entrance of the White House; and this, too, 
 annoyed him not a little, especially as it was needful, in 
 the observance of military discipline, that they should 
 salute him when he passed in and out. 
 
 "On one occasion," says Noah Brooks, "Tad, hav- 
 ing been sportively commissioned a lieutenant in the 
 United States Army by Secretary Stanton, procured 
 several muskets, and drilled the men-servants of the 
 house in the manual of arms, without attracting the at- 
 tention of his father. And one night, to their conster- 
 nation, he put them all on duty, and relieved the regu- 
 lar sentries, who, seeing the lad in full uniform, or per- 
 haps appreciating the joke, gladly went to their quarters. 
 Robert Lincoln, hearing of this extraordinary perform- 
 ance, indignantly went to his father to remonstrate 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 151 
 
 against the servants being compelled to do special duty 
 when their day's work was done. Tad insisted on his 
 rights as an officer. The President laughed, and de- 
 clined to interfere. But when the lad had lost his little 
 authority in his boyish sleep, the Commander-in-chief 
 of the Army and Navy of the United States went down 
 and personally discharged the sentries his son had put 
 on post. For one night, at least, the White House was 
 
 left unguarded." 
 
 ,*, 
 
 A HIT AT McCLELLAN. 
 
 When Grant first called on the President, in Wash- 
 ington, one of the first things that Mr. Lincoln said to 
 him, was : 
 
 "Grant, have you ever read the book by Orpheus C. 
 Kerr?" 
 
 "Well, no; I never did," replied the general. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln said : 
 
 " You ought to read it ; it is a very interesting book. 
 I have had a good deal of satisfaction reading that book. 
 There is one poem there that describes the meeting of 
 the animals, the substance of it being that the animals 
 were holding a convention, and a dragon, or some 
 dreadful thing, was near by and had to be conquered, 
 and it was a question as to who should undertake the 
 job. By and by a monkey stepped forward and pro- 
 posed to do the work up. The monkey said he thought 
 he could do it if he could get ^n inch or two more put 
 on his tail. The assemblage voted him a few inches 
 more to his tail, and he went out and tried his hand. 
 He was unsuccessful, and returned, stating that he 
 wanted a few more inches put on his tail. The request 
 
152 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 was granted, and he went again. His second effort was 
 a failure. He asked that more inches be put on his 
 tail, aud he would try a third time." 
 
 "At last," said General Grant, in repeating the story, 
 " it got through my head what Lincoln was aiming at, 
 as applying to my wanting more men, and finally I said : 
 1 Mr. Lincoln, I do n't want any more inches put on my 
 tail.'" 
 
 The story, however, was a hit at McClellan. 
 
 A CHARACTERISTIC LETTER. 
 
 The following letter is to be found in a private col- 
 lection in Chicago : 
 
 "Executive Mansion, October 17, 1861. 
 " Major Ramsey : 
 
 11 My Dear Sir, — The lady — bearer of this — says she 
 has two sons who want to work. Set them at it, if pos- 
 sible. Wanting to work is so rare a merit that it should 
 be encouraged. A. Lincoln." 
 
 LINCOLN'S SUNDAY-REST ORDER. 
 
 " Executive Mansion, 1 
 " Washington, Nov. 15, 1862. J 
 
 "The President, Commander-in-chief of the Army 
 and Navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of 
 the Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and 
 naval service. The importance for man and beast of 
 the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian 
 soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best 
 sentiment of a Christian people, and a due regard for 
 the Divine Will, demand that Sunday labor in the army 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 153 
 
 and navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity. 
 The discipline and character of the national forces should 
 not suffer, nor the cause they defend be imperiled, by 
 the profanation of the day or name of the Most High. 
 1 At this time of public distress,' adopting the words of 
 Washington in 1776, * men may find enough to do in 
 the service of God and their country, without abandon- 
 ing themselves to vice and immorality. ' The first gen- 
 eral order issued by the Father of his Country, after the 
 Declaration of Independence, indicates the spirit in 
 which our institutions were founded, and should ever be 
 defended. ' The general hopes and trusts that every 
 officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes 
 a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and 
 liberties of his country.' A. Lincoln." 
 
 LINCOLN AT THE WASHINGTON NAVY-YARD. 
 
 One afternoon in the summer of 1862, the President 
 accompanied several gentlemen to the Washington Navy- 
 yard, to witness some experiments with a newly-invented 
 gun. Subsequently the party went aboard one of the 
 steamers lying at the wharf. A discussion was going on 
 as to the merits of the invention, in the midst of which 
 Mr. Lincoln caught sight of some axes hanging up out- 
 side of the cabin. Leaving the group, he quietly went 
 forward, and taking one down, returned with it, and 
 said : 
 
 " Gentlemen, you may talk about your ' Raphael re- 
 peaters ' and ■ eleven-inch Dahlgrens ;' but here is an in- 
 stitution which I guess I understand better than either of 
 you." With that he held the axe out at arm's length 
 
154 A BR AH AM LINCOLN. 
 
 by the end of the handle, or "helve," as the wood-cut- 
 ters call it — a feat not another person of the party could 
 perform, though all made the attempt. 
 
 REVISING HIS CABINET. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet was chosen chiefly from his 
 rivals for the Presidential nomination and from con- 
 siderations largely political. The exigencies of the war 
 demanded, in the opinion of many Republicans, includ- 
 ing some leading United States senators, a reorganiza- 
 tion of the Cabinet. After the retirement of General 
 Cameron, the senators held a caucus and appointed a 
 committee to wait on the President. 
 
 The committee represented that inasmuch as the 
 Cabinet had not been chosen with reference to the war, 
 and had more or less lost the confidence of the country, 
 and since the President had. decided to select a new War 
 Minister, they thought the occasion was opportune to 
 change the whole seven Cabinet ministers. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln listened with patient courtesy, and when 
 the senators had concluded, he said : 
 
 11 Gentlemen, your request for a change of the whole 
 Cabinet, because I have made one change, reminds me 
 of a story I once heard in Illinois, of a farmer who was 
 much troubled by skunks. They annoyed his household 
 at night, and his wife insisted that he should take meas- 
 ures to get rid of them. One moonlight night he loaded 
 his old shotgun and stationed himself in the yard to 
 watch for intruders, his wife remaining in the house 
 anxiously awaiting the result. After some time she 
 heard the shotgun go off, and in a few moments the 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 155 
 
 farmer entered the house. ' What luck had you ?' said 
 she. ' I hid myself behiud the wood-pile,' said the old 
 mau, ' with the shotguu pointed toward the hen-roost, 
 and before long there appeared, not one shunk, but 
 seven. I took aim, blazed away, killed one, and he 
 raised such a fearful smell that I concluded it was best 
 to let the other six go.' " 
 
 With a hearty laugh the senators retired, and noth- 
 ing more was heard of Cabinet reconstruction. 
 
 NO MERCY FOR MAN-STEALERS. 
 
 Hon. John B. Alley, of Lynn, Massachusetts, was 
 made the bearer to the President of a petition for par- 
 don, by a person confined in the Newbury port jail for 
 beiug engaged in the slave-trade. He had been sen- 
 tenced to five years' imprisonment, and the payment of 
 a fine of one thousand dollars. The petition was accom- 
 panied by a letter to Mr. Alley, in which the prisoner 
 acknowledged his guilt and the justice of his sentence. 
 He was very penitent — at least, on paper — and had re- 
 ceived the full measure of his punishment, so far as it 
 related to the term of his imprisonment ; but he was 
 still held because he could not pay his fine. Mr. Alley 
 read the letter to the President, who was much moved 
 by its pathetic appeals ; and when he had himself read 
 the petition, he looked up, and said : 
 
 " My friend, that is a very touching appeal to our 
 feelings. You know my weakness is to be, if possible, 
 too easily moved by appeals for mercy, and, if this man 
 were guilty of the foulest murder that the arm of man 
 could perpetrate, I might forgive him on such an ap- 
 
156 A BE A HA M LINCOLN. 
 
 peal ; but the man who could go to Africa, and rob her 
 of her children, and sell them into interminable bond- 
 age, with no other motive than that which is furnished 
 by dollars and cents, is so much worse than the most de- 
 praved murderer, that he can never receive pardon at 
 my hands. No ! He may rot in jail before he shall 
 have liberty by any act of mine." 
 
 SIGNING A PARDON IN BED. 
 
 Mr. Kellogg, representative from Essex County, 
 New York, received a dispatch one evening stating that 
 a young townsman, who had been induced to enlist 
 through his instrumentality, had, for a serious misde- 
 meanor, been convicted by a court-martial, and was to 
 be shot the next day. Greatly agitated, Mr. Kellogg 
 went to Secretary Stanton, and urged, in the strongest 
 manner, a reprieve. The Secretary was inexorable. 
 
 Too many cases of the kind had been let off, he said, 
 and it was time an example was made. 
 
 Leaving the War Department, Mr. Kellogg went 
 directly to the White House. The sentinel on duty 
 told him that special orders had been issued to admit no 
 one whatever that night. After a long parley, by 
 pledging himself to assume the responsibility of the act, 
 the congressman passed in. The President had retired ; 
 but, indifferent to etiquette or ceremony, Judge Kellogg 
 pressed his way to his bedroom. In an excited man- 
 ner, he stated that the dispatch announcing the hour of 
 execution had but just reached him. 
 
 "This man must not be shot, Mr. President," said 
 he. "I can't help what he may have done. Why, he 
 
LIXCOLNIANA. 157 
 
 is an old neighbor of mine; I can't allow him to be 
 shot!" 
 
 Lincoln sat up in bed, quietly listening to the vehe- 
 ment protestations of his old friend (they were in Con- 
 gress together), and at length said: "Well, I don't 
 believe shooting him will do him any good. Give me 
 that pen." 
 
 <4>° 
 
 A CHURCH WANTED FOR WOUNDED SOLDIERS. 
 
 At the White House, one day, a well-dressed lady 
 came forward, without apparent embarrassment in her 
 air or manner, and addressed the President. Giving 
 her a very close and scrutinizing look, he said : 
 
 " Well, madam, what can I do for you?" 
 
 She proceeded to tell him that she lived in Alex- 
 andria, and that the church where she worshiped had 
 been taken for a hospital. 
 
 "What church, madam ?" Mr. Lincoln asked, in a 
 quick, nervous manner. 
 
 11 The Church," she replied ; "and as there are 
 
 only two or three wounded soldiers in it, I came to see 
 if you would not let us have it, as we want it very much 
 to worship God in." 
 
 "Madam, have you been to see the post-surgeon at 
 Alexandria about this matter?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; but we could do nothing with him." 
 
 "Well, we put him there to attend to just such 
 business, and it is reasonable to suppose that he knows 
 better what should be done, under the circumstances, 
 than I do. See here: You say you live in Alexandria; 
 probably you own property there. How much will you 
 give to assist in building a hospital ?" 
 
158 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 " You know, Mr. Lincoln, our property is very much 
 embarrassed by the war; so, really, I could hardly af- 
 ford to give much for such a purpose." 
 
 " Well, madam, I expect we shall have another fight 
 soon ; aud my candid opinion is, God wants that church 
 for poor, wounded Union soldiers, as much as he does for 
 secesh people to worship in." Turning to his table, he 
 said, quite abruptly : " You will excuse me ; I can do 
 nothing for you. Good-day, madam." 
 
 LINCOLN'S AND BATES'S PRISONERS. 
 
 Attorney-General Bates, who was a Virginian 
 by birth, and had many relatives in that State, one day 
 heard that a young Virginian, the son of one of his old 
 friends, had been captured across the Potomac, was a 
 prisoner of war, and was not in good health. Knowing 
 the boy's father to be in his heart a Union man, Mr. 
 Bates conceived the idea of having the son paroled and 
 sent home, of course under promise not to return to the 
 army. He went to see the President, and said: "I 
 have a personal favor to ask. I want you to give me a 
 prisoner." And he told him of the case. 
 
 The President said: "Bates, I have an almost par- 
 allel case. The son of an old friend of mine in Illi- 
 nois ran off and entered the rebel army. The young 
 fool has been captured, is a prisoner of war, and his old, 
 broken-hearted father has asked me to send him home, 
 promising, of course, to keep him there. I have not 
 seen my way clear to do it; but, if you and I unite 
 our influence with this Administration, I believe we can 
 manage it together, and make two loyal fathers happy. 
 Let us make them our prisoners." And he did so. 
 
LIXCOLXIANA. 159 
 
 LINCOLN'S REMARKABLE LETTER TO GENERAL HOOKER. 
 
 The following remarkable letter to General Hooker 
 was written after the latter had taken command of the 
 Army of the Potomac, in January, 1863. Before the 
 President sent it, an intimate frieDd chanced to be in 
 his cabinet oue night, and Mr. Lincoln read it to him, 
 remarking: "I shall not read this to anybody else; 
 but I want to know how it strikes you." During the 
 following April or May, while the Army of the Poto- 
 mac lay opposite Fredericksburg, this friend accom- 
 panied the President to General Hooker's headquarters 
 on a visit. One night General Hooker, alone with this 
 gentleman, said : 
 
 " The President says that he showed you this letter;" 
 and he then took out the document. The tears stood in 
 Hooker's eyes as he added: "It is such a letter as a 
 father might have written to his son ; and yet it hurt 
 me." Then he said: "When I have been to Rich- 
 mond, I shall have this letter published." 
 
 Sixteen years later, the letter was published. It 
 reads as follows : 
 
 Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C. 
 January 2(3, 1803. 
 
 "Major-General Hooker: 
 
 " General, — I have placed you at the head of the Army 
 of the Potomac. Of course, I have done this upon what ap- 
 pears to me to be sufficient reasons ; and yet I think it best 
 for you to know that there are some things in regard to 
 which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be 
 a brave and skillful soldier — which, of course, I like. I also 
 believe you do not mix politics with your profession — in 
 which you are right. You have confidence in yourself — 
 which is a valuable, if not an indispensable, quality. You 
 
160 ABRAHA M LINCOLN. 
 
 are ambitious — which, within reasonable bounds, does good 
 rather than harm; but I think that, during General Burn- 
 side's command of the army, you have taken counsel of your 
 ambition, and thwarted him as much as you could, in which 
 you did a great wrong to the country, and to a most merito- 
 rious and honorable brother-officer. I have heard, in such a 
 way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the 
 army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course, it 
 was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the 
 command. Only those generals who gain puccesses can set 
 up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and 
 I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will support 
 you to the utmost of its ability— which is neither more nor 
 less than it has done, and will do, for all commanders. I 
 much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse 
 into the army, of criticising their commander and withhold- 
 ing confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall 
 assist you, as far as I can, to put it down. Neither you nor 
 Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of 
 an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now, beware 
 of rashness. Beware of rashness ; but, with energy and 
 sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us victories. 
 
 " Yours, very truly, A. Lincoln." 
 
 THREE "BORES." 
 
 One day when Mr. Lincoln was alone and busily 
 engaged he was disturbed by the intrusion of three men 
 who, without apology, proceeded to lay their claim before 
 him. The spokesman of the three reminded the Presi- 
 dent that they were the owners of some torpedo or other 
 warlike invention which, if the Government would only 
 adopt it, would soon crush the rebellion. 
 
 " Now," said the spokesman, " we have been here to 
 see you time and again ; you have referred us to the 
 
LINCOLNIAXA. 
 
