disparagement to his filial piety; and he was glad to get off with a
neighbour on a commercial trip down the river to New Orleans. The trip
was successful in a small way, and Abe soon after repeated it with other
companions. He shewed his practical ingenuity in getting the boat off a
dam, and perhaps still more signally in quieting some restive hogs by
the simple expedient of sewing up their eyes. In the first trip the
great emancipator came in contact with the negro in a way that did not
seem likely to prepossess him in favour of the race. The boat was
boarded by negro robbers, who were repulsed only after a fray in which
Abe got a scar which he carried to the grave. But he saw with his own
eyes slaves manacled and whipped at New Orleans; and though his
sympathies were not far-reaching, the actual sight of suffering never
failed to make an impression on his mind. "In 1841," he says, in a
letter to a friend, "you and I had together a tedious low-water trip on
a steamboat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well
do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there were on board
ten or a dozen slaves shackled together with irons. That sight was a
continued torment to me, and I see something like it every time I touch
the Ohio or any other slave border." A negrophilist he never became. "I
protest," he said afterwards, when engaged in the slavery controversy,
"against the counterfeit logic which concludes that because I do not
want a black woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. I
need not have her for either. I can just leave her alone. In some
respects she certainly is not my equal; but in her natural right to eat
the bread which she earns with her own hands she is my equal and the
equal of all others." It would be difficult to put the case better.
While Abraham Lincoln was trading to New Orleans his father, Thomas
Lincoln, was on the move again. This time he migrated to Illinois, and
there again shifted from place to place, gathering no moss, till he died
as thriftless and poor as he had lived. We have, in later years, an
application from him to his son for money, to which the son responds in
a tone which implies some doubt as to the strict accuracy of the ground
on which the old gentleman's request was preferred. Their relations were
evidently not very affectionate, though there is nothing unfilial in
Abe's conduct. Abraham himself drifted to Salem on the Sangamon, in
Illinois, twenty miles north-west of Springfield, where he became clerk
in a new store, set up by Denton Offutt, with whom he had formed a
connection in one of his trips to New Orleans. Salem was then a village
of a dozen houses, and the little centre of a society very like that of
Pigeon Creek and its neighbourhood, but more decidedly western. We are
told that "here Mr. Lincoln became acquainted with a class of men the
world never saw the like of before or since. They were large men,--large
in body and large in mind; hard to whip and never to be fooled. They
were a bold, daring and reckless set of men; they were men of their own
mind,--believed what was demonstrable, were men of great common sense.
With these men Mr. Lincoln was thrown; with them he lived and with them
he moved and almost had his being. They were sceptics all--scoffers
some. These scoffers were good men, and their scoffs were protests
against theology,--loud protests against the follies of Christianity;
they had never heard of theism and the new and better religious thoughts
of this age. Hence, being natural sceptics and being bold, brave men
they uttered their thoughts freely.... They were on all occasions, when
opportunity offered, debating the various questions of Christianity
among themselves; they took their stand on common sense and on their own
souls; and though their arguments were rude and rough, no man could
overthrow their homely logic. They riddled all divines, and not
unfrequently made them sceptics,--disbelievers as bad as themselves.
They were a jovial, healthful, generous, true and manly set of people."
It is evident that W. Herndon, the speaker, is himself a disbeliever in
Christianity, and addicted to the "newer and better thought of this
age." He gives one specimen, which we have omitted for fear of shocking
our readers, of the theological criticism of these redoubtable logicians
of nature; and we are inclined to infer from it that the divines whom
they "riddled" and converted to scepticism must have been children of
nature as well as themselves. The passage, however, is a life-like,
though idealized, portrait of the Western man; and the tendency to
religious scepticism of the most daring kind is as truly ascribed to him
as the rest.
