I. BUSINESS NOT HARMONIOUS WITH THE STRUGGLE FOR LEARNING
The people believed in Lincoln and that made him believe in himself,
but they would never have believed in him if they had not seen the
unchanging conduct that is necessary for human confidence. If the
people had not believed in him he would never have had the confidence
to develop his way of life, able at last to face the world-making
problems of the great Civil War, and thus to hold to a course of
conduct, which he knew to be right, against the hisses, slander and
desperate intrigue of men and masses, who knew that he was making a
civilization in America contrary to their mercenary interests and
their customary moral standards.
Business men are devoted to the business game. Otherwise the play is
poor business. So, the man whose happiness was in learning could not
be a business man. The store did not pay. As Lincoln was compelled to
earn his living at other work, the management of the store was
entirely in the hands of Berry, with whom it went from bad to worse
until two brothers offered to buy out the business. The store was
sold, not for cash, but for notes covering the amount.
When the notes became due, the two brothers fled. The store was closed
by the creditors, the goods were auctioned off, and a heavy remaining
debt was against Berry and Lincoln. Soon after this Berry died and all
the debt was against Lincoln. Now was the time for him "to skip the
country," as was the custom. But he did not "clear out" and therewith
beat his creditors out of the debt of eleven hundred dollars.
Lincoln told a friend that this debt, in many ways an unjust one,
because he did not make it, was "the greatest obstacle I ever met in
life. I had no way of speculating, and could not earn money, except by
labor; and to earn by labor eleven hundred dollars, besides the
interest and my living, seemed the work of a lifetime." It did,
indeed, take all he could earn above his living for seventeen years.
But he did it. He paid the debt in full. The moral system in his soul
was never sold for the mess of pottage in any temporary distress. "To
thyself be true," says Shakespeare, "and it follows, as the night the
day, thou canst not be false to any man." Many think themselves to be
an emotion, or a tired feeling, or a fool ambition, or a will to do
something, but it is not so. My self is a system, an identity, an
integrity, a consistency, that has no hour, or day, or year, but at
least a life time.
One of Lincoln's creditors, who was like Shylock, demanded his exact
dues the exact time they were due. He sued Lincoln and got judgment,
so that the surveyor's tools, and everything by which he made his
living were seized and put up for sale by auction.
Lincoln's friends gathered at the sale without saying anything about
what they would or would not do. The demand was for one hundred and
twenty dollars. Very few could spare any such sum. But the things,
horse, saddle, surveying instruments, etc., were all bought in by
James Short, a farmer living on Sand Ridge, just north of New Salem.
Then this farmer turned them all over to Lincoln. That benevolent
farmer did not know what he was doing for his country when he did
that, but it was a great deed.
A few years later James Short moved out to California. For some reason
he had lost most of his property and had become a poor man. When
Lincoln became president he heard of the distress "Uncle Jimmy" was in
and one day the old man received a letter from Washington. Opening
it, he found an appointment from Lincoln as commissioner to the
Indians.
II. MAKING A LIVING AND LEARNING THE MEANING