 161 
 
 Secretary of War, to the chief of ordinance, and the 
 general of the army, and they will give us no satisfac- 
 tion. We have been kept here waiting, till money and 
 patience are exhausted, and we now come to demand of 
 you a final reply to our application." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln listened quietly for a while, and then 
 
 replied : 
 
 "You three gentlemen remind me of a story I once 
 heard of a poor little boy out West who had lost his 
 mother. His father wanted to give him a religious edu- 
 cation, and so placed him in the family of a clergyman 
 whom he directed to instruct the little fellow carefully 
 iu the Scriptures. Every day the boy was required to 
 commit to memory and recite one chapter of the Bible. 
 Things proceeded smoothly until they reached that 
 chapter which details the story of the trials of Shadrach, 
 Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. The boy 
 got on well until he was asked to repeat these three names, 
 but he had forgotten them. His teacher told him he 
 must learn them, and gave him another day to do so. 
 Next day the boy again forgot them. 'Now,' said the 
 teacher, « you have again failed to remember those names, 
 and you can go no further till you have learned them. 
 I will give you another day on this lesson, and if you 
 do n't repeat the names I will punish you.' A third 
 time the boy came to recite and got down to the stum- 
 bling block, when the clergyman said : ' Now tell me the 
 names of the men in the fiery furnace.' ' 0/ said the 
 boy, ' here come those three infernal bores ! I wish the 
 
 devil had them !' " 
 
 Having received their " final answer" the three 
 
 patriots retired. 
 
 11 
 
162 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 
 
 LIFTING A BURDEN FROM A FATHER'S HEART. 
 
 General Clinton B. Fisk, attending a reception 
 at the White House, saw, waiting in the anteroom, a 
 poor old man from Tennessee. Sitting down beside him, 
 he learned that he had been waiting three or four days 
 to get an audience, and that on his seeing Mr. Lincoln 
 probably depended the life of his son, who was under 
 sentence of death for some military offense. 
 
 General Fisk wrote his case in outline on a card, 
 and sent it in, with a special request tlfat the President 
 would see the man. In a moment the order came. The 
 old man showed Mr. Lincoln his papers, and he, on 
 taking them, said he would look into the case and give 
 him the result on the following day. 
 
 The old man, in an agony of fear, looked up into the 
 President's sympathetic face, and cried out: 
 
 " To-morrow may be too late! My son is under 
 sentence of death ! The decision ought to be made 
 now !" and the tears came into his eyes. 
 
 " Come," said Mr. Lincoln, " wait a bit, and I'll tell 
 you a story," and then he told the old man General 
 Fisk's story about the swearing driver, as follows: 
 
 The general had begun his military life as a colonel, 
 and, when he raised his regiment in Missouri, he pro- 
 posed to his men that he should do all the swearing of 
 the regiment. They assented; and for months no in- 
 stance was known of the violation of the promise. The 
 colonel had a teamster named John Todd, who, as roads 
 were not always the best, had some difficulty in com- 
 manding his temper and his tongue. John happened to 
 be driving a mule team through a series of mud-holea 
 
LINC0LN1ANA. 163 
 
 a little worse than usual, when, unable to restrain him- 
 self any longer, he burst forth into a volley of energetic 
 oaths. The colonel took notice of the offense, and 
 brought John to an account. 
 
 "John," said he, "didn't you promise to let me do 
 all the swearing of the regiment?" 
 
 "Yes, I did, colonel," he replied, " but the fact was, 
 the swearing had to be done then or not at all, and you 
 weren't there to do it." 
 
 As Mr. Lincoln told the story, the old man forgot 
 
 his boy, and both the President and his listener had a 
 
 hearty laugh together at its conclusion. Then he wrote 
 
 a few words which the old man read, and tears of joy 
 
 began to flow from his eyes, for the words saved the life 
 
 of his son. 
 
 .*. 
 
 LINCOLN "TAKING UP A COLLECTION." 
 
 "While the Army of the Potomac was near Fal- 
 mouth, on the river opposite Fredericksburg, Virginia, 
 early in the war," says Dr. Arthur Edwards, in the 
 Northwestern Christian Advocate, " Mr. Lincoln reviewed 
 and inspected that splendid body of troops, one hundred 
 thousand strong. Those who were present remember 
 the quiet Dobbin ridden by the President. The steed 
 proceeded soberly, as if he had been put upon his equine 
 honor to be kind to his illustrious rider. 
 
 "During a part of the formality, when the reviewing 
 officer or personage is specially the center of all eyes, 
 Mr. Lincoln carried his tall 'plug hat' in his hand, and, 
 as he bumped up and down in his saddle, not danger- 
 ously but considerably, he bowed right and left to the 
 magnificent military lines. The right arm was extended 
 
164 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 almost horizontally, and the hand grasped the hat's 
 ample brim. 
 
 "The whole aspect of the now historic man abun- 
 dantly justified the suggestion of a certain Methodist 
 who Avas present, to the effect that ' the dear old gentle- 
 man looks as if he were about to take up a collection.' 
 The joker was discounted on the ground that he was in- 
 dulging his Methodist traditions as far as the collection 
 was concerned, but a second look at the horse and his 
 rider aided many a kindly smile." 
 
 LITTLE INFLUENCE WITH THE ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Judge Baldwin, of California, being in Washing- 
 ton, called one day on General Halleck, and, presuming 
 upon a familiar acquaintance in California a few years 
 before, solicited a pass outside of the lines to see a 
 brother in Virginia, not thinking that he would meet 
 with a refusal, as both his brother and himself were 
 good Union men. 
 
 " We have been deceived too often," said General 
 Halleck, " and I regret I can 't grant it." 
 
 Judge Baldwin then went to Stanton, and was very 
 briefly disposed of, with the same result. Finally, he 
 obtained an interview with Mr. Lincoln, and stated his 
 case. 
 
 "Have you applied to General Halleck?" inquired 
 the President. 
 
 41 Yes, and met with a flat refusal," said Judge 
 Baldwin. 
 
 " Then you must see Stanton," coutiuued the Presi- 
 dent. 
 
LINCOLN I A NA. 165 
 
 " I have, and with the same result," was the reply. 
 
 " Well, then," said Mr. Lincoln, with a smile, " I 
 can do nothing ; for you must know that I have very 
 little influence with this Administration." 
 
 A LITTLE HERO. 
 
 Hon. W. D. Kell suggested to the President one 
 day that he send the son of one of his constituents to 
 the naval school for a year. The boy had served a year 
 on board the gunboat Ottawa, and had been in two im- 
 portant engagements ; in the first as a powder-monkey, 
 when he had conducted himself with such coolness that 
 he had been chosen as captain's messenger in the 
 second. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln at once wrote on the back of a letter 
 from the commander of the Ottawa, which Mr. Kell had 
 handed him, to the Secretary of the Navy : " If the 
 appointments for this year have not been made, let this 
 boy be appointed." The appointment had not been 
 made, and he took it home with him. It directed the 
 lad to report for examination at the school in July. 
 Just as he was ready to start, his father, looking over 
 the law, discovered that he could not report until he was 
 fourteen years of age, which he would not be until Sep- 
 tember following. The boy sat down and cried. He 
 feared that he was not to go to the naval school. He 
 was consoled, however, by being told that " the Presi- 
 dent could make it right." The next morning Mr. Kell 
 met him at the door of the Executive Chamber with his 
 father. Taking by the hand the little fellow — short for 
 his age, dressed in the sailor's blue pants and shirt — he 
 
166 ABRA HAM LINCOLN. 
 
 advanced with him to the President, who sat in his 
 usual seat, and said : 
 
 " Mr. President, my young friend, Willie Bladen, 
 finds a difficulty about his appointment. You have di- 
 rected him to appear at the school in July ; but he is 
 not yet fourteen years of age." But before he got half 
 of this out, Mr. Lincoln, laying down his spectacles, 
 rose and said : 
 
 " Bless me ! is that the boy who did so gallantly in 
 those two great battles ? Why, I feel that I should bow 
 to him, and not he to me." The little fellow had made 
 his graceful bow. 
 
 The President took the papers at once, and as soon 
 as he learned that a postponement until September 
 would suffice, made the order that the lad should report 
 in that month. Then putting his hand on Willie's head, 
 he said : 
 
 11 Now, my boy, go home and have good fun during 
 
 the two months, for they are about the last holidays 
 
 you will get." 
 
 .$. 
 
 WORK ENOUGH FOR TWENTY PRESIDENTS. 
 
 A farmer from one of the border counties went to 
 the President on a certain occasion with the complaint 
 that the Union soldiers, in passing his farm, had helped 
 themselves, not only to hay, but to his horse ; and he 
 hoped the proper officer would be required to consider 
 his claim immediately. 
 
 "Why, my good sir," replied Mr. Lincoln, "if I 
 should attempt to consider every such individual case, I 
 should find work enough for twenty Presidents! In my 
 early days, I knew one Jack Chase, who was a lumber- 
 
LIXCOLNIANA. 167 
 
 man on the Illinois, and, when steady and sober, the 
 best raftsman on the river. It was quite a trick twenty- 
 five years ago to take the logs over the rapids, but he 
 was skillful with a raft, and always kept her straight in 
 the channel. Finally a steamer was put on, and Jack — 
 he 's dead now, poor fellow ! — was made captain of her. 
 He always used to take the wheel going through the 
 rapids. One day, when the boat was plunging and wal- 
 lowing along the boiling current, and Jack's utmost 
 vigilance was being exercised to keep her in the narrow 
 channel, a boy pulled his coat-tail, and hailed him with: 
 ' Say, Mister Captain ! I wish you would just stop your 
 boat a minute — I 've lost my apple overboard !' " 
 
 A BRIDE'S PLEDGE. 
 
 In the spring of 1863 a very handsome and attract- 
 ive young lady from Philadelphia besought the Presi- 
 dent to restore her husband to his position, from which 
 he had been removed in disgrace. Sometime before 
 she had been married to a young lieutenant in a Penn- 
 sylvania regiment. He had been compelled to leave 
 her the day after the wedding to rejoin his command in 
 the Army of the Potomac. After some time he ob- 
 tained leave of absence, returned to Philadelphia, and 
 they started on a brief honeymoon. A movement of 
 the army being imminent, the War Department issued 
 a peremptory order requiring all absent officers to re- 
 join their regiments by a certain day on penalty of dis- 
 missal in case of disobedience. The bride and groom, 
 away on their wedding tour, failed to see the order, and 
 on their return he was met by a notice of his dismissal 
 
168 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 from the service. The young fellow was completely 
 prostrated by the disgrace, and his wife hurried to 
 Washington to get him restored. She told her story 
 with simple and pathetic eloquence, and wound up by 
 saying : 
 
 " Mr. Lincoln, won't you help us? I promise you, 
 if you will restore him, he will be faithful to his duty." 
 
 The President had listened with evident sympathy 
 and a half-amused smile at her earnestness, and as she 
 closed her appeal, he said, with parental kindness: 
 
 "And you say, my child, that Fred was compelled 
 to leave you the day after the wedding? Poor fellow! 
 I do n't wonder at his anxiety to get back ; and if he 
 staid a little longer than he ought to have done, we '11 
 have to overlook his fault this time. Take this card 
 to the Secretary of War, and he will restore your hus- 
 band." 
 
 She went to the War Department, saw the Secre- 
 retary, who rebuked her for troubling the President, 
 and dismissed her somewhat curtly. On her way down 
 the War Department stairs, she met the President as- 
 cending. He recognized her, and, with a pleasant smile, 
 said : 
 
 " Well, my dear, have you seen the Secretary?" 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Lincoln," she replied, "and he seemed 
 very angry with me for going to you. Won't you 
 speak to him for me ?" 
 
 " Give yourself no trouble," said he. "I will see 
 that the order is issued." And in a few days her hus- 
 band was remanded to his regiment. 
 
 " Not long after," says Titian J. Coffey, who relates 
 the story in the Cincinnati Times-Star, " the young man 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 169 
 
 was killed at the battle of Gettysburg, thus sealing with 
 his blood his wife's pledge that he should be faithful to 
 his duty." ^ 
 
 CONSIDERATION FOR A COUNT. 
 
 During the war an Austrian count applied to Pres- 
 ident Lincoln for a position. Being introduced by the 
 Austrian Minister, he needed, of course, no further rec- 
 ommendation ; but, as if fearing that his importance 
 might not be duly appreciated, he proceeded to explain 
 that he was a count-that his family were ancient and 
 highly respectable. 
 
 Lincoln, with a twinkle in his eye, tapped the titled 
 foreigner on the shoulder, in a fatherly way, as if the 
 man had confessed to some wrong, and in a soothing 
 tone, said : " Never mind ; you shall be treated with just 
 as much consideration, for all that." 
 
 A DESIRABLE POSITION. 
 A gentleman named Farquhar, of York, Pa., did 
 not enlist because he was a Quaker. In the course of 
 the war, General Early marched before York, and threat- 
 ened to burn the houses of its peaceful citizens unless a 
 rausom of twenty-five thousand dollars was forthcoming^ 
 Mr Farquhar was foremost in arranging matters, and 
 struck a bargain with the Confederates which, while they 
 were near, seemed very clever to his fellow-townsmen, 
 but when they marched away brought forth many bitter 
 complaints. The whole matter set Mr. Farquhar think- 
 ing. The war ought to be ended. So he set out for 
 Washington, to offer his services to the Government. 
 
170 ABE ARAM LINCOLN. 
 
 He called on Mr. Lincoln, told him how he felt, and 
 said he wished to help his country. 
 
 " Well," said Lincoln, "come with me to the Secre- 
 tary of War, and I will give you a position which I 
 would gladly take myself." 
 
 They were soon in Mr. Stanton's office. Lincolu 
 made a sign to the Secretary, who produced a Bible, 
 and proceeded to swear Mr. Farquhar into the United 
 States service. The ceremony had not gone very far, 
 when he discovered that the position Mr. Lincoln cov- 
 eted was that of a private soldier. Mr. Farquhar 
 showed alarm, and the President laughingly re- 
 leased him. 
 
 04,0 
 
 THE LORD AND THE PEOPLE WITH HIM. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln and a friend were standing upon the 
 threshold of the door under the portico of the White 
 House, awaiting the coachman, when a letter was put 
 into his hand. While he was reading this, a country- 
 man, plainly dressed, with his wife and two little boys, 
 who had evidently been straying about, looking at the 
 places of public interest in the city, approached. As they 
 reached the portico, the father, who was in advance, 
 caught sight of the tall figure of Mr. Lincoln, absorbed 
 in his letter. His wife and the little boys were ascend- 
 ing the steps. 
 
 The man stopped suddenly, put out his hand with a 
 " hush " to his family, and, after a moment's gaze, he 
 bent down and whispered to them : " There is the Presi- 
 dent." Then, leaving them, he slowly made a half-cir- 
 cuit around Mr. Lincoln, watching him intently all the, 
 while. 
 
LIXCOLKIAXA. 1 l 1 
 
 At this point, haviog finished his letter, the President 
 turned, and said: "Well, we will not wait any longer 
 for the carriage; it won't hurt you and me to walk 
 
 down." , 
 
 The countryman stepped up very diffidently, and 
 asked if he might be allowed to take the President by 
 the hand, after which he asked if he would extend the 
 same privilege to his wife and little boys. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln, good-naturedly, approached the latter, 
 Tvho had remained where they were stopped, and, reach- 
 in- down, said a kind word to the bashful little fellows, 
 who shrank close up to their mother, and did not reply. 
 This simple act filled the father's cup full. 
 
