“What made the deepest impression upon you?” inquired a friend one day,
“when you stood in the presence of the Falls of Niagara, the greatest of
natural wonders?”
“The thing that struck me most forcibly when I saw the Falls,” Lincoln
responded, with characteristic deliberation, “was, where in the world
did all that water come from?”
“LONG ABE” FOUR YEARS LONGER.
The second election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency of the United
States was the reward of his courage and genius bestowed upon him by the
people of the Union States. General George B. McClellan was his opponent
in 1864 upon the platform that “the War is a failure,” and carried but
three States--New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky. The States which did
not think the War was a failure were those in New England, New York,
Pennsylvania, all the Western commonwealths, West Virginia, Tennessee,
Louisiana, Arkansas and the new State of Nevada, admitted into the Union
on October 31st. President Lincoln’s popular majority over McClellan,
who never did much toward making the War a success, was more than four
hundred thousand. Underneath the cartoon reproduced here, from “Harper’s
Weekly” of November 26th, 1864, were the words, “Long Abraham Lincoln a
Little Longer.”
But the beloved President’s time upon earth was not to be much longer,
as he was assassinated just one month and ten days after his second
inauguration. Indeed, the words, “a little longer,” printed below the
cartoon, were strangely prophetic, although not intended to be such.
The people of the United States had learned to love “Long Abe,” their
affection being of a purely personal nature, in the main. No other Chief
Executive was regarded as so sincerely the friend of the great mass of
the inhabitants of the Republic as Lincoln. He was, in truth, one of
“the common people,” having been born among them, and lived as one of
them.
Lincoln’s great height made him an easy subject for the cartoonist, and
they used it in his favor as well as against him.
“ALL SICKER’N YOUR MAN.”
A Commissioner to the Hawaiian Islands was to be appointed, and eight
applicants had filed their papers, when a delegation from the South
appeared at the White House on behalf of a ninth. Not only was their
man fit--so the delegation urged--but was also in bad health, and a
residence in that balmy climate would be of great benefit to him.
The President was rather impatient that day, and before the members of
the delegation had fairly started in, suddenly closed the interview with
this remark:
“Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that there are eight other applicants for
that place, and they are all ‘sicker’n’ your man.”