MR. HERNDON’S ESTIMATE OF MR. LINCOLN.
No one probably was better fitted to give a discriminating analysis of
Mr. Lincoln’s character than Mr. W. H. Herndon, for more than twenty
years his law-partner. From an address delivered at Springfield, Ill.,
Dec. 12, 1865, by that gentleman, I shall, therefore, quote freely,
without indorsing everything that is said, but submitting it as the
opinion of a man who knew Mr. Lincoln well:
“Mr. Lincoln read _less_ and thought _more_ than any man in his sphere
in America. No man can put his finger on any great book written in the
last or present century that he read. When young he read the Bible, and
when of age he read Shakespeare, This latter book was scarcely ever out
of his mind. Mr. Lincoln is acknowledged to have been a great man, but
the question is, What made him great? I repeat that he read less and
thought more than any man of his standing in America, if not in the
world. He possessed originality and power of thought in an eminent
degree. He was cautious, cool, concentrated, with continuity of
reflection; was patient and enduring. These are some of the grounds of
his wonderful success.
“Not only was nature, man, fact, and principle suggestive to Mr.
Lincoln--not only had he accurate and exact perceptions, but he was
causative; i.e., his mind ran back behind all facts, things, and
principles to their origin, history, and first cause,--to that point
where forces act at once as effect and cause. He would stop and stand in
the street and analyze a machine. He would whittle things to a point,
and then count the numberless inclined planes and their pitch, making
the point. Mastering and defining this, he would then cut that point
back and get a broad transverse section of his pine stick and point and
define that. Clocks, omnibuses, and language, paddle-wheels, and idioms,
never escaped his observation and analysis. Before he could form any
idea of anything--before he would express his opinion on any subject,
he must know it in origin and history, in substance and quality, in
magnitude and gravity. He must know his subject inside and outside,
upside and downside. He searched his own mind and nature thoroughly, as
I have often heard him say. He must analyze a sensation, an idea, and
words, and run them back to their origin, history, purpose, and
destiny.”
“All things, facts, and principles had to run through his crucible and
be tested by the fires of his analytic mind; and hence, when he did
speak, his utterances rang out gold-like--quick, keen, and current--upon
the counters of the understanding. He reasoned logically, through
analogy and comparison. All opponents dreaded him in his originality of
idea, condensation, definition, and force of expression, and woe be to
the man who hugged to his bosom a secret error if Mr. Lincoln got on the
chase of it! I say, woe to him! Time could hide the error in no nook or
corner of space in which he would not detect and expose it.”
“Mr. Lincoln was a peculiar man, having a peculiar mind. He was gifted
with a peculiarity--namely, a new lookout on nature. Everything had to
be newly created for him--facts newly gathered, newly arranged, and
newly classed. He had no faith, as already expressed. In order to
believe, he must see and feel and thrust his hand into the place. Such a
mind as this must act strongly,--must have its time. His forte and power
lay in his love of digging out for himself and hunting up for his own
mind its own food, to be assimilated unto itself; and then, in time, he
could and would form opinions and conclusions that no human power could
overthrow. They were as irresistible as iron thunder, as powerful as
logic embodied in mathematics.”
“An additional question naturally suggests itself here, and it is this:
Had Mr. Lincoln great, good common sense? Different persons of equal
capacity and honesty hold different views on this question--one class
answering in the affirmative and the other in the negative.
“These various opinions necessarily spring out of the question just
discussed. If the true test is that a man shall quickly, wisely, and
well judge the rapid rush and whirl of human transactions as accurately
as though indefinite time and proper conditions were at his disposal,
then I am compelled to follow the logic of things, and say that Mr.
Lincoln had no more than ordinary common sense. The world, men, and
their actions must be judged as they rush and pass along. They will not
wait on us--will not stay for our logic and analysis; they must be
seized as they run. We all our life act on the moment. Mr. Lincoln knew
himself, and never trusted his dollar or his fame on his casual
opinions--he never acted hastily on great matters.”