 "The Lord is with you, Mr. President," he said, rev- 
 erently; and then, hesitating a moment, he added, with 
 strong emphasis, "and the people too, sir; and the peo- 
 pie too I" _ 
 
 THE FIRST COLORED OFFICER. 
 Eev H. M. Turner, now a bishop of the African 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, was the first colored man 
 commissioned an officer in the United States Army. 
 He thus writes, in the Northwestern Christian Advocate: 
 
 "The first colored regiment, which was raised and 
 organized under the direct auspices of the General Gov- 
 ernment (I do not refer to those enlisted by General 
 Butler in New Orleans, or Governor Andrew in Mas- 
 sachusetts), was raised in Washington, D. C. 
 
 "The first two companies were enlisted in the base- 
 ment of Israel Church ; but the regiment was completed 
 on Mason's Island, just across the Potomac from Wash- 
 ington City. All the commissioned officers, being white, 
 
172 A BE AHA M LINCOLN. 
 
 were appointed from the colonel down, and a white 
 chaplain had been assigned to duty to the same regi- 
 ment, temporarily, by the colonel in command. This 
 writer, however, was the choice of the colored members 
 of the regiment for the position of chaplain, and, at 
 their solicitation, I applied for the same. 
 
 " Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, and 
 Hon. Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, and 
 afterward chief justice of the United States Supreme 
 Court, were favorable; but the other Cabinet officers 
 were either unfavorable or in doubt as to the advisabil- 
 ity of making a colored man a commissioned officer in 
 any form — at least, I was so informed by Secretary 
 Chase. 
 
 "When the question came up in the Cabinet for 
 final decision before Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Stanton and Mr. 
 Chase held that the colored soldiers should have their 
 own spiritual director and guide, and that my labors in 
 the organization of the regiment entitled me to the po- 
 sition. Messrs. Seward, Blair, Welles, and others of 
 the Cabinet thought it rather too early to risk public 
 sentiment in commissioning a colored man to any posi- 
 tion whatever. 
 
 " Mr. Lincoln sat with great patience and heard the 
 discussion, but finally put a quietus to the question at 
 issue by saying, ' Well, we have far graver matters for 
 consideration than this;' and, turning to the Secretary 
 of War, simply said : 
 
 " 'Stanton, issue his commission as chaplain. Now, 
 gentlemen, let us proceed to business.' 
 
 "Mr. Chase sent for me the same afternoon to come 
 to his residence, and, after congratulating me upon 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 173 
 
 being a United States chaplain, and the first one of my 
 race to receive a commission, gave a detailed narrative 
 of the whole transaction, but pledged me to secrecy." 
 
 LINCOLN'S FAVORITE POEM* 
 
 O why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 
 Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud, 
 A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 
 He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. 
 
 The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, 
 
 Be scattered arouud, and together be laid ; 
 
 And the young and the old, and the low and the high, 
 
 Shall molder to dust, and together shall lie. 
 
 The infant a mother attended and loved ; 
 The mother that infant's affection who proved; 
 The husband that mother and infant who blest — 
 Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest 
 
 [The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye r 
 Shone beauty and pleasure— her triumphs are by ; 
 And the memory of those who loved her and praised, 
 Are alike from the minds of the living erased.] 
 
 The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne ; 
 The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn ; 
 The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, 
 Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. 
 
 The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap; 
 The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep ; 
 The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread, 
 Have faded away, like the grass that we tread. 
 
 * This poem was a special favorite of Mr. Lincoln's, and was 
 oflen quoted by him. It was written by William Knox, a young 
 Scotchman, a contemporary of Sir Walter Scott. He died in Edin- 
 burgh, in 1825, at the age of thirty -six. The two verses in brackets 
 were not repeated by Mr. Lincoln, but belong to the origiual poem. 
 
174 A BE A HA M LINCOLN. 
 
 [The saint, who enjoyed the communion of heaven ; 
 The sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven ; 
 The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just, 
 Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.] 
 
 So the multitude goes— like the flower of the weed, 
 That withers away to let others succeed ; 
 So the multitude comes — even those we behold, 
 To repeat every tale that has often been told. 
 
 For we are the same our fathers have been ; 
 We see the same sights our fathers have seen ; 
 We drink the same stream, we view the same sun, 
 And run the same course our fathers have run. 
 
 The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think; 
 From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink ; 
 To the life we are clinging, they also would cling ; 
 But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing. 
 
 They loved— but the story we can not unfold ; 
 Tkey scorned — but the heart of the haughty is cold ; 
 They grieved— but no wail from their slumber will come; 
 They joyed— but the tongue of their gladness is dumb. 
 
 They died— ay, they died— we things that are now, 
 
 That walk on the turf that lies over their brow, 
 
 And make in their dwellings a transient abode, 
 
 Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road. 
 
 Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, 
 Are mingled together in sunshine and rain ; 
 And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, 
 Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. 
 
 'T is the wink of an eye, 't is the draught of a breath, 
 From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, 
 From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud— 
 O why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 
 
LINC0LN1ANA. 175 
 
 A PRACTICAL SERMON. 
 
 On a certain occasion, two ladies from Tennessee 
 came before the President, asking the release of their 
 husbands, held as prisoners of war at Johnson's Island. 
 They were put off until the following Friday, when they 
 came again, and were again put off until Saturday. At 
 each of the interviews, one of the ladies urged that her 
 husband was a religious man. On Saturday, when the 
 President ordered the release of the prisoners, he said to 
 this lady : 
 
 "You say your husband is a religious man. Tell 
 him, when you meet him, that I say I am not much of 
 a judge of religion; but that, in my opinion, the re- 
 ligion which sets men to rebel and fight against their 
 Government, because, as they think, that Government 
 does not sufficiently help some men to eat their bread in 
 the sweat of other men's faces, is not the sort of religion 
 upon which people can get to heaven." 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S "LEG-CASES." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's unwillingness to allow any soldier to 
 be shot for cowardice, sleeping at his post, or other of- 
 fenses which, in time of war, are construed as treason- 
 able, but in which the treasonable motive is lacking, was 
 a source of great annoyance to the commanders; but it 
 was appreciated by every soldier, and endeared the 
 President the more to them. 
 
 In the earlier years of the war, all the death-penal- 
 ties of courts-martial had to be sent up to the Presi- 
 dent, as commander-in-chief, for his approval. When 
 Judge Holt, the judge-advocate-general of the army, 
 
176 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 laid the first case before the President and explained it, 
 he replied: "Well, I will keep this for a few days, 
 until I have more time to read the testimony." That 
 seemed quite reasonable. 
 
 When the judge explained the next case, Mr. Lin- 
 coln said: "I must put this by until I can settle in 
 my mind whether this soldier can better serve the coun- 
 try dead than living." 
 
 To the third, he answered : " The general com- 
 manding the brigade is to be here in a few days to con- 
 sult with Stanton and myself about military matters ; I 
 will wait until then, and talk the matter over with him." 
 
 Finally, there was a very flagrant case of a soldier 
 who threw down his gun behind a friendly stump. His 
 cowardice demoralized his regiment. When tried for 
 his cowardice, there was no defense. The court-martial, 
 in examining his antecedents, found that he had neither 
 father nor mother living, nor wife, nor child; that he 
 was unfit to wear the loyal uniform ; and that he was a 
 thief, who stole continually from his comrades. 
 
 " Here," said Judge Holt, " is a case which comes ex- 
 actly within your requirements. He does not deny his 
 guilt; he will better serve the country dead than living, 
 as he has no relation to mourn for him, and he is not 
 fit to be in the ranks of patriots, at any rate." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's refuge of excuses was all swept away. 
 Judge Holt expected, of course, that he would write 
 " approved" on the paper; but the President, running 
 his long fingers through his hair, as he used to do when 
 in anxious thought, replied : 
 
 " Well, after all, Judge, I think I must put this with 
 my leg-cases." 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 177 
 
 "Leg-cases!" said Judge Holt, with a frown at this 
 supposed levity of the President in a case of life and 
 death. "What do you mean by leg-cases, sir?" 
 
 "Why, why," replied Mr. Lincoln, "do you see 
 
 those papers crowded into those pigeon-holes? They are 
 
 the cases that you call by that long title — ' cowardice in 
 
 the face of the enemy;' but I call them, for short, my 
 
 ' leg-cases.' But I put it to you, and I leave it for you 
 
 to decide for yourself, if Almighty God gives a man a 
 
 cowardly pair of legs, how can he help their running 
 
 away with him?" 
 
 *&. 
 
 AN INDIFFERENT PRESIDENT. 
 
 When General Phelps took possession of Ship Isl- 
 and, near New Orleans, early in the war, it will be re- 
 membered that he issued a proclamation, somewhat 
 bombastic in tone, freeing the slaves. To the surprise 
 of many people on both sides, the President took no 
 official notice of this movement. Some time had elapsed, 
 when one day a friend took him to task for his seeming 
 indifference on so important a matter. 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Lincoln, " I feel about that a good 
 deal as a man whom I will call ' Jones,' whom I once 
 knew, did about his wife. He was one of your meek 
 men, and had the reputation of being badly henpecked. 
 At last, one day, his wife was seen switching him out of 
 the house. A day or two afterward, a, friend met him 
 in the street, and said : 'Jones, I have always stood up 
 for you, as you know; but I am not going to do it any 
 longer. Any man who will stand quietly and take a 
 switching from his wife, deserves to be horsewhipped. 
 Jones looked up with a wink, patting his friend on the 
 
 12 
 
178 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 back. 'Now, do n't,' said he; 'why, it didn't hurt me 
 auy ; and you 've no idea what a power of good it did 
 Sarah Ann !' " 
 
 .^O 
 
 LINCOLN AND THE BABY. 
 
 "Old Daniel," one of the White House ushers, 
 told the following story : 
 
 A poor woman from Philadelphia had been waiting, 
 with a baby in her arms, for several days to see the 
 President. She said that her husband had furnished a 
 substitute for the army, but some time afterward, in a 
 state of intoxication, he was induced to enlist. Upon 
 reaching the post assigned his regiment, he deserted, 
 thinking the Government was not entitled to his services. 
 Returning home, he was arrested, tried, convicted, and 
 sentenced to be shot. The sentence was to be ex- 
 ecuted on Saturday. On Monday his wife left her home 
 with her baby, to endeavor to see the President. 
 
 Said Daniel: "She had been waiting three days, and 
 there was no chance for her to get in. Late in the 
 afternoon of the third day, the President was going 
 through the passage to his private room to get a cup of 
 tea. On the way he heard the baby cry. He instantly 
 went back to his office and rang the bell. 
 
 "Daniel," said he, "is there a woman with a baby 
 in the anteroom?" 
 
 Daniel said there was, and it was a case he ought to 
 see; for it was a matter of life and death. 
 
 " Send her to me at once," said the President. 
 
 She went in, told her story, and the President par- 
 doned her husband. 
 
 As the woman came out from his presence, her eyes 
 
LIXCOLNIA NA. 179 
 
 were lifted and her lips moving in prayer, the tears 
 streaming down her cheeks. 
 
 Daniel went up to her, and, pulling her shawl, said: 
 
 "Madam, it was the baby that did it " 
 
 PAYING HIS VOW. 
 
 The following incident is related by Mr. Carpenter, 
 the artist : 
 
 "Mr. Chase," says Mr. Carpenter, ** told me that at 
 the Cabinet meeting immediately after the battle of An- 
 tietam, and just prior to the issue of the September 
 proclamation, the President entered upon the business 
 before them by saying that the time for the aunuucia- 
 tion of the emancipation policy could be no longer de- 
 layed. Public sentiment would sustain it — many of his 
 warmest friends and supporters demanded it — and he 
 had promised his God he would do it. The last part of 
 this was uttered in a low tone, and appeared to be heard 
 by no one but Secretary Chase, who was sitting near 
 him. He asked the President if he correctly understood 
 him. Mr. Lincoln replied: 'I made a solemn vow before 
 God that if General Lee was driven back from Pennsyl- 
 vania, I would crown the result by the declaration of free- 
 dom to the slaves.' 
 
 " In February, 1865, a few days after the Constitu- 
 tional Amendment, I went to Washington, and was re- 
 ceived by Mr. Lincoln with the kindness and familiarity 
 which had characterized our previous intercourse. I 
 said to him at this time that I was very proud to have 
 been the artist to have first conceived the design of 
 painting a picture commemorative of the Act of Eman- 
 
180 A BE A HA M LINCOLN. 
 
 cipation ; that subsequent occurrences had only con- 
 firmed my own first judgment of that act as the most 
 sublime moral event in our history. 'Yes,' said he — and 
 never do I remember to have noticed in him more ear- 
 nestness of expression or manner — ' as affairs have turned, 
 it is the central act of my Administration, and ilie great event 
 of the nineteenth century.'" 
 
 HOW LINCOLN RELIEVED ROSECRANS. 
 
 General James B. Steedman, familiarly known 
 as " Old Chickamauga," relates that some weeks after 
 the disastrous battle of Chickamauga, while yet Chat- 
 tanooga was in a state of siege, General Steedman was 
 surprised one day to receive a telegram from Abraham 
 Lincoln to come to Washington. Seeking out Thomas, 
 he laid the telegram before him, and .was instructed to 
 set out at once. Kepairing to the White House, he was 
 warmly received by Mr. Lincolu. Mr. Lincoln's first 
 question was abrupt and to the point : 
 
 "General Steedman, what is your opinion of Gen- 
 eral Kosecrans?" 
 
 General Steedman, hesitating a moment, said: " Mr. 
 President, I would rather not express my opinion of 
 my superior officer." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln said: "It is the man who does not 
 want to express an opinion whose opinion I want. I 
 am besieged on all sides with advice. Every day I get 
 letters from army officers asking me to allow them to 
 come to Washington to impart some valuable knowl- 
 edge in their possession." 
 
 "Well, Mr. President," said General Steedman, 
 
LIXCOLXIAXA. 181 
 
 "you are the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and if 
 you order me to speak, I will do so." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln said: "Then I will order an opinion." 
 
 General Steedman then answered: "Since you conv 
 mand me, Mr. President, I will say General Rosecrans 
 is a splendid man to command a victorious army.' ; 
 
 "But what kind of a man is he to command a de- 
 feated army ?" said Mr. Liucolu. 
 
 General Steedman in reply said, cautiously: "I 
 think there are two or three men in that army who 
 would be better." 
 
 Then, with his quaint humor, Mr. Lincoln pro- 
 pounded this question: "Who, besides yourself, Gen- 
 eral Steedman, is there in that army who would make 
 a better commander?" 
 
 General Steedman said promptly : "General George 
 H. Thomas." 
 
 "I am glad to hear you say so," said Mr. Lincoln ; 
 " that is my own opinion exactly. But Mr. Stanton is 
 against him, and it was only yesterday that a powerful 
 New York delegation was here to protest against his ap- 
 pointment because he is from a Rebel State and can not 
 be trusted." 
 
 Said General Steedman: "A man who will leave 
 his own State [Thomas was a Virginian], his friends, 
 all his associations, to follow the flag of his country, 
 can be trusted in any position to which he may be 
 called." 
 
 That night the order went forth from Washington 
 relieving General Rosecrans of the command of the 
 Army of the Cumberland and appointing Thomas in 
 his place. 
 