It seems to be proved by conclusive evidence that Mr. Lincoln shared the
sentiments of his companions, and that he was never a member of any
Church, a believer in the divinity of Christ, or a Christian of any
denomination. He is described as an avowed, an open freethinker,
sometimes bordering on atheism, going extreme lengths against Christian
doctrines, and "shocking" men whom it was probably not very easy to
shock. He even wrote a little work on "Infidelity," attacking
Christianity in general, and especially the belief that Jesus was the
Son of God; but the manuscript was destroyed by a prescient friend, who
knew that its publication would ruin the writer in the political market.
There is reason to believe that Burns contributed to Lincoln's
scepticism, but he drew it more directly from Volney, Paine, Hume and
Gibbon. His fits of downright atheism appear to have been transient; his
settled belief was theism with a morality which, though he was not aware
of it, he had really derived from the Gospel. It is needless to say that
the case had never been rationally presented to him, and that his
decision against Christianity would prove nothing, even if his mind had
been more powerful than it was. His theism was not strong enough to save
him from deep depression under misfortune; and we heard, on what we
thought at the time good authority, that after Chancellorsville, he
actually meditated suicide. Like many sceptics, he was liable to
superstition, especially to the superstition of self-consciousness, a
conviction that he was the subject of a special decree made by some
nameless and mysterious power. Even from a belief in apparitions he was
not free. "It was just after my election, in 1860," he said to his
Secretary, John Hay, "when the news had been coming in thick and fast
all day, and there had been a great 'hurrah, boys!' so that I was well
tired, I went home to rest, throwing myself upon a lounge in my chamber.
Opposite to where I lay was a bureau with a swinging glass upon it; and,
on looking in that glass, I saw myself reflected nearly at full length;
but my face, I noticed, had two separate and distinct images, the tip of
the nose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other. I
was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the
glass; but the illusion vanished. On lying down again I saw it a second
time--plainer, if possible, than before; and then I noticed that one of
the faces was a little paler--say five shades--than the other. I got up
and the thing melted away; and I went off and in the excitement of the
hour forgot all about it,--nearly, but not quite, for the thing would
once in a while come up and give me a little pang, as though something
uncomfortable had happened. When I went home I told my wife about it;
and in a few days afterwards I tried the experiment again, when, sure
enough, the thing came back again; but I never succeeded in bringing the
ghost back after that, though I once tried very industriously, to show
it to my wife, who was worried about it somewhat. She thought it was 'a
sign' that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and that the
paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should not see life
through the last term." The apparition is, of course, easily explained
by reference to a generally morbid temperament and a specially excited
fancy. The impression which it made on the mind of a sceptic, noted for
never believing in anything which was not actually submitted to his
senses, is an instance of the tendency of superstition to creep into the
void left in the heart by faith, and as such may be classed with the
astrological superstitions of the Roman Empire, and of that later age of
religious and moral infidelity of which the prophet was Machiavelli. But
if Mr. John Hay has faithfully repeated Lincoln's words, a point upon
which we may have our doubts without prejudice to Mr. Hay's veracity,
Mrs. Lincoln's interpretation of the vision is, to say the least, a very
curious coincidence.
The flower of the heroic race in the neighbourhood of Salem, were the
"Clary's Grove boys," whose chief and champion was Jack Armstrong.