“The great predominating elements of Mr. Lincoln’s peculiar character
were--first, his great capacity and power of reason; secondly, his
excellent understanding; thirdly, an exalted idea of the sense of right
and equity; and fourthly, his intense veneration of what was true and
good. His reason ruled despotically all other faculties and qualities of
his mind. His conscience and heart were ruled by it. His conscience was
ruled by one faculty--reason; his heart was ruled by two
faculties--reason and conscience. I know it is generally believed that
Mr. Lincoln’s heart, his love and kindness, his tenderness and
benevolence were his ruling qualities; but this opinion is erroneous in
every particular. First, as to his reason. He dwelt in the mind; not in
the conscience, and not in the heart. He lived and breathed and acted
from his reason,--the throne of logic and the home of principle, the
realm of Deity in man. It is from this point that Mr. Lincoln must be
viewed. His views were correct and original. He was cautious not to be
deceived; he was patient and enduring. He had concentration and great
continuity of thought; he had a profound analytic power; his vision was
clear, and he was emphatically the master of statement. His pursuit of
the truth was indefatigable--terrible. He reasoned from his well-chosen
principles with such clearness, force, and compactness, that the tallest
intellects in the land bowed to him with respect. He was the strongest
man I ever saw--looking at him from the stand-point of his reason, the
throne of his logic. He came from that height with an irresistible and
crushing force. His printed speeches will prove this; but his speeches
before courts, especially before the Supreme Courts of the State and
Nation, would demonstrate it. Unfortunately none of them have been
preserved. Here he demanded time to think and prepare. The office of
reason is to determine the truth. Truth is the power of reason--the
child of reason. He loved and idolized truth for its own sake. It was
reason’s food.
“Conscience, the second great quality and forte of Mr. Lincoln’s
character, is that faculty which loves the just. Its office is justice;
right and equity are its correlatives. It decides upon all acts of all
people at all times. Mr. Lincoln had a deep, broad, living conscience.
His great reason told him what was true, good and bad, right, wrong,
just or unjust, and his conscience echoed back its decision; and it was
from this point that he acted and spoke and wove his character and fame
among us. His conscience ruled his heart; he was always just before he
was gracious. This was his motto--his glory; and this is as it should
be. It can not be truthfully said of any mortal man that he was always
just. Mr. Lincoln was not always just, but his general life was. It
follows that if Mr. Lincoln had great reason and great conscience, he
was an honest man. His great and general life was honest, and he was
justly and rightfully entitled to the appellation, ‘Honest Abe!’ Honesty
was his great polar star.
“Mr. Lincoln had also a good understanding, that is, the faculty that
understands and comprehends the exact state of things, their near and
remote relation. The understanding does not necessarily inquire for the
reason of things. I must here repeat that Mr. Lincoln was an odd and
original man; he lived by himself and out of himself. He could not
absorb. He was a very sensitive man, unobtrusive and gentlemanly, and
often hid himself in the common mass of men, in order to prevent the
discovery of his individuality. He had no insulting egotism and no
pompous pride; no haughtiness and no aristocracy. He was not
indifferent, however, to approbation and public opinion. He was not an
upstart and had no insolence. He was a meek, quiet, unobtrusive
gentleman. These qualities of his nature merged somewhat his identities.
Read Mr. Lincoln’s speeches, letters, messages, and proclamations; read
his whole record in his actual life, and you can not fail to perceive
that he had good understanding. He understood and fully comprehended
himself; and what he did, and why he did it, better than most living
men.”
* * * * *
“There are two opinions--radically different opinions--expressed about
Mr. Lincoln’s will by men of equal and much capacity. One opinion is
that he had _no_ will, and the other is that he was _all_
will--omnipotently so. These two opinions are loudly and honestly
affirmed. Mr. Lincoln’s mind loved the true, the right, and good--all
the great truths and principles in the mind of man. He loved the true
first, the right second, and the good the least. His mind struggled for
truths and his soul for substances. Neither in his heart nor in his soul
did he care for forms, methods, ways,--the _non_-substantial facts or
things. He could not by his very structure and formation in mind and
body care anything about them. He did not intensely or much care for
particular individual man--dollar, property, rank, order, manners, and
such like things. He had no avarice in his nature, or other like
vice.... What suited a little, narrow, critical mind, did not suit Mr.
Lincoln’s, any more than a child’s clothes did his body. Generally, Mr.
Lincoln did not take any interest in little local elections--town
meetings. He attended no gatherings that pertained to local or other
such interests, saving general political ones. He did not care (because
he could not in his nature) who succeeded to the presidency of this or
that Christian Association or Railroad Convention; who made the most
money; who was going to Philadelphia; when and for what; and what were
the costs of such a trip. He could not care who among friends got this
office or that--who got to be street inspector or alley commissioner. No
principle of goodness, of truth, or right was here. How could he be
moved by such things as these? He could not understand why men struggled
for such things. He made this remark to me one day--I think at
Washington: ‘If ever this free people--if this Government itself is ever
utterly demoralized, it will come from this human wriggle and struggle
for office; a way to live without work; from which nature I am not free
myself.’ It puzzled him a good deal at Washington to know and to get at
the root of this dread desire,--this contagious disease of national
robbery in the nation’s death-struggle.