182 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 SIGNING THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 
 
 The roll containing the Emancipation Proclamation 
 was taken to Mr. Lincoln at noon on the first day of 
 January, 1863, by Secretary Seward and his son Fred- 
 erick. As it lay open before him, Mr. Lincoln took 
 a pen, dipped it in ink, moved his hand to the place 
 for the signature, held it a moment, then removed his 
 hand and dropped the pen. After a little hesitation he 
 again took up the pen, and went through the same 
 movement as before. Mr. Lincoln then turned to Mr. 
 Seward, and said : 
 
 "I have been shaking hands since nine o'clock this 
 morning, and my right arm is almost paralyzed. If my 
 name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and 
 my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles when I 
 sign the Proclamation, all who examine the document 
 hereafter will say, 'He hesitated.'" 
 
 He then turned to the table, took up the pen again, 
 and slowly, firmly wrote "Abraham Lincoln," with which 
 signature the whole world is now familiar. He then 
 looked up, smiled, and said: " That will do." 
 
 LINCOLN AND STANTON. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln and Edwin M. Stanton first met in 
 the summer of 1857. Mr. Lincoln represented a man 
 named Manny, of Chicago, who had been sued by Mr. 
 McCormick, the inventor of the reaping machine, for in- 
 fringement of patent. The case w r as tried before Judge 
 McLean in the United States Court at Cincinnati. 
 Without Lincoln's knowledge, his client called George 
 Harding, of Philadelphia, and Edwin M. Stanton, of 
 
LINCOLXIA XA. 
 
 183 
 
 the Cincinnati bar, though living at Pittsburg, into the 
 case, assigning as the reason that the connection of 
 Reverdy Johnson with the other side required men of 
 Harding's and Stanton's knowledge and experience to 
 cope with him. Stanton treated Lincoln with great 
 rudeness. Lincoln overheard him ask, "Where did 
 that long-armed creature come from, and what can he 
 do in this case?" aud then proceed to describe him as 
 a " long, lank creature from Illinois, weariug a dirty 
 linen duster for a coat, on the back of which the per- 
 spiration had splotched wide stains that resembled a 
 map of the continent." Before the final argument be- 
 gan, one of the counsel moved that only two of the 
 counsel speak, which was decided upon. It had been 
 settled that Harding was to explain the mechanism of 
 the machines. The motion therefore excluded Lincoln 
 or Stanton. The custom of the bar would have de- 
 cided the matter in Lincoln's favor without any further 
 action. Stanton suggested to Lincoln that he make 
 the speech. He answered: "No; you speak." Stan- 
 ton promptly replied, " I will," aud started off" to make 
 preparation. Lincoln felt deeply humiliated by this 
 slight, but it did not prevent his calling to the most 
 important position in his cabinet the man who had thus 
 ignored and insulted him. 
 
 Both men came to think more highly of each other 
 in after years. When, a few days before the Presi- 
 dent's assassination, Stanton tendered his resignation as 
 Secretary of War, Lincoln tore the paper in pieces, 
 threw his arms around the Secretary, and said: "Stan- 
 ton, you have been a good friend and faithful public 
 servant, and it is not for you to say when you will no 
 
184 A BE A HA M LINCOLN. 
 
 longer be needed here." Mr. Carpenter says the scene 
 •was so affecting that it brought tears to the eyes of 
 those who chanced to witness it. 
 
 When Lincoln fell, Stanton was almost heart-broken, 
 and, as he knelt by his side, was heard to say to himself: 
 "Am I indeed left alone? None may now ever know 
 or tell what we have suffered together in the Nation's 
 darkest hours." When the surgeon-general said to him 
 that there was no hope, he could not believe it, and 
 passionately exclaimed: "No, no, General, no, no!" 
 
 ON JEFFERSON DAVIS'S RECOMMENDATION. 
 
 An interesting ancedote of President Lincoln is told 
 by Mr. C. Eaton Creecy, a well-known lawyer of Wash- 
 ington City, who was chief of the appointment divis- 
 ion of the Treasury Department during the adminis- 
 tration of President Johnson. 
 
 Mr. Creecy, who was born in the city of Vicks- 
 burg, Mississippi, held the position of messenger to the 
 Secretary of the Treasury just prior to the close of the 
 Buchanan Administration. Being of an ambitious turn 
 of mind, he made application to President Buchanan to 
 be appointed from Mississippi as cadet-at-large to the 
 Military Academy at West Point. 
 
 His mother, who was an energetic little Southern 
 woman, entered heartily into her son's ambition, and 
 obtained the recommendation of the Hon. Otho R. 
 Singleton, Hon. L. Q. C. Lamar, and other friends of her 
 deceased husband, in favor of her sons appointment. 
 These papers were filed; but one very strong letter from 
 Senator Jefferson Davis was not, because it was re- 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 185 
 
 ceived just prior to the secession of Mississippi, and Mrs. 
 Creecy did not press her son's application. 
 
 In the fall of 1861, when the war was in full blast 
 and a number of vacancies existed in the Military Acad- 
 emy from the State of Mississippi, Mrs Creecy de- 
 termined to introduce herself to President Lincoln and 
 ask him to appoint her son. She was received very 
 politely by the President, who listened kindly and at- 
 tentively to her. When she had concluded, he said : 
 
 " Madam, you have the appearance and bearing of 
 a lady ; but what evidence have I that you are not an 
 impostor? I have so many of that class of people call- 
 ing upon me every day that I am compelled to be very 
 careful ; and while I do not wish you to infer that I 
 doubt you, yet I must have some evidence that you are 
 from Mississippi, and that your family is of stauding 
 and respectability, before I can consider the application 
 you have made for your son's appointment." 
 
 The little lady was wholly disconcerted by this un- 
 expected turn of affairs. She little dreamed that any 
 one would question her truthfulness or her respectability. 
 So she left the Presidential presence very much dis- 
 turbed, remarking that she did not see how she would 
 be able to go to Mississippi through the army lines to 
 get the evidence that Mr. Liucoln required. 
 
 A happy thought occurred to her during the evening, 
 and she resurrected the recommendation of United States 
 Senator Jefferson Davis, and triumphantly carried it up 
 to President Lincoln next day. He received her with 
 a smile, and said : 
 
 "I know by your countenance, madam, that you 
 have brought the necessary evidence." 
 
186 ABRAHAM LIXCOLX. 
 
 "Yes, Mr. President," she said, "I have brought 
 you a letter from an old friend of my husband, which 
 I think will satisfy you," and she handed him Jeffersou 
 Davis's letter. 
 
 For a few seconds the President seemed unable to 
 state what his opinion was upon the recommendation, 
 but he finally said to her : 
 
 "Madam, the evidence that you have submitted to 
 me is entirely satisfactory, and I will appoint your son, 
 but on one condition, however, and that is that it is not 
 to be known to any one but you and me that I did so 
 upon the recommendation of Jefferson Davis." 
 
 The appointment was ordered, but circumstances oc- 
 curred soon thereafter which prevented Mr. Creecy from 
 accepting it. 
 
 c*, 
 
 MR. LINCOLN AND THE DRUMMER-BOY. 
 
 Among a large number of persons waiting in the 
 room to speak with Mr. Lincoln, on a certain day in 
 November, 18G4, was a small, pale, delicate-looking boy 
 about thirteen years old. The President saw him stand- 
 ing, looking feeble and faint, and said: "Come here, 
 my boy, and tell me what you want." The boy ad- 
 vanced, placed his hand on the arm of the President's 
 chair, and with bowed head and timid accents said : 
 
 "Mr. President, I have been a drummer in a regi- 
 ment for two years, and my colonel got angry with me 
 and turned me off. I was taken sick, and have been a 
 long time in hospital. This is the first time I have been 
 out, and I came to see if you could not do something 
 for me." 
 
 The President looked at him kindly and tenderly, 
 
LIXCOLNIAXA. 187 
 
 and asked him where he lived. "I have no home," 
 answered the boy. "Where is your father?" "He 
 died in the army," was the reply. " Where is your 
 mother?" continued the President. "My mother is 
 dead, too. I have no mother, no father, no brothers, no 
 sisters, and," bursting into tears, "no friends — nobody 
 cares for me." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's eves filled with tears, and he said to 
 him: "Can't you sell newspapers?" "No," said the 
 boy, "I am too weak; aud the surgeon of the hospital 
 told me I must leave, and I have no money, and no 
 place to go to." 
 
 "The scene," says Rev. Mr. Henderson, "was won- 
 derfully affecting." The President drew forth a card, 
 and addressing on it certain officials to whom his request 
 was law, gave special directions "to care for this poor 
 boy." The wan face of the little drummer lit up with 
 a happy smile as he received the paper, and he went 
 away convinced that he had one good and true friend, 
 at least, in the person of the President. 
 
 THE NUMBER OF REBELS. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln sometimes had a very effective way of 
 dealing with men who troubled him with questions. A 
 visitor once asked him how many men the rebels had in 
 the field. 
 
 The President replied, very seriously: "Twelve 
 hundred thousand, according to the best authority." 
 
 The interrogator blanched in the face and ejaculated : 
 •' Good heavens !" 
 
 "Yes, sir, twelve hundred thousand — no doubt of it. 
 
188 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 You see, all of our generals, when they get whipped, 
 say the enemy outnumbers them from three or five to 
 one, and I must believe them. We have four hundred 
 thousand men in the field, and three times four make 
 twelve. Do n't you see it !" 
 
 °4>° 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S COLORED TROOPS. 
 
 Honorable Frederick Douglass gives in the 
 Northwestern Christian Advocate, Chicago, the following 
 account of an interview with Mr. Lincoln : 
 
 "I saw and conversed with this great man for the 
 first time in the darkest hours of the military situation 
 when the armies of the Rebellion seemed more confident, 
 defiant, and aggressive than ever. I had never before 
 had an interview with a President of the United States, 
 and though I felt I had something important to say, 
 considering his exalted position and my lowly origin and 
 the people whose cause I came to plead, I approached 
 him with much trepidation as to how this great man 
 might receive me ; but one word and look from him 
 banished all my fears, and set me perfectly at ease. I 
 have often said since that meeting it was much easier 
 to see and converse with a great man than a small man. 
 
 "On that occasion he said: 
 
 " 'Douglass, you need not tell me who you are; Mr. 
 Seward has told me all about you.' 
 
 <l I then saw that there was no reason to tell him my 
 personal story, however interesting it might be to myself 
 or others, so I told him at once the object of my visit. 
 It was to get some expression from him on three points: 
 1. Equal pay to colored soldiers. 2. Their promotion 
 when they had earned it on the battle-field. 3. Should 
 
LIXC0LX1ANA. 189 
 
 they be taken prisoners and enslaved or hanged, as 
 Jefferson Davis had threatened, an equal number of 
 Confederate prisoners should be executed within our 
 lines. A declaration to this effect I thought would pre- 
 vent the execution of the rebel threat. 
 
 "To all but the last President Lincoln assented. 
 He argued, however, that neither equal pay nor promo- 
 tions could be granted at once. He said that in view 
 of existing prejudices it was a great step forward to 
 employ colored troops at all ; that it was necessary to 
 avoid everything that would offend this prejudice and 
 increase opposition to the measure. He detailed the 
 steps by which white soldiers were reconciled to the em- 
 ployment of colored troops ; how these were first em- 
 ployed as laborers ; how it was thought they should not 
 be armed or uniformed like white soldiers ; how they 
 should only be made to wear a peculiar uniform ; how 
 they should be employed to hold forts and arsenals 
 in sickly locations, and not enter the field like other 
 soldiers. With all these restrictions and limitations he 
 easily made me see that much would be gained when 
 the colored man loomed before the country as a full- 
 fledged United States soldier to fight, flourish, or fall in 
 defense of a united Republic. The great soul of Lin- 
 coln halted only when he came to the point of retalia- 
 tion. The thought of hanging men in cold blood, even 
 though the rebels should murder a few of the colored 
 prisoners, was a horror from which he shrank. 
 
 " * O, Douglass ! I can not do that. If I could get 
 hold of the actual murderers of colored prisoners, I 
 would retaliate ; but to hang those who had no hand in 
 such murders, I can not.' 
 
190 ABE ARAM LINCOLN. 
 
 "The contemplation of such an act brought to hia 
 countenance such an expression of sadness and pity that 
 made it hard for me to press my point, though I told 
 him it would tend to save rather than destroy life. He, 
 however, insisted that this work of blood once begun 
 would be hard to stop ; that such violence would beget 
 violence. He argued more like a disciple of Christ than 
 a commander-in-chief of the army and navy of a war- 
 like nation already involved in a terrible war." 
 
 DID NOT "STRIKE ILE." 
 
 To Bishop Simpson, after a lecture on "American 
 
 Progress," in which he did not speak of petroleum, Mr. 
 
 Lincoln said, as he came out: "Bishop, you did not 
 
 'strike ile.' " 
 
 .*. 
 
 SEWARD AND CHASE. 
 
 The antagonism between the conservatives, repre- 
 sented in the Cabinet by Seward, and the radicals, rep- 
 resented by Chase, was a source of much embarrassment 
 to Mr. Lincoln. Finally, the radicals appointed a com- 
 mittee to demand the dismissal of Seward. Before the 
 committee arrived, Mr. Seward, in order to relieve the 
 President of embarrassment, tendered his resignation. 
 In the course of the discussion with the committee Mr. 
 Lincoln so managed affairs that Mr. Chase found his 
 position so embarrassing and equivocal that he thought 
 it wise to tender his resignation the next day. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln refused to accept either, stating that 
 "the public interest does not admit of it." 
 
 When it was all over he said : " Now I can ride; I 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 191 
 
 have got a pumpkin in each end of my bag." Later on 
 he said: "I do not see how it could have been done 
 better. I am sure it was right. If I had yielded to 
 that storm, and dismissed Seward, the thing would have 
 slumped over one way, and we should have been left 
 with a scanty handful of supporters." 
 
 OLD FRIENDS AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 
 
 It was during the dark days of 1863, on the evening 
 of a public reception given at the White House. The 
 foreign legations were there, gathered about the Presi- 
 dent. A young English nobleman was just being pre- 
 sented to the President. Inside the door, evidently 
 overawed by the splendid assemblage, was an honest- 
 faced old farmer, who shrank from the passing crowd 
 until he and the plain-faced old lady clinging to his arm 
 were pressed back to the wall. 
 
 The President, tall, and, in a measure, stately in his 
 personal presence, looking over the heads of the as- 
 sembly, said to the English nobleman : " Excuse me, 
 my lord, there's an old friend of mine." 
 
 Passing backward to the door, Mr. Lincoln said, as 
 he grasped the old farmer's hand: " Why, John, I'm 
 glad to see you. I have n't seen you since you and I 
 
 made rails for old Mrs. , in Sangamon County, in 
 
 1837. How are you ?" 
 
 The old man turned to his wife with quivering lip, 
 and, without replying to the President's salutation, said : 
 " Mother, he's just the same old Abe." 
 
 " Mr. Lincoln," he said finally, " you know we had 
 three boys ; they all enlisted in the same company ; 
 
192 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 John was killed in the ' Seven-days' fight ;' Sam was 
 taken prisoner and starved to death ; and Henry is in 
 the hospital. We had a little money, an' I said : 
 ' Mother, we '11 go to Washington an' see him.' An' 
 while we were here, I said, we '11 go up and see the 
 President." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's eyes grew dim, and across his rugged, 
 homely, tender face swept the wave of sadness his 
 friends had learned to know, and he said: ''John, we 
 all hope this miserable war will soon be over. I must 
 see all these folks here for an hour or so, and I want to 
 talk with you." 
 