"Never," we are assured, "was there a more generous parcel of ruffians
than those over whom Jack held sway." It does not appear, however, that
the term ruffian is altogether misplaced. The boys were in the habit of
"initiating" candidates for admission to society at New Salem. "They
first bantered the gentleman to run a foot race, jump, pitch the mall,
or wrestle; and if none of these propositions seemed agreeable to him,
they would request to know what he would do in case another gentleman
should pull his nose or squirt tobacco juice in his face. If he did not
seem entirely decided in his views as to what should be done in such a
contingency, perhaps he would be nailed in a hogshead and rolled down
New Salem hill, perhaps his ideas would be brightened by a brief ducking
in the Sangamon; or perhaps he would be scoffed, kicked and cuffed by a
great number of persons in concert, until he reached the confines of the
village, and then turned adrift as being unfit company for the people of
that settlement." If the stranger consented to race or wrestle, it was
arranged that there should be foul play, which would lead to a fight; a
proper display of mettle in which was accepted as a proof of the
"gentleman's" fitness for society. Abe escaped initiation, his length
and strength of limb being apparently deemed satisfactory evidence of
his social respectability. But Clary's Grove was at last brought down
upon him by the indiscretion of his friend and admirer, Offutt, who was
already beginning to run him for President, and whose vauntings of his
powers made a trial of strength inevitable. A wrestling match was
contrived between Lincoln and Jack Armstrong, and money, jackknives and
whiskey were freely staked on the result. Neither combatant could throw
the other, and Abe proposed to Jack to "quit." But Jack, goaded on by
his partisans, resorted to a "foul," upon which Abe's righteous wrath
blazed up, and taking the champion of Clary's Grove by the throat he
"shook him like a child." A fight was impending, and Abe, his back
planted against Offutt's store, was facing a circle of foes, when a
mediator appeared. Jack Armstrong was so satisfied of the strength of
Abe's arm, that he at once declared him the best fellow that ever came
into the settlement, and the two thenceforth reigned conjointly over the
roughs and bullies of New Salem. Abe seems always to have used his power
humanely and to have done his best to substitute arbitration for war. A
strange man coming into the settlement, on being beset as usual by
Clary's Grove and insulted by Jack Armstrong, knocked the bully down
with a stick. Jack being as strong as two of him was going to "whip him
badly," when Abe interposed, "Well Jack, what did you say to the man?"
Jack repeated his words. "And what would you do if you were in a strange
place and you were called a d--d liar?" "Whip him, by ---." "Then that
man has done to you no more than you have done to him." Jack
acknowledged the golden rule and "treated" his intended victim. If there
were ever dissensions between the two "Caesars" of Salem, it was because
Jack "in the abundance of his animal spirits" was addicted to nailing
people in barrels and rolling them down the hill, while Abe was always
on the side of mercy.
Abe's popularity grew apace; his ambition grew with it; it is
astonishing how readily and freely the plant sprouts upon that soil. He
was at this time carrying on his education evidently with a view to
public life. Books were not easily found. He wanted to study English
Grammar, considering that accomplishment desirable for a statesman; and,
being told that there was a grammar in a house six miles from Salem, he
left his breakfast at once and walked off to borrow it. He would slip
away into the woods and spend hours in study and thinking. He sat up
late at night, and as light was expensive, made a blaze of shavings in
the cooper's shop. He waylaid every visitor to New Salem who had any
pretence to scholarship, and extracted explanations of things which he
did not understand. It does not appear that the work of Adam Smith, or
any work upon political economy, currency, or any financial subject fell
into the hands of the student who was destined to conduct the most
tremendous operations in the whole history of finance.
The next episode in Lincoln's life which may be regarded as a part of
his training was the command of a company of militia in the "Black Hawk"
war. Black Hawk was an Indian Chief of great craft and power, and,
apparently, of fine character, who had the effrontery to object to being
improved off the face of creation, an offence which he aggravated by an
hereditary attachment to the British. At a muster of the Sangamon
company at Clary's Grove, Lincoln was elected captain. The election was
a proof of his popularity, but he found it rather hard to manage his
constituents in the field. One morning on the march the Captain
commanded his orderly to form the company for parade; but when the
orderly called "parade," the men called "parade" too, but could not fall
into line. They had found their way to the officers' liquor the evening
before. The regiment had to march and leave the company behind. About
ten o'clock the company set out to follow; but when it had marched two
miles "the drunken ones lay down and slept their drink off." Lincoln,
who seems to have been perfectly blameless, was placed under arrest and
condemned to carry a wooden sword; but it does not appear that any
notice was taken of the conduct of that portion of the sovereign people
which lay down drunk on the march when the army was advancing against
the enemy. Something like this was probably the state of things in the
Northern army at the beginning of the civil war, before discipline had
been enforced by disaster. The campaign opened with a cleverly-won
victory on the part of Black Hawk, and a rapid retrograde movement on
the part of the militia, as to which we will be content to say with Mr.
Lamon, "of drunkenness no public account makes any mention, and
individual cowardice is never to be imputed to American troops."