“Because Mr. Lincoln could not feel any interest in such little things
as I have spoken of, nor feel any particular interest in the success of
those who were then struggling and wriggling, he was called
indifferent--nay, ungrateful--to his friends. Especially is this the
case with men who have aided Mr. Lincoln all their life. Mr. Lincoln
always and everywhere wished his friends well; he loved his friends, and
clung to them tenaciously, like iron to iron welded; yet he could not be
actively and energetically aroused to the true sense of his friends’
particularly strong feelings of anxiety for office. From this fact Mr.
Lincoln has been called ungrateful. He was not an ungrateful man by any
means. He may have been a cool man--a passive man in his general life;
yet he was not ungrateful. Ingratitude is too positive a word--it does
not convey the truth. Mr. Lincoln may not have measured his friendly
duties by the applicant’s hot desire; I admit this. He was not a selfish
man,--if by selfishness is meant that Mr. Lincoln would do any act, even
to promote himself to the Presidency, if by that act any human being was
wronged. If it is said that Abraham Lincoln preferred Abraham Lincoln to
any one else in the pursuit of his ambitions, and that, because of this,
he was a selfish man, then I can see no objections to such an idea, for
this is universal human nature.
“It must be remembered that Mr. Lincoln’s mind acted logically,
cautiously, and slowly. Now, having stated the above facts, the question
of his will and its power is easily solved. Be it remembered that Mr.
Lincoln cared nothing for simple facts, manners, modes, ways, and such
like things. Be it remembered, that he _did_ care for truth, for right,
for principle, for all that pertains to the good. In relation to simple
facts, unrelated to substance, forms, rules, methods, ways, manners, he
cared nothing; and if he could be aroused, he would do anything for
anybody at any time, as well foe as friend. As a politician he would
courteously grant all facts and forms--all non-essential things--to his
opponent. He did so because he did not care for them; they were rubbish,
husks, trash. On the question of substance, he hung and clung with all
his might. On questions of truth, justice, right, the good, on
principle--his will was as firm as steel and as tenacious as iron....
Ask Mr. Lincoln to do a wrong thing, and he would scorn the request; ask
him to do an unjust thing, and he would cry ‘Begone!’; ask him to
sacrifice his convictions of the truth, and his soul would indignantly
exclaim, ‘The world perish first!’”
* * * * *
“Mr. Lincoln sometimes walked our streets cheerily, good-humoredly,
perhaps joyously--and then it was, on meeting a friend, he cried, ‘How
d’ye?’ clasping one of his friend’s hands in both of his, giving a good,
hearty soul-welcome. Of a winter’s morning he might be seen stalking and
stilting it toward the market-house, basket on arm, his old gray shawl
wrapped around his neck, his little Willie or Tad running along at his
heels, asking a thousand little quick questions, which his father heard
not, not even then knowing that little Willie or Tad was there, so
abstracted was he. When he thus met a friend, he said that something put
him in mind of a story which he heard in Indiana or elsewhere, and tell
it he would, and there was no alternative but to listen.
“Thus, I say, stood and walked and looked this singular man. He was odd,
but when that gray eye and face, and every feature were lit up by the
inward soul in fires of emotion, _then_ it was that all those apparently
ugly features sprang into organs of beauty, or sunk themselves into a
sea of inspiration that sometimes flooded his face. Sometimes it
appeared to me that Lincoln’s soul was just fresh from the presence of
its Creator.”
“This man, this long, bony, wiry, sad man, floated into our county in
1831, in a frail canoe, down the north fork of the Sangamon River,
friendless, penniless, powerless, and alone--begging for work in this
city,--ragged, struggling for the common necessaries of life. This man,
this peculiar man, left us, in 1861, the President of the United States,
backed by friends and power, by fame and all human force; and it is well
to inquire _how?_
“To sum up, let us say, here is a sensitive, diffident, unobtrusive,
natural-made gentleman. His mind was strong and deep, sincere and
honest, patient and enduring; having no vices and having only negative
defects, with many positive virtues. His is a strong, honest, sagacious,
manly, noble life. He stands in the foremost rank of men in all
ages,--their equal,--one of the best types of this Christian
civilization.”