 The old lady and her husband were hustled into a 
 private room in spite of their protests. 
 
 THE JUDGE'S COACHMAN. 
 
 Attorney-General Bates was once remonstrating 
 with the President against the appointment to a judi- 
 cial position of considerable importance of a Western 
 man, who, though on the " bench," was of indifferent 
 reputation as a lawyer. 
 
 " Well, now, Judge," returned Mr. Lincoln, " I 
 
 think you are rather too hard on . Besides that, 
 
 I must tell you, he did me a good turn long ago. When 
 I took to the law, I was walking to court one morning, 
 with some ten or twelve miles of bad road before me, 
 when overtook me in his wagon. 
 
 "'Hello, Lincoln!' said he; 'going to the court- 
 house ? Come in, and I will give you a seat.' 
 
 " Well, I got in, and went on reading his 
 
 papers. Presently the wagon struck a stump on one 
 
LIXCOLXIANA. 193 
 
 side of the road ; then it hopped off to the other. I 
 looked out and saw the driver was jerking from side to 
 side in his seat ; so said I, ' Judge, I think your coach- 
 man has been taking a drop too much this morning.' 
 
 " ■ Well, I declare, Liucoln,' said he, ■ I should not 
 much wonder if you are right, for he has nearly upset 
 me half a dozen times since starting.' So, putting his 
 head out of the window, he shouted : ' Why, you in- 
 fernal scoundrel, you are drunk !' 
 
 " Upon which, pulling up his horses, and turning 
 round with great gravity, the coachman said : ' Be dad ! 
 but that's the first rightful decision your honor has 
 given for the last twelve months V " 
 
 BISHOP SIMPSON AND LINCOLN. 
 
 " One day, in the darkest time of the war," said 
 Bishop Simpson to Chaplain C. C. McCabe, " I called 
 to see Mr. Lincoln. We talked long and earnestly 
 about the situation. When I rose to go, Mr. Lincoln 
 stepped to the door, and turned the key, and said : 
 ' Bishop, I feel the need of prayer as never before. 
 Please pray for me.' And so we knelt down in that 
 room together, and all through the prayer the President 
 responded most fervently." 
 
 CUTTING RED TAPE. 
 
 " Upon entering the President's office one after- 
 noon," says a Washington correspondent, " I found Mr. 
 Lincoln busily counting greenbacks. 
 
 " 'This, sir,' said he, ' is something out of my usual 
 13 
 
194 ABE A H AM LINCOLN. 
 
 line ; but a President of the United States lias a multi- 
 plicity of duties not specified in the Constitution or acts 
 of Congress. This is one of them. This money belongs 
 to a poor Negro who is a porter in the Treasury De- 
 partment, at present very bad with the smallpox. He 
 is now in hospital, and could not draw his pay because 
 he could not sign his name. I have been at considerable 
 trouble to overcome the difficulty and get it for him, 
 and have at length succeeded in cutting red tape, as you 
 newspaper men say. I am now dividing the money, 
 and putting by a portion labeled, in an envelope, with 
 my own hands, according to his wish ;' and he pro- 
 ceeded to indorse the package very carefully." 
 
 A POINTED ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 At the "White House one day some gentlemen were 
 present from the West, excited and troubled about the 
 commissions or omissions of the Administration. The 
 President heard them patiently, and then replied : 
 " Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were worth 
 was in gold, and you had put it in the hands of Blondin 
 to carry across the Niagara River on a rope, would you 
 shake the cable, or keep shouting out to him, ' Blondin, 
 stand up a little straighter ! —Blondin, stoop a little more !— 
 go a little faster! — lean a little more to the north ! — lean 
 a little more to the south V No ! you would hold your 
 breath as well as your tongue, and keep your hands off 
 until he was safe over. The Government is carrying an 
 immense weight. Untold treasures are in their hands. 
 They are doing the very best they can. Do n't badger 
 them. Keep silence, and we '11 get you safe across." 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 195 
 
 TAD" AND HIS FRIEND. 
 
 Tad Lincoln won the good- will of everybody by 
 his ready sympathy with all classes and conditions of 
 people. He once noticed a wounded soldier hanging 
 about the gates of the Executive mansion, hoping to see 
 the President, to whom access was denied, it having 
 been given out that no soldiers were to be discharged on 
 auy account. This veteran believed that he would not 
 recover, and was anxious to see his family before he 
 died. Tad saw him, and, on learning what was the 
 matter, led him into the Executive mansion. They were 
 stopped by a sentinel at the door of the President's 
 office, but Tad shouted in his loudest boyish voice : 
 " Father, let me and my friend in !" Mr. Lincoln 
 never could deny Tad anything, even when he was most 
 busy, and the boy entered the room leading the cripnled 
 and sick soldier, for whom Mr. Lincoln immediately 
 wrote out an honorable discharge. 
 
 FRYING THE GREENS. 
 
 A deputation of bankers were one day introduced 
 to the President by the Secretary of the Treasury. One 
 of the party, Mr. P , of Chelsea, Mass., took occa- 
 sion to refer to the severity of the tax laid by Congress 
 upon the State banks. 
 
 "Now," said Mr. Lincoln, "that reminds me of a 
 circumstance that took place in a neighborhood where I 
 lived when I was a boy. In the spring of the year the 
 farmers were very fond of the dish which they called 
 greens, though the fashionable name for it nowadays is 
 spinach, I believe. One day after dinner a large family 
 
196 ABRAHA M LINCOLN. 
 
 were taken very ill. The doctor was called in, who at- 
 tributed it to the greens, of which all had freely par- 
 taken. Living in the family was a half-witted boy 
 named Jake. On a subsequent occasion, when greens 
 had been gathered for dinner, the head of the house 
 said: ' Now, boys, before running any further risk in 
 this thing, we will first try them on Jake. If he stands 
 it, we are all right.' And just so, I suppose," said Mr. 
 Lincolu, " Congress thought it would try this tax on 
 the State banks." 
 
 MR. LINCOLN AND THE GOVERNMENT PRINTER. 
 
 Mr. Defrees, the Government printer, states that 
 when one of the President's Messages was being printed, 
 he was a good deal disturbed by the use of the term 
 " sugar-coated," and went to Mr. Lincoln about it. He 
 told the President frankly that he ought to remember 
 that a message to Congress was a different affair from 
 a speech at a mass-meeting in Illinois ; that it became a 
 part of history, and should be written accordingly. 
 
 "What is the matter now?" inquired the President. 
 
 "Why," said Mr, Defrees, "you have used an un- 
 dignified expression in the message;" and, then, reading 
 the paragraph aloud, he added, "I would alter the 
 structure of that, if I were you." 
 
 "Defrees," replied Mr. Lincoln, "that word ex- 
 presses precisely my idea, and I am not going to change 
 it. The time will never come in this country when the 
 people won't know exactly what sugar-coated means." 
 
 On another occasion Mr. Defrees called the Presi- 
 dent's attention to an awkward sentence in the proof- 
 copy of a message. Lincoln acknowledged the force ot 
 
LIKCOLNIANA. 197 
 
 the objection, and said : ''Go home, Defrees, and see if 
 you can better it." 
 
 The next day Mr. Defrees took to him his amend- 
 ment. Mr. Lincoln met him by saying : "Seward found 
 the same fault that you did, and he has been rewriting 
 the paragraph, also." Then, reading Mr. Defrees's ver- 
 sion, he said: "I believe you have beaten Seward; but 
 'by jings,' I think I can beat you both." 
 
 Then, takiug up his pen, he wrote the sentence as it 
 
 was finally printed. 
 
 „$, 
 
 LINCOLN'S ADVICE TO LORD LYONS. 
 
 Upon the betrothal of the Prince of Wales to the 
 Princess Alexandra, Queen Victoria sent a letter to 
 President Lincoln, announcing the fact. Lord Lyons, 
 her ambassador at Washington, who was a bachelor, re- 
 quested an audience of Mr. Lincoln, that he might pre- 
 sent this important document in person. At the time 
 appointed, he was received at the White House, in com- 
 pany with Mr. Seward. 
 
 " May it please Your Excellency," said Lord Lyons, 
 "I hold in my hand an autograph letter from my royal 
 mistress, Queen Victoria, which I have been commanded 
 to present to Your Excellency. In it she informs Your 
 Excellency that her sou, His Royal Highness, the Prince 
 of Wales, is about to contract a matrimonial alliance 
 with Her Royal Highness the Princess Alexandra, of 
 Denmark." 
 
 After continuing in this strain for a few minutes, 
 Lord Lyons tendered the letter to the President, and 
 awaited his reply. It consisted simply of the words: 
 
 " Lord Lyons, go thou and do likeivise." 
 
198 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 It is not known how the English ambassador suc- 
 ceeded in putting the reply in diplomatic language 
 when he reported it to Her Majesty. 
 
 WITHOUT A GREAT POLICY. 
 
 Senator John M. Palmer, of Illinois, relates the 
 following: 
 
 " I called on Mr. Lincoln at nine o'clock. I sat in 
 the anteroom a long time, while Buckingham, of Con- 
 necticut, walked in and out of Lincoln's room several 
 times. At last Buckingham left, and I went in. I 
 found Lincoln with a towel around his neck, getting 
 ready to shave. 
 
 " ' Got to get shaved some time, Palmer,' he said. 
 1 1 could n't shave while Buckingham was here ; but you 
 are home-folks, and it doesn't matter with home-folks. , 
 
 " We chatted till the barber reached his mouth, when 
 he couldn't talk without running the risk of getting cut. 
 There was a pause. During it I thought of the great 
 war that was going on, and of the man near me con- 
 ducting it. 
 
 " 'Mr. Lincoln,' I said, 'if I had known there was 
 going to be so great a rebellion, I should never have 
 thought of going to a one-horse town for a one-horse 
 lawyer for President.' 
 
 "Lincoln stretched forth his arms, pushed the bar- 
 ber aside, and abruptly wheeled around to me. I 
 thought he was angry because of what I had said. But 
 he replied : 
 
 " * Nor I either. Its lucky for this country no man 
 was chosen who had a great policy, and would have 
 
LTXCOLNIANA. 
 
 199 
 
 stuck to it. If such a man had been chosen, this re- 
 bellion would never have reached a successful conclu- 
 sion. I have had no great policy ; but I have tried to 
 do my duty every day, hoping that the morrow would 
 find that I had done right.'" 
 
 LINCOLN'S SECOND NOMINATION. 
 
 The dispatch announcing Lincoln's renomination for 
 President had been sent to his office from the War De- 
 partment while he was at lunch. Afterward, without 
 going back to the official chamber, he proceeded to the 
 War Department. While there, the telegram came in 
 announcing the nomination of Johnson. 
 
 "What!" said he to the operator, "do they nomi- 
 nate a Vice-President before they do a President ?" 
 
 "Why!" rejoined the astonished official, ''have you 
 not heard of your own nomination? It was sent to the 
 White House two hours ago." 
 
 "It is all right," was the reply; "I shall probably 
 
 find it on my return." 
 
 ,4,° 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S REMEDY FOR BALDNESS. 
 In 1864 Mr. Lincoln was greatly bothered by the 
 well-meant but ill-advised efforts of certain good North- 
 ern men to bring about a termination of the war. An 
 old gentleman from Massachusetts, very bland and en- 
 tirely bald, was especially persistent and troublesome. 
 Again and again he appeared before the President, and 
 was got rid of by one and another ingenious expedient. 
 One day, when this angel of mercy had been boring 
 Mr. Lincoln for half an hour, to the interruption of 
 
200 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 important business, the President suddenly arose, went 
 to a closet, and took out of it a large bottle. " Did you 
 ever try this remedy for baldness?" he asked, holding 
 up the bottle before his astonished visitor. No; the 
 man was obliged to confess that he never had tried it. 
 Mr. Lincoln called a servant, had the bottle wrapped 
 up, and handed it to the bald philanthropist. 
 
 " There," said he, " go and rub some of that on your 
 head. Persevere. They say it will make your hair 
 grow. Come back in about three months and report." 
 And almost before he knew it the good man was out- 
 side of the door, with the package under his arm. 
 
 WITHOUT INFLUENCE. 
 
 To A poor won}an who desired his signature to a 
 paper, Lincoln said: "My name will do you no more 
 good than pigs' tracks in the mud." 
 
 "TAD" AND HIS FATHER. 
 
 "The day after the review of Burnside's division, 
 some photographers," says Mr. Carpenter, "came up to 
 the White House to make some stereoscopic studies for 
 me of the President's office. They requested a dark 
 closet in which to develop the pictures ; and, without a 
 thought that I was infringing upon anybody's rights, I 
 took them to au unoccupied room of which little Tad 
 had taken possession a few days before, and, with the 
 aid of a couple of the servants, had fitted up as a min- 
 iature theater, with stage, curtains, orchestra, stalls, par- 
 quet, and all. Knowing that the use required would 
 
LINC0LK1ANA. 201 
 
 interfere with none of his arrangements, I iea the way 
 to this apartment. 
 
 "Everything went on well, and one or two pictures 
 had been taken, when suddenly there was an uproar. 
 The operator came back to the office, and said that 
 Tad had taken great offense at the occupation of his 
 room without his consent, and had locked the door, re- 
 fusing all admission. The chemicals had been taken 
 inside, and there was no way of getting at them, he 
 having carried off the key. In the midst of this con- 
 versation, Tad burst in, in a fearful passion. He laid 
 all the blame upon me ; said that I had no right to use 
 his room, and the men should not go in, even to get 
 their things. He had locked the door, and they should 
 not go there again — 'they had no business in his 
 room !' 
 
 "Mr. Lincoln was sitting for a photograph, and was 
 still in the chair. He said, very mildly : ' Tad, go and 
 unlock the door.' Tad went off muttering into his 
 mother's room, refusing to obey. I followed him into 
 the passage; but no coaxing would pacify him. Upon 
 my return to the President, I found him still sitting pa- 
 tiently in the chair, from which he had not risen. He 
 said: 'Has not the boy opened the door?' I replied 
 that we could do nothing with him ; he had gone off in 
 a great pet. Mr. Lincoln's lips came together firmly, 
 and then, suddenly rising, he strode across the passage 
 with the air of one bent on puuishment, and disappeared 
 in the domestic apartments. Directly he returned with 
 the key to the theater, which he unlocked himself. 
 ' There,' said he, 'go ahead; it is all right now.' He 
 then went back to his office, followed by myself, and 
 
202 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 resumed his seat. 'Tad/ said he, half-apologetically, 
 4 is a peculiar child. He was violently excited when I 
 went to him. I said: "Tad, do you know you are 
 making your father a great deal of trouble ?" He burst 
 into tears, instantly giving me up the key.'" 
 
 LINCOLN'S OPINION OF GRANT. 
 