Ultimately, however, Black Hawk was overpowered and most of his men met
their doom in attempting to retreat across the Mississippi. "During this
short Indian campaign," says one who took part in it, "we had some hard
times, often hungry; but we had a great deal of sport, especially at
nights--foot racing, some horse racing, jumping, telling anecdotes, in
which Lincoln beat all, keeping up a constant laughter and good humour
all the time, among the soldiers some card-playing and wrestling in
which Lincoln took a prominent part. I think it safe to say he was never
thrown in a wrestle. While in the army he kept a handkerchief tied
around him all the time for wrestling purposes, and loved the sport as
well as any one could. He was seldom if ever beat jumping. During the
campaign Lincoln himself was always ready for an emergency. He endured
hardships like a good soldier; he never complained, nor did he fear
dangers. When fighting was expected or danger apprehended, Lincoln was
the first to say 'Let's go.' He had the confidence of every man of his
company, and they strictly obeyed his orders at a word. His company was
all young men, and full of sport." The assertion as to the strict and
uniform obedience of the company at its captain's word, requires, as we
have seen, some qualification in a democratic sense. Whether Lincoln was
ever beaten in wrestling is also one of the moot points of history.
In the course of this campaign one Mr. Thompson, whose fame as a
wrestler was great throughout the west, accepted Lincoln's challenge.
Great excitement prevailed, and Lincoln's company and backers "put up
all their portable property and some perhaps not their own, including
knives, blankets, tomahawks, and all the necessary articles of a
soldier's outfit." As soon as Lincoln laid hold of his antagonist he
found that he had got at least his match, and warned his friends of that
unwelcome fact. He was thrown once fairly, and a second time fell with
Thompson on the top of him. "We were taken by surprise," candidly says
Mr. Green, "and being unwilling to put with our property and lose our
bets, got up an excuse as to the result. We declared the fall a kind of
a dog-fall--did so apparently angrily." A fight was about to begin, when
Lincoln rose up and said, "Boys, the man actually threw me once fair,
broadly so; and the second time, this very fall, he threw me fairly,
though not so apparently so." This quelled the disturbance.
On the same authority we are told that Lincoln gallantly interfered to
save the life of a poor old Indian who had thrown himself on the mercy
of the soldiers, and whom, notwithstanding that he had a pass, they were
proceeding to slay. The anecdote wears a somewhat melodramatic aspect;
but there is no doubt of Lincoln's humanity, or of his readiness to
protest against oppression and cruelty when they actually fell under his
notice. It was also in keeping with his character to insist firmly on
the right of his militiamen to the same rations and pay as the regulars,
and to draw the legal line sharply and clearly when the regular officers
exceeded their authority in the exercise of command.
Returning to New Salem, Lincoln, having served his apprenticeship as a
clerk, commenced storekeeping on his own account. An opening was made
for him by the departure of Mr. Radford, the keeper of a grocery, who,
having offended the Clary's Grove boys, they "selected a convenient
night for breaking in his windows and gutting his establishment." From
his ruins rose the firm of Lincoln & Berry. Doubt rests on the great
historic question whether Lincoln sold liquor in his store, and on that
question still more agonizing to a sensitive morality--whether he sold
it by the dram. The points remain, we are told, and will forever remain
undetermined. The only fact in which history can repose with certainty
is that some liquor must have been _given_ away, since nobody in
the neighbourhood of Clary's Grove could keep store without offering the
customary dram to the patrons of the place. When taxed on the platform
by his rival, Douglas, with having sold liquor, Mr. Lincoln replied that
if he figured on one side of the counter, Douglas figured on the other.
"As a storekeeper," says Mr. Ellis, "Mr. Lincoln wore flax and tow linen
pantaloons--I thought about five inches too short in the legs--and
frequently he had but one suspender, no vest or coat. He had a calico
shirt such as he had in the Black Hawk War; coarse brogues, tan-colour;
blue yarn socks, a straw hat, old style, and without a band." It is
recorded that he preferred dealing with men and boys, and disliked to
wait on the ladies. Possibly, if his attire has been rightly described,
the ladies, even the Clary's Grove ladies, may have reciprocated the
feeling.