 In a letter to a friend, in March, 1864, Lincoln 
 wrote: "I hardly know what to think of him [Grant] 
 altogether. He is the quietest little fellow you ever 
 knew. Why, he makes the least fuss of any man you 
 ever knew. I believe two or three times he has been 
 in this room a minute or so before I knew he was here. 
 It 's about so all around. The only evidence you have 
 that he 's in any place is that he makes things git. 
 Wherever he is, things move. Grant is the first gen- 
 eral I 've had. He 's a general. I '11 tell you what I 
 mean. You know how it 's been with all the rest. As 
 soon as I put a man in command of the army, he 'd 
 come to me with a plan of campaign, and about as much 
 as say, ' Now, I do n't believe I can do it ; but, if you 
 say so, I '11 try it on,' and so put the responsibility of 
 success or failure on me. They all wanted me to be 
 general. Now, it isn't so with Grant. He hasn't told 
 me what his plans are. I do n't know, and I do n't want 
 to know. I am glad to find a man who can go ahead 
 without me. You see, when auy of the rest set out on 
 a campaign, they 'd look over matters, and pick out 
 some one thing they were short of, and they knew I 
 couldn't give 'em, and tell me they couldn't hope to 
 win unless they had it ; and it was most generally the 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 203 
 
 cavalry. Now, when Grant took hold, I was waiting to 
 see what his pet impossibility would be ; and I reckoned 
 it would be cavalry, as a matter of course, for we had n't 
 horses enough to mount what men we had. There were 
 fifteen thousand or thereabouts up near Harper's Ferry, 
 and no horses to put them on. Well, the other day, 
 Grant sends to me about those very men, just as I ex- 
 pected ; but what he wanted to know was whether he 
 should make infantry of them, or discharge them. He 
 does n't ask impossibilities of me ; and he 's the first 
 general I 've had who did n't." 
 
 THE "PEACE CONFERENCE." 
 
 At the "Peace Conference," held on the steamer 
 River Queen, in Hampton Roads, February 3, 1865, be- 
 tween the President and Mr. Seward, representing the 
 Government, and Messrs. Alexander H. Stephens, J. A. 
 Campbell, and R. M. T. Hunter, representing the Con- 
 federacy, Mr. Hunter stated that the recognition of Jeff 
 Davis's power was the first and indispensable step to 
 peace ; and, to illustrate his point, he referred to the 
 correspondence between King Charles the First and his 
 Parliament as a reliable precedent of a constitutional 
 ruler treating with rebels. 
 
 "Upon questions of history," replied Lincoln, "I 
 must refer you to Mr. Seward, for he is posted in such 
 things, and I do n't profess to be ; but my only dis- 
 tinct recollection of the matter is that Charles lost his 
 head." 
 
 Mr. Hunter declared, on the same occasion, that the 
 slaves, always accustomed to work upon compulsion, 
 
204 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 under an overseer, would, if suddenly freed, precipitate 
 not only themselves but the society of the South into 
 ruin. No work would be done, but blacks and whites 
 would starve together. Mr. Lincoln waited for Mr. 
 Seward to answer the argument ; but as that gentleman 
 hesitated he said : 
 
 "Mr. Hunter, you ought to know a great deal 
 better about this matter than I, for you have always 
 lived under the slave system. I can only say, in reply 
 to your statement of the case, that it reminds me of a 
 man out in Illinois, by the name of Case, who under- 
 took, a few years ago, to raise a very large herd of 
 hogs It was a great trouble to feed them ; and how to 
 get around this was a puzzle to him. At length he hit 
 upon the plan of planting an immense field of potatoes, 
 and, when they were sufficiently grown, he turned the 
 whole herd into the field, and let them have full swing, 
 thus saving not only the labor of feeding the hogs, but 
 that also of digging the potatoes. Charmed with his 
 sagacity, he stood one day leaning against the fence, 
 counting his hogs, when a neighbor came along : 
 
 "'Well, well,' said he, 'Mr. Case, this is all very 
 fine. Your hogs are doing very well just now ; but you 
 know out here in Illinois the frost comes early, and the 
 ground freezes a foot deep. Then what are they going 
 to do?' 
 
 " This was a view of the matter which Mr. Case had 
 not taken into account. Butchering time for hogs was 
 away on in December or January. He scratched his 
 head, and at length stammered : 
 
 11 'Well, it may come pretty hard on their snouts, 
 but I do n't see but it will be root hog or diel'" 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 
 
 205 
 
 NOT AFRAID OF BEING HANGED. 
 "When Mr. Lincoln returned from the James, where 
 he met Messrs. Stephens, Campbell, and Hunter, he 
 related to his Cabinet some of his conversations with 
 them. He said," writes Mr. Usher, "that at the con- 
 clusion of one of his discourses, detailing what he con- 
 sidered to be the position in which the insurgents were 
 placed by the law, they replied : 
 
 " ' Well, according to your view of the case, we are 
 all guilty of treason, and liable to be hanged.' 
 " Lincoln replied : 4 Yes, that is so. ' 
 " They, continuing, said: 'Well, we suppose that 
 would necessarily be your view of our case, but we 
 never had much fear of being hanged while you were 
 President.' 
 
 "From his manner in repeating this scene," says 
 Mr. Usher, "he seemed to appreciate the compliment 
 highly. There is no evidence in his record that he ever 
 contemplated executing any of the insurgents for their 
 treason. There is no evidence that he desired any of 
 them to leave the country, with the exception of Mr. 
 Davis. His great, and apparently his only object, was 
 to have a restored Union." 
 
 PROPOSED PURCHASE OF SLAVES. 
 Soon after Mr. Lincoln's return from his conference 
 with Alexander Stephens and others in regard to the 
 ending of the war, the Cabinet was convened, and he 
 read to it, for approval, a message which he had pre- 
 pared to be submitted to Congress, in which he recom- 
 mended that Congress appropriate $300,000,000, to be 
 
206 ABE AHA M LINCOLN. 
 
 apportioned among the several slave States, in proportion 
 to slave population, to be distributed to the holders of 
 slaves in those States, upon condition that they would 
 consent to the abolition of slavery, the disbanding of 
 the insurgent army, and would acknowledge and submit 
 to the laws of the United States. 
 
 The members of the Cabinet were all opposed. 
 He seemed somewhat surprised at that, and asked : 
 "How long will the war last?" No one answered, 
 but he soon said : " A hundred days. We are spending 
 now in carrying on the war $3,000,000 a day, which 
 will amount to all this money, besides all the lives." 
 With a deep sigh, he added : " But you are all opposed 
 to me, and I will not send the message." 
 
 LINCOLN'S ONE WORD. 
 
 " Almost with tears in his eyes," said Judge Samuel 
 B. Herit, of Suwanee, Fla., "Alexander H. Stephens 
 once told me of the inner history of the Hampton Roads 
 Conference. 
 
 "'When the intimation came to us,' said Mr. 
 Stepheus, ' that the Federals desired a conference, it was 
 well known that Jefferson Davis was opposed to it. 
 The majority of the Confederate Senate took its cue 
 from the President, and therefore the subject could not 
 be directly broached then. As a consequence, we were 
 forced to strategy. It was proposed that General Lee 
 should appear before the Senate in executive session, 
 and, under the cloak of secrecy, to be removed only for 
 the personal information of the President, give an exact 
 statement of the real position of the two armies. 
 
LINCOLNIAKA. 207 
 
 "'With great reluctance General Lee consented to 
 answer questions, the result being to show that the Con- 
 federate army had been reduced to a mere shell, with 
 neither defenses, refuge, nor supplies to fall back upon. 
 With this plain statement the Senate consented to the 
 appointment of Peace Commissioners. But when a 
 resolution was offered and passed that these Commission- 
 ers should act under instructions passed by Mr. Davis, 
 all hope in my heart failed. Only the conviction that I 
 should lose no chance to bring about peace, induced me 
 to withhold my resignation.' 
 
 "After describing the meeting with President Lin- 
 coln and associates," continued Judge Herit, "Mr. 
 Stephens went on to say: 'Finally, all preliminaries 
 over, President Lincoln said : " So anxious am I for 
 peace, that I will offer terms which I am sure will sur- 
 prise you. On this sheet of paper I will write but one 
 word, while I will leave to your own judgment every 
 other condition and requirement." Writing, Mr. Lin- 
 coln passed the sheet over to me, and I found written 
 upon it the one word "Union." "All other terms," 
 concluded Mr. Lincoln, " may be of your own dictation." 
 
 "'My heart sank within me,' said Mr. Stephens. 
 ' Here, on simply accepting the Union, we could dictate 
 our own terms of peace, preserve our State autonomies, 
 maintain our fortunes, gain recompense for our slave 
 property, and all the consequences following defeat 
 could be averted. But our instructions from Mr. Davis, 
 the corner-stone of which w r as the recognition of the 
 Confederate States, forbade the acceptance of this most 
 magnanimous and generous offer. When I so informed 
 Mr. Lincoln, he sank back in his chair with a look of 
 
208 ABRAHAM LIKCOLK. 
 
 utter disappointment. We all felt the gravity of the 
 situation, and it was recognized that one of the great 
 mistakes of history was being enacted. With an army 
 whose defeat was already acknowledged by General Lee, 
 President Davis insisted upon annihilation.' 
 
 " These facts," contiuued Judge Hcrit, " it was agreed 
 should be kept secret until the death of the principals. " 
 
 PERMITTING JACOB THOMPSON TO SLIP THROUGH MAINE. 
 
 Upon Mr. Lincoln's return to Washington, after 
 the capture of Richmond, a member of the Cabinet 
 asked him if it would be proper to permit Jacob 
 Thompson, one of the Confederate leaders, to slip 
 through Maine in disguise, and embark from Portland. 
 The President, as usual, was disposed to be merciful, 
 and to permit the arch-rebel to pass unmolested, but 
 the secretary urged that he should be arrested as a 
 traitor. "By permitting him to escape the penalties of 
 treason," persistently remarked the secretary, "you 
 sanction it." 
 
 "Well," replied Mr. Lincoln, "let me tell you a 
 story. 
 
 "There was an Irish soldier here last summer who 
 wanted something to drink stronger than water, and 
 stopped at a drug-shop, where he espied a soda-fountain. 
 
 "'Mr. Doctor,' said he, 'give me, plase, a glass 
 of soda-wather, an' if yees can put in a few drops of 
 whisky unbeknown to any one, I'll be obleeged.' 
 
 "Now," said Mr. Lincoln, "if Jake Thompson is 
 permitted to go through Maine unbeknown *to any one, 
 what's the harm? So don't have him arrested." 
 
LINCOLNIANA. 209 
 
 WHAT TO DO WITH JEFFERSON DAVIS. 
 One of Mr. Lincoln's stories was told to a party of 
 gentlemen, who, as the war was closing, anxiously 
 asked: "What will you do with Jefferson Davis?" 
 
 "There was a boy in Springfield," replied Mr. 
 Lincoln, " who saved up his money and bought a ' coon/ 
 which, after the novelty wore off, became a great 
 nuisance. 
 
 " He was one day leading him through the streets, 
 and had his hands full to keep clear of the little vixen, 
 who had torn his clothes half off of him. At length 
 he sat down on the curb-stone, completely fagged out. 
 A man passing was stopped by the lad's disconsolate ap- 
 pearance, and asked the matter. 
 
 " ' 0/ was the only reply, ' this coon is such a trouble 
 to me.' 
 
 "'Why don't you get rid of him, then?' said the 
 gentleman. 
 
 " ' Hush !' said the boy; ' do n't you see he is gnaw- 
 ing his rope off? I am going to let him do it, and then 
 I will go home and tell the folks that he got away from 
 
 me !' " 
 
 .4,. 
 
 MR. LINCOLN'S BARGAIN WITH TAD. 
 
 "Tad" accompanied his father to Fortress Monroe, 
 and on the way became very troublesome. The Presi- 
 dent was much engaged in conversation with the party 
 who accompauied him, and he at length said : 
 
 " Tad, if you will be a good boy, and not disturb 
 me any more till we get to Fortress Monroe, I will give 
 you a dollar." 
 
 The hope of reward was effectual for a while in se- 
 14 
 
210 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1 . 
 
 curing silence, but Tad soon forget his promise, and be- 
 came as noisy as ever. Upon reaching their destination, 
 however, he said, very promptly: "Father, I want my 
 dollar." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln turned to him with the inquiry : " Tad, 
 do you think you have earned it?" 
 
 11 Yes," was the reply. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln looked at him half-reproach fully for an 
 instant, and then taking from his pocket-book a dollar 
 note, he said: " Well, my son, at any rate, I will keep 
 my part of the bargain." 
 
 RECEIVING DISPATCHES FROM SHERMAN. 
 
 On New-Year's day, 1865, General C. H. Howard 
 left Savannah, Georgia, with important dispatches from 
 General Sherman to President Lincoln. 
 
 Sherman had sent his unique telegram to the Presi- 
 dent on Christmas eve, announcing as a Christmas 
 present the capture of Savannah. Owing to the fact 
 that the railroads had been destroyed, this dispatch had 
 been sent by special steamer to Fortress Monroe and 
 thence by telegraph to Washington. But President 
 Lincoln had not yet seen any person who had marched 
 through Georgia with Sherman. 
 
 " It was early in the day," writes General Howard in 
 the Northwestern Christian Advocate, "when my card was 
 given to the messenger in the anteroom of the White 
 House. He shook his head, and pointed to the crowds 
 in waiting, filling the anteroom and thronging even the 
 lower hall and the stairway. He called my attention 
 to the fact that there were Congressmen of the number 
 
LINCOLN I A NA. 211 
 
 who were supposed to have precedence in calling upon 
 the President. Nevertheless, I requested him to give 
 the President the card which indicated that I had dis- 
 patches from Sherman's army. 
 
 "The messenger returned within a few minutes and 
 invited me in. First, we entered a room occupied by the 
 President's secretaries, and there I saw one or two 
 senators in waiting, and passing through this room I 
 was ushered into a smaller room, where I saw President 
 Lincoln standing at a glass shaving himself. He paused 
 a moment, came to me with a droll look, heightened no 
 doubt by the half-lathered, half-shaved face, gave me 
 his hand, and asked me to take a seat on the sofa, say- 
 ing, as he returned to the mirror : 
 
 " 'I could not even wait till I had finished shaving 
 when an officer from Sherman's army has come.' 
 
 "Of course the youthful staff-officer was somewhat 
 abashed in coming into the presence of the President of 
 the United States, his Commander-in-chief, and the now 
 world-renowned Abraham Lincoln. But the President's 
 frank and cordial manner when, on the completion of 
 his toilet, he came and took the right hand of his vis-, 
 itor between both of his large hands and then sat down 
 beside him on the sofa immediately put him at his 
 ease. 
 
 "Naturally, the President had many questions to 
 ask concerning the ' March to the Sea.' It was appar- 
 ent he had been very anxious, as no doubt had the 
 entire North, during the thirty days or more when noth- 
 ing was beard from the vanished army. He was inter- 
 ested to know in detail of the daily operations. Ac- 
 tually, the first word indicating the approach to the 
 
212 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 coast came by a small scouting party sent down the 
 Ogeechee River by Major-General Howard, commanding 
 Sherman's right wing. An officer and two scouts had 
 made their way in a dug-out down the river, moving by 
 night and resting by day, past the Rebel pickets, past 
 Fort McAlister — then armed with heavy guns, and fully 
 manned — out into the open bay, and had communicated 
 with the naval blockading fleet, and the admiral had 
 sent General Howard's dispatch to the Secretary of the 
 Navy at Washington. This news was not only the first 
 to advise President Lincoln of the safety and success of 
 Sherman's army, but had been flashed over the country, 
 bringing good cheer to 65,000 homes which had rep- 
 resentatives in that army." 
 
 TAD'S REBEL FLAG. 
 
 One of the prettiest incidents in the closing days of 
 the Civil War occurred when the troops, "marching 
 home again," passed, in grand form, if with well-worn 
 uniforms and tattered bunting, before the White House, 
 in Washington City. Naturally, an immense crowd 
 had assembled on the streets, the lawns, porches, 
 balconies, and windows, even those of the Executive 
 mansion itself being crowded to excess. A central 
 figure was that of the President, Abraham Lincoln, 
 who, with bared head, unfurled and waved our Nation's 
 flag in the midst of lusty cheers. 
 
 Suddenly there was an unexpected sight. A small 
 boy leaned forward, and sent streaming to the air the 
 banner of the boys in gray. It was an old flag which 
 had been captured from the Confederates, and which 
 
LINCOLNIAXA. 213 
 
 the urchin, the President's second son, Tad, had obtained 
 possession of, and considered an additional token of 
 triumph to unfurl on this all-important day. Vainly 
 did the servant who had followed him to the window 
 plead with him to desist. No. Master Tad, the pet of 
 the White House, was not to be prevented from adding 
 to the loyal demonstration of the hour. To his sur- 
 prise, however, the crowd viewed it differently. 
 
 Had it floated from any other window in the capital 
 that day, no doubt it would have been the target of 
 contempt and abuse; but when the President, under- 
 standing what had happened, turned, with a smile on 
 his grand, plain face, and showed his approval by a ges- 
 ture and expression, cheer after cheer rent the air. It 
 was, surely enough, the expression of peace and good- 
 will which, of all our commanders, none was better 
 pleased to promote than the Commander-in-chief. 
 
 A WOODCHOPPER'S SON. 
 
 " Tad" Lincoln was his father's idol and constant 
 companion. Scarcely a day but he could be seen trudg- 
 ing along the country roads near their summer home, 
 or in the city itself, his small figure in comical contrast 
 to the President's tall, lank form. In these walks they 
 had chats which were to the boy as precious memories. 
 
 An incident, which Tad himself related, occurred 
 a day or two after his entering, temporarily, a foreign 
 school. A rather snobbish young gentleman of rank, 
 not knowing who young Lincoln was, inquired, as boys 
 will of each other, who his father was. Tad, with the 
 slow, reflective smile which was his sole point of resem- 
 
214 A BRA HA M LINCOLN. 
 
 blance to his father, answered: "A woodchopper." 
 " O, indeed!" was the rather sneering answer And 
 for a day or two the high-born lad turned the cold 
 shoulder to the " new boy." Very soon the American 
 lad's prestige became known to all the school, and he 
 found that he had made himself ridiculous. 
 
 LAST PUBLIC UTTERANCE. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's last public utterance was addressed 
 to Schuyler Colfax, April 14, 1865: "I want you to 
 take a message from me to the miners whom you 
 visit. . . . Tell the miners for me that I shall pro- 
 mote their interests to the utmost of my ability, because 
 their prosperity is the prosperity of the Nation; and 
 we shall prove, in a very few years, that we are indeed 
 the treasury of the world." 
 
MY CAPTAIN. 
 
 captain ! my captain ! our fearful trip is done ; 
 
 The ship has weathered every rock, the prize we sought is 
 
 won ; 
 The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
 While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and 
 daring : 
 
 But, O heart ! heart ! heart ! 
 
 Leave you not the little spot, 
 
 Where on the deck my captain lies, 
 
 Fallen cold and dead. 
 
 O captain ! my captain ! rise up and hear the bells ; 
 
 Rise up— for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills . 
 
 For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths-for you the shores 
 
 a-crowding ; 
 For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces 
 turning : 
 
 captain ! dear father ; 
 
 This arm I push beneath you ; 
 
 It is some dream that on the deck 
 
 You 've fallen cold and dead. 
 
 My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still ; 
 My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will ; 
 But the ship, the ship is anchored safe, its voyage closed 
 
 and done ; 
 From fearful trip, the victor ship comes in with object won. 
 Exult, O shore, and ring, bells 1 
 But I, with silent tread, 
 Walk the spot my captain lies, 
 Fallen cold and dead. 
 
 —Walt Whitman, on the Death of Lincoln. 
 2L5 
 
WORDS OF LINCOLN. 
 
 "My early history is perfectly characterized by a 
 single line of Gray's Elegy : 
 
 ' The short and simple annals of the poor.' " 
 X X 
 
 "Men are not flattered by being shown that there 
 has been a difference of purpose between them and the 
 Almighty." 
 
 X X 
 
 " I know that the Lord is always on the side of the 
 right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I 
 and this Nation should be on the Lord's side." 
 
 X X 
 
 "I have been driven many times to my knees by 
 the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to 
 go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed 
 insufficient for that day." 
 
 X X 
 
 "We can not escape history." 
 X X 
 
 " The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must 
 prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to accurately 
 perceive them in advance." 
 
 X X 
 "Come what will, I will keep my faith with friena 
 and foe." 
 216 
 
WORDS OF LINCOLN. 217 
 
 " 1 do not impugn the motives of any one opposed 
 to me." 
 
 X X 
 
 "It is no pleasure to me to triumph over any one." 
 X X 
 
 " I shall do my utmost, that whoever is to hold the 
 helm for the next voyage shall start with the best possi- 
 ble chance to save the ship." 
 
 X X 
 "I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's 
 bosom." 
 
 X X 
 11 God must like common people, or he would not 
 have made so many of them." 
 
 X X 
 
 "Of the people, when they rise in mass in behalf of 
 the Union and the liberties of their country, truly may 
 it be said : ' The gates of hell can not prevail against 
 them.'" 
 
 X X 
 
 "Unless the great God . . . shall be with and 
 aid me, I must fail; but if the same Omniscient Mind 
 and Almighty Arm . . . shall guide and support 
 me, I shall not fail ; I shall succeed." 
 X X 
 
 "I authorize no bargains [for the Presidency], and 
 
 will be bound by none." 
 
 X X 
 
 " The reasonable man has long since agreed that in- 
 temperance is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of 
 all evils among mankind." 
 
218 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 "I am indeed very grateful to the brave men who 
 have been struggling with the enemy in the field." 
 X X 
 "For thirty years I have been a temperance man, 
 and I am too old to change." 
 X X 
 "That we here highly resolve that . . . this 
 Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, 
 and that the government of the people, by the people, 
 and for the people, shall not perish from the earth." 
 X X 
 "I appeal to you again to constantly bear in mind 
 that with you [the people], and not with politicians, 
 not with Presidents, not with office-seekers, but with 
 you, is the question, Shall the Union and shall the lib- 
 erties of the country be preserved to the latest gen- 
 eration ?" 
 
 X X 
 
 " If all that has been said by orators and poets since 
 the creation of the world in praise of women were ap- 
 plied to the women of America, it would not do them 
 full justice for their conduct during the war. . . . 
 God bless the women of America !" 
 
 X X 
 
 "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 or- 
 phan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just 
 and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." 
 
WORDS OF LINCOLN. 219 
 
 ''This country, with its institutions, belongs to the 
 people who inhabit it." 
 
 X X 
 
 "I have never had a feeling politically that did not 
 spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration 
 of Independence." 
 
 X X 
 
 "No men living are more worthy to be trusted than 
 those who toil up from poverty — none less inclined to 
 take or touch aught which they have not honestly 
 earned." 
 
 X X 
 
 "Let us have faith that right makes might; and, 
 in that faith, let us to the end dare to do our duty as 
 we understand it." 
 
 X X 
 
 "There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress 
 by mob law." 
 
 X X 
 
 "Many great and good men, sufficiently qualified for 
 any task they may undertake, may ever be found, whose 
 ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Con- 
 gress, a gubernatorial, or a Presidential chair ; but such 
 belong not to the family of the lion or the tribe of the 
 eagle." 
 
 X X 
 
 " Nowhere in the world is presented a Government 
 of so much liberty and equality." 
 
 X X 
 
 "Gold is good in its place; but living, brave, and 
 patriotic men are better than gold." 
 
220 ABBA HA M LINCOLN. 
 
 " Let none falter who thinks he is right." 
 X X 
 
 "All that I am, all that I hope to be, I owe to my 
 angel mother." 
 
 X X 
 
 "The way for a young man to rise is to improve 
 himself every way he can, never suspecting that any- 
 body wishes to hinder him." 
 
 X X 
 
 "Suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in 
 any situation." 
 
 X X 
 
 "Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. 
 Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I 
 have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed 
 of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their 
 esteem." 
 
 X X 
 
 "Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's na- 
 ture — opposition to it in his love of justice." 
 
 X X 
 
 " Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with 
 him while he is right, and part with him when he goes 
 wrong. n 
 
 X X 
 
 "Revolutionize through the ballot-box." 
 X X 
 
 "If I live, this accursed system of robbery and 
 shame in our treatment of the Indians shall be re- 
 formed." 
 
WORDS OF LINCOLN. 221 
 
 " This Government must be preserved in spite of the 
 acts of any man, or set of men." 
 
 "Many free countries have lost their liberty, and 
 ours may lose hers; but, if she shall, be it my proudest 
 plume, not that I was the last to desert, but that I 
 never deserted her." 
 
 X X 
 
 "Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having 
 the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the 
 existing Government, and form a new one that suits 
 them better. This is a most valuable and sacred right — 
 a right which, we hope and believe, is to liberate the 
 world." 
 
 X X 
 
 "At what point shall we expect the approach of 
 danger? Shall we expect some transatlantic military 
 giant to step the ocean aud crush us at a blow ? Never ! 
 All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, 
 with all the treasures of the earth (our own excepted) 
 in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a com- 
 mander, could not, by force, take a drink from the 
 Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of 
 a thousand years. At what point, then, is this ap- 
 proach of danger to be expected ? I answer, If it ever 
 reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It can not 
 come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must 
 ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of 
 freemen, we must live through all time or die by 
 suicide." 
 
222 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 "Passion has helped us [to preserve our free insti- 
 tutions], but can do so no more. It will in future be 
 our enemy. Keason — cold, calculating, unimpassioned 
 reason — must furnish all the materials for our support 
 and defense. Let those materials be molded into gen- 
 eral intelligence, sound morality, and, in particular, a 
 reverence for the Constitution and the laws; and then 
 our country shall continue to improve, and our Nation, 
 revering his name, and permitting, no hostile foot to 
 pass or desecrate his resting-place, shall be that to hear 
 the last trump that shall awaken our Washington. 
 Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest as the 
 rock of its basis, and as truly as has been said of the 
 only greater institution, 'The gates of hell shall not 
 prevail against it. ,,, 
 
MR. LINCOLN'S TEMPERANCE 
 ADDRESS.* 
 
 Although the temperance cause has been in pro- 
 gress for nearly twenty years, it is apparent to all that 
 it is just now being crowned with a degree of success 
 hitherto unparalleled. 
 
 The list of its friends is daily swelled by the addition 
 of fifties, hundreds, and of thousands. The cause itself 
 seems suddenly transformed from a cold, abstract theory 
 to a living, breathing, active, and powerful chieftain, 
 going forth "conquering and to conquer. " The citadels 
 of his great adversary are daily being stormed and dis- 
 mantled ; his temples and his altars, where the rites of 
 his idolatrous worship have long been performed, and 
 where human sacrifices have long been wont to be made, 
 are daily desecrated and deserted. The trump of the 
 conqueror's fame is sounding from hill to hill, from sea 
 to sea, and from land to land, and calling millions to 
 his standard at a blast. 
 
 For this new and splendid success we heartily re- 
 joice. That that success is so much greater now than 
 heretofore, is doubtless owing to rational causes ; and if 
 we would have it continue, we shall do well to inquire 
 what those causes are. 
 
 * Delivered before the Springfield Washingtonian Tem- 
 perance Society, at the Second Presbyterian Church, Spring- 
 field, 111., February 22, 1S42. 
 
 223 
 
224 ABE AHA M iWCOLtf. 
 
 The warfare heretofore waged against the demon in- 
 temperance has, somehow or other, been erroneous. 
 Either the champions engaged or the tactics they 
 adopted have not been the most proper. These cham- 
 pions, for the most part, have been preachers, lawyers, 
 and hired agents. Between these and the mass of man- 
 kind there is a want of approachability, if the term be 
 admissible, partial at least, fatal to their success. They 
 are supposed to have no sympathy of feeling or interest 
 with those very persons whom it is their object to con- 
 vince and persuade. 
 
 And, again, it is so easy and so common to ascribe 
 motives to men of these classes other than those they 
 profess to act upon. The preacher, it is said, advocates 
 temperance because he is a fanatic, and desires a union 
 of the Church and State; the lawyer from his pride 
 and vanity of hearing himself speak ; and the hired 
 agent for his salary. 
 
 But when one who has long been known as a victim 
 of intemperance bursts the fetters that have bound him, 
 and appears before his neighbors, ''clothed and in his 
 right mind," a redeemed specimen of long-lost humanity, 
 and stands up, with tears of joy trembling in his eyes; 
 to tell of the miseries once endured, now to be endured 
 no more forever ; of his once naked and starving chil- 
 dren, now clad and fed comfortably; of a wife, long 
 weighed down with woe, weeping, and a broken heart, 
 now restored to health, happiness, and a renewed affec- 
 tion ; and how easily it is all done, once it is resolved to 
 be done. How simple his language ! There is a logic 
 and an eloquence in it that few with human feelings 
 can resist. They can not say that he desires a union 
 
LINCOLN'S TEMPERANCE ADDRESS. 225 
 
 of Church and State, for he is not a Church member ; 
 they can not say he is vain of hearing himself speak, 
 for his whole demeanor shows he would gladly avoid 
 speaking at all; they can not say he speaks for pay, for 
 he receives none aud asks for none. Nor can his sin- 
 cerity in any way be doubted, or his sympathy for those 
 he would persuade to imitate his example be denied. 
 
 In my judgment, it is to the battles of this new 
 class of champions that our late success is greatly, per- 
 haps chiefly, owing. But had the old-school champions 
 themselves been of the most wise selecting? Was their 
 system of tactics the most judicious? It seems to me it 
 was not. Too much denunciation against dram-sellers 
 and dram-drinkers was indulged in. This, I think, was 
 both impolitic and unjust. It was impolitic, because it 
 is not much in the nature of man to be driven to 
 anything, still less to be driven about that which is ex- 
 clusively his own business, and, least of all, where such 
 driving is to be submitted to at the expense of pecuni- 
 ary interest or burning appetite. When the dram-seller 
 and drinker were incessantly told, not in the accents of 
 entreaty and persuasion, diffidently addressed by erring 
 man to an erring brother, but in the thundering tones 
 of anathema and denunciation, with which the lordly 
 judge often groups together all the crimes of the felon's 
 life%nd thrusts them in his face just ere he passes sen- 
 tence of death upon him, that they were the authors ot 
 all the vice and miserv and crime in the land ; that they 
 were the manufacturers and material of all the thieves 
 and robbers and murderers that infest the earth ; that 
 their houses were the workshops of the devil, and that 
 their persons should be shunned by all the good and 
 
 15 
 
226 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 virtuous as moral pestilences, — I say, when they were 
 told all this, and in this way, it is not wonderful that 
 they were slow — very slow — to acknowledge the truth 
 of such denunciations, and to join the ranks of their 
 denouncers in a hue and cry against themselves. 
 