In storekeeping, however, Mr. Lincoln did not prosper; neither
storekeeping nor any other regular business or occupation was congenial
to his character. He was born to be a politician. Accordingly he began
to read law, with which he combined surveying, at which we are assured
he made himself "expert" by a six weeks' course of study. They mix
trades a little in the West. We expected on turning the page to find
that Mr. Lincoln had also taken up surgery and performed the Caesarean
operation. The few law books needed for Western practice were supplied
to him by a kind friend at Springfield, and according to a witness who
has evidently an accurate memory for details, "he went to read law in
1832 or 1833 barefooted, seated in the shade of a tree and would grind
around with the shade, just opposite Berry's grocery store, a few feet
south of the door, occasionally lying flat on his back and putting his
feet up the tree." Evidently, whatever he read, especially of a
practical kind, he made thoroughly his own. It is needless to say that
he did not become a master of scientific jurisprudence, but it seems
that he did become an effective Western advocate. What is more, there is
conclusive testimony to the fact that he was--what has been scandalously
alleged to be rare, even in the United States--an honest lawyer. "Love
of justice and fair play," says one of his brothers of the bar, "was his
predominant trait. I have often listened to him when I thought he would
state his case out of Court. It was not in his nature to assume or
attempt to bolster up a false position. He would abandon his case first.
He did so in the case of _Buckmaster for the use of Durham v. Beener &
Arthur_, in our Supreme Court, in which I happened to be opposed to
him. Another gentleman, less fastidious, took Mr. Lincoln's place and
gained the case." His power as an advocate seems to have depended on his
conviction that the right was on his side. "Tell Harris it's no use to
_waste money on me_; in that case, he'll get beat." In a larceny
case he took those who were counsel with him for the defence aside and
said, "If you can say anything for the man do it. I can't. If I attempt
it, the jury will see that I think he is guilty and convict him of
course." In another case he proved an account for his client, who,
though he did not know it, was a rogue. The counsel on the other side
proved a receipt. By the time he had done Lincoln was missing; and on
the Court sending for him, he replied, "Tell the judge I can't come; my
hands are dirty, and I came over to clean them." Mr. Herndon, who
visited Lincoln's office on business, gives the following reminiscence:
--"Mr. Lincoln was seated at his table, listening very attentively to a
man who was talking earnestly in a low tone. After the would-be client
had stated the facts of the case, Mr. Lincoln replied, 'yes, there is no
reasonable doubt but that I can gain your case for you. I can set a
whole neighbourhood at logger heads; I can distress a widowed mother and
her six fatherless children, and thereby get for you six hundred
dollars, which rightly belongs, it appears to me, as much to the woman
and her children as it does to you. You must remember that some things
that are legally right are not morally right. I shall not take your case
but will give you a bit of advice, for which I will charge you nothing.
You seem to be a sprightly, energetic man. I would advise you to try
your hand at making six hundred dollars in some other way.'" On one
occasion, however, Lincoln, we believe it must be admitted, resorted to
sharp practice. William Armstrong, the son of Jack Armstrong, of Clary's
Grove, inheriting, as it seems, the "abundant animal spirits" of his
father, committed, as was universally believed, a very brutal murder at
a camp meeting, and being brought to trial was in imminent peril of the
halter. Lincoln volunteered to defend him. The witness whose testimony
bore hardest on the prisoner swore that he saw the murder committed by
the light of the moon. Lincoln put in an almanac, which, on reference
being made to it showed that at the time stated by the witness there was
no moon. This broke down the witness and the prisoner was acquitted. It
was not observed at the moment that the almanac was one of the year
previous to the murder; and therefore morally a fabrication. Herculean
efforts are made to prove that _two_ almanacs were produced and
that Mr. Lincoln was innocent of any deception. But the best plea, we
conceive, is, that Mr. Lincoln had rocked William Armstrong in the
cradle.