 To have expected them to do otherwise than they 
 did — to have expected them not to meet denunciation 
 with denunciation, crimination with crimination, and 
 anathema with anathema — was to expect a reversal of 
 human nature, which is God's decree, and can never be 
 reversed. 
 
 When the conduct of men is designed to be influ- 
 enced, persuasion — kind, unassuming persuasion — should 
 ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim "that 
 a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall." 
 So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, 
 first convince him that you are his sincere friend. 
 Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, 
 say what he will, is the great high-road to his reason, 
 and which, when once gained, you will find but little 
 trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your 
 cause, if, indeed, that cause really be a just one. On 
 the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to 
 command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned 
 and despised, and he will retreat within himself close all 
 the avenues to his head and his heart, and though your 
 cause be naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest 
 lance, harder than steel and sharper than steel can be 
 made, and though you throw it with more than Hercu- 
 lean force and precision, you shall be no more able to 
 pierce him than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise 
 with a rye-straw. Such is man, and so must he be un- 
 
LINCOLN'S TE3IPERAXCE ADDRESS. 227 
 
 derstood by those who would lead him, even to his own 
 best interests. 
 
 On this point the Washingtonians greatly excel the 
 temperance advocates of former times. Those whom 
 they desire to convince and persuade are their old friends 
 and companions. They know they are not demons, nor 
 even the worst of men ; they know that generally they 
 are kind, generous, and charitable, even beyond the ex- 
 ample of their more staid and sober neighbors. They 
 are practical philanthropists; and they glow with a gen- 
 erous and brotherly zeal that mere theorizers are inca- 
 pable of feeling. Benevolence and charity possess their 
 hearts entirely ; and out of the abundance of their 
 hearts their tongues give utterance. " Love through all 
 their actions runs, and all their words are mild ;" in this 
 spirit they speak and act, and in the same they are 
 heard and regarded. And when such is the temper of 
 the advocate, and such of the audience, no good cause 
 can be unsuccessful. But I have said that denun- 
 ciations against dram-sellers and dram-drinkers are' un- 
 just as well as impolitic. Let us see. 
 
 I have not inquired at what period of time the use 
 of intoxicating liquors commenced ; nor is it important 
 to know. It is sufficient that to all of us who now in- 
 habit the world the practice of drinking them is just as 
 old as the world itself — that is, we have seen the one 
 just as long as we have seen the other. When all such 
 of us as have now reached the years of maturity first 
 opened our eyes upon the stage of existence, we found 
 intoxicating liquors recognized by everybody, used by 
 everybody, repudiated by nobody. It commonly en- 
 tered into the first draught of the infant and the last 
 
228 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 draught of the dying man. From the sideboard of the 
 parson down to the ragged pocket of the houseless loafer 
 it was constantly found. Physicians prescribed it in 
 this, that, and the other disease; Government provided 
 it for soldiers and sailors ; and to have a rolling or rais- 
 ing, a husking or " hoe-down " anywhere about without 
 it, was positively insufferable. So, too, it was every- 
 where a respectable article of manufacture and of mer- 
 chandise. The making of it was regarded as an honor- 
 able livelihood, and he who could make most was the 
 most enterprising and respectable. Large and small 
 manufactories of it were everywhere erected, in which 
 all the earthly goods of their owners were invested. 
 Wagons drew it from town to town, boats bore it from 
 clime to clime, and the winds wafted it from nation to 
 nation ; and merchants bought and sold it by wholesale 
 and retail with precisely the same feelings on the part 
 of the seller, buyer, and bystander as are felt at the sell- 
 ing and buying of plows, beef, bacon, or any other of 
 the real necessaries of life. Universal public opinion 
 not only tolerated but recognized and adopted its use. 
 
 It is true that even then it was known and acknowl- 
 edged that many were greatly injured by it; but none 
 seemed to think that the injury arose from the use of a 
 bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good thing. 
 The victims of it were to be pitied and compassionated, 
 just as are the heirs of consumption and other hereditary 
 diseases. The failing was treated as a misfortune, and 
 not as a crime, or even as a disgrace. 
 
 If, then, what I have been saying is true, is it won- 
 derful that some should think and act now as all thought 
 and acted twenty years ago ; and is it just to assail, con- 
 
LINCOLN'S TEMPERANCE ADDRESS. 229 
 
 deran, or despise them for doing so ? The universal 
 sense of mankind on any subject is an argument, or 
 at least an influence, not easily overcome. The success 
 of the argument in favor of the existence of an over- 
 ruling Providence mainly depends upon that sense ; and 
 men ough-t not, injustice, to be denounced for yielding 
 to it in any case, or giving it up slowly, especially when 
 they are backed by interest, fixed habits, or burning 
 appetites. 
 
 Another error, as it seems to me, into which the old 
 reformers fell, was the position that all habitual drunk- 
 ards were utterly incorrigible, and therefore must be 
 turned adrift, and damned without remedy, in order 
 that the grace of temperance might abound, to the tem- 
 perate then, and to all mankind some hundreds of years 
 thereafter. There is in this something so repugnant to 
 humanity, so uncharitable, so cold-blooded and feeling- 
 less, that it never did, nor ever can, enlist the enthu- 
 siasm of a popular cause. We could not love the man 
 who taught it — we could not hear him with patience. 
 The heart could not throw open its portals to it ; the 
 generous man could not adopt it ; it could not mix with 
 his blood. It looked so fiendishly selfish, so like throw- 
 ing fathers and brothers overboard to lighten the boat 
 for our security, that the noble-minded shrank from the 
 manifest meanness of the thing. And besides this, the 
 benefits of a reformation to be effected by such a system 
 were too remote in point of time warmly to engage 
 many in its behalf. Few can be induced to labor ex- 
 clusively for posterity, and none will do it enthusiastic- 
 ally. Posterity has done nothing for us ; and theorize 
 on it as we may, practically we shall do very little for 
 
230 A BR AHA M LINCOLN. 
 
 it unless we are made to think we are, at the same time, 
 doing something for ourselves. 
 
 What an ignorance of human nature does it exhibit 
 to ask or expect a whole community to rise up and labor 
 for the temporal happiness of others, after themselves 
 shall be consigned to the dust, a majority of which com- 
 munity take no pains whatever to secure their own eter- 
 nal welfare at no greater distant day ! Great distance 
 in either time or space has wonderful power to lull and 
 render quiescent the human mind. Pleasures to be en- 
 joyed, or pains to be endured, after we shall be dead and 
 gone, are but little regarded, even in our own cases, 
 and much less in the cases of others. 
 
 Still, in addition to this, there is something so ludi- 
 crous in promises of good or threats of evil a great way 
 off, as to render the whole subject with which they are 
 connected easily turned into ridicule. "Better lay 
 down that spade you 're stealing, Paddy — if you do n't, 
 you'll pay for it at the day of judgment." "Be the 
 powers, if ye '11 credit me so long, I'll take another 
 jist." 
 
 By the Washingtonians this system of consigning the 
 habitual drunkard to hopeless ruin is repudiated. They 
 adopt a more enlarged philanthropy. They go for 
 present as well as future good. They labor for all now 
 living, as well as hereafter to live. They teach hope to 
 all — despair to none. As applying to their cause, they 
 deny the doctrine of unpardonable sin. As in Chris- 
 tianity it is taught, so in this they teach : 
 
 " While the lamp holds out to burn, 
 The vilest sinner may return." 
 
LINCOLN'S TEMPERANCE ADDRESS. 231 
 
 And, what is a matter of the most profound congratu- 
 lation, they, by experiment upon experiment and ex- 
 ample upon example, prove the maxim to be no less 
 true in the one case than in the other. On every hand 
 we behold those who but yesterday were the chief of 
 sinners, now the chief apostles of the cause. Druukeu 
 devils are cast out by ones, by sevens, by legions, and 
 their unfortunate victims, like the poor possessed who 
 was redeemed from his long and lonely wanderings in 
 the tombs, are publishing to the ends of the earth how 
 great things have been done for them. 
 
 To these new champions and this new system of 
 tactics our late success is mainly owing, and to them 
 we must mainly look for the final consummation. The 
 ball is now rolling gloriously on, and none are so able 
 as they to increase its speed and its bulk, to add to its 
 momentum and magnitude; even though unlearned in 
 letters, for this task none are so well educated. To fit 
 them for this work they have been taught in the true 
 school. They have been in that gulf from which they 
 would teach others the means of escape. They have 
 passed that prison wall which others have long declared 
 impassable, and who that has not shall dare to weigh 
 opinions with them as to the mode of passing? 
 
 But if it be true, as I have insisted, that those who 
 have suffered by intemperance personally and have re- 
 formed are the most powerful and efficient instruments 
 to push the reformation to ultimate success, it does not 
 follow that those who have not suffered have no part 
 left them to perform. Whether or not the world would 
 be vastly benefited by a total and final banishment from 
 it of all intoxicating drinks seems to me not now an 
 
232 ABRA HA M LINCOLN. 
 
 open question. Three-fourths of mankind confess the 
 affirmative with fheir tongues, and I believe all the rest 
 acknowledge it in their hearts. 
 
 Ought any, then, to refuse their aid in doing what 
 the good of the whole demands ? Shall he who can 
 not do much be for that reason excused if he do noth- 
 ing? ''But," says one, " what good can I do by sign- 
 ing the pledge? I never drink, even without signing." 
 This question has already been asked and answered more 
 than a million of times. Let it be answered once more. 
 For the man, suddenly or in any other way, to break 
 off from the use of drams who has indulged in them for 
 a long course of years, aud uutil his appetite for them 
 has grown ten or a hundred fold stronger and more crav- 
 ing than any natural appetite can be, requires a most 
 powerful moral effort. In such an undertaking he 
 needs every moral support and influence that can possi- 
 bly be brought to his aid and thrown around him. And 
 not only so, but every moral prop should be taken from 
 whatever argument might rise in his mind to lure him 
 to his backsliding. When he casts his eyes around him 
 he should be able to see all that he respects, all that he 
 admires, all that he loves, kindly and anxiously point- 
 ing him onward, and none beckoning him back to his 
 former miserable "wallowing in the mire." 
 
 But it is said by some that men will think and act 
 for themselves; that none will disuse spirits or anything 
 else because his neighbors do; and that moral influence 
 is not that powerful engine contended for. Let us ex- 
 amine this. Let me ask the man who could maintain 
 this position most stiffly what compensation he will ac- 
 cept to go to Church some Sunday and sit duriug the 
 
LINCOLN'S TEMPERANCE ADDRESS. 233 
 
 sermon with his wife's bonnet upon his head ? Not a 
 trifle, I '11 venture. And why not ? There would be noth- 
 ing irreligious in it, nothing immoral, nothing uncom- 
 fortable — then why not? Is it not because there would 
 be something egregiously unfashionable in it? Then 
 it is the influence of fashion ; and what is the influence 
 of fashion but the influence that other people's actions 
 have on our own actions — the strong inclination each of 
 us feels to do as we see all our neighbors do ? Nor is 
 the influence of fashion confined to any particular tiling 
 or class of things. It is just as strong on one subject as 
 another. Let us make it as unfashionable to withhold 
 our names from the temperance pledge as for husbands 
 to wear their wives' bonnets to Church, and instances 
 will be just as rare in the one case as the other. 
 
 "But," say some, "we are no drunkards, and we 
 shall not acknowledge ourselves such by joining a re- 
 formed drunkards' society, whatever our influence 
 might be." Surely no Christian will adhere to this 
 objection. 
 
 If they believe as they profess, that Omnipotence 
 condescended to take on himself the form of sinful 
 man, and as such to die an ignominious death for their 
 sakes, surely they will not refuse submission to the 
 infinitely lesser condescension for the temporal and per- 
 haps eternal salvation of a large, erring, and unfortu- 
 nate class of their fellow-creatures. Nor is the conde- 
 scension very great. In my judgment such of us as 
 have never fallen victims have been spared more from 
 the absence of appetite thau from any mental or moral 
 superiority over those who have. Indeed, I believe, if 
 we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and 
 
234 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with 
 those of any other class. 
 
 There seems ever to have been a proneness in the 
 brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice — the 
 demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in 
 sucking the blood of genius and generosity. What one 
 of us but can call to mind some relative more promis- 
 ing in youth than all his fellows, who has fallen a sacri- 
 fice to his rapacity ? He ever seems to have gone forth 
 like the Egyptian angel of death, commissioned to slay, 
 if not the first, the fairest born of every family. Shall 
 he now be arrested in his desolating career ? In that 
 arrest all can give aid that will, and who shall be ex- 
 cused that can and will not ? Far around as human 
 breath has ever blown, he keeps our fathers, our brothers, 
 our sons, and our friends prostrate in the chains of 
 moral death. To all the living everywhere we cry: 
 " Come, sound the moral trump, that these may rise 
 and stand up an exceeding great army." " Come from 
 the four winds, O breath ! and breathe upon these slain, 
 that they may live." If the relative grandeur of revo- 
 lutions shall be estimated by the great amount of hu- 
 man misery they alleviate, and the small amount they 
 inflict, then, indeed, will this be the grandest the world 
 shall ever have seeu. 
 
 Of our political revolution of 1776 we are all justly 
 proud. It has given us a degree of political freedom 
 far exceeding that of any other nations of the earth. 
 In it the world has found a solution of the long-mooted 
 problem as to the capability of man to govern himself. 
 In it was the germ which has vegetated, and still is 
 
LINCOLN'S TEMPERANCE ADDRESS. 235 
 
 to grow and expand into the universal liberty of 
 mankind. 
 
 But with all these glorious results, past, present, 
 and to come, it had its evils too. It breathed forth 
 famine, swam in blood, and rode in fire ; and long, long 
 after, the orphans' cry and the widows' wail continued 
 to break the sad silence that ensued. These were the 
 price, the inevitable price, paid for the blessings it bought. 
 
 Turn now to the temperance revolution. In it we 
 shalJ find a stronger bondage broken, a viler slavery 
 manumitted, a greater tyrant deposed — in it, more of 
 want supplied, more disease healed, more sorrow assuaged. 
 By it, no orphans starving, no widows weeping; by it, 
 none wounded in feeling, none injured in interest. Even 
 the dram-maker and dram-seller will have glided into 
 other occupations so gradually as never to have felt the 
 change, and will stand ready to join all others in the 
 universal song of gladness. And what a noble ally this 
 to the cause of political freedom! With such an aid, its 
 march can not fail to be on and on, till every son of 
 earth shall drink in rich fruition the sorrow-quenching 
 draughts of perfect liberty ! Happy day, when, all ap- 
 petites controlled, all passions subdued, all matter subju- 
 gated, mind, all-conquering mind, shall live and move, 
 the monarch of the world ! Glorious consummation ! 
 Hail, fall of fury! Keign of reason, all hail ! 
 
 And when the victory shall be complete — when 
 there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the 
 earth — how proud the title of that Land which may 
 truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both 
 those revolutions that shall have ended in that -victory ! 
 
236 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 How nobly distinguished that people who shall have 
 planted and nurtured to maturity both the political and 
 moral freedom of their species ! 
 
 This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of 
 the birthday of Washington. We are met to celebrate 
 this day. Washington is the mightiest name of earth — 
 long since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty, still 
 mightiest in moral reformation. On that name a eulogy 
 is expected. It can not be. To add brightness to the 
 sun or glory to the name of Washington is alike im- 
 possible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe pro- 
 nounce the name, and in its naked, deathless splendor 
 leave it shining on. 
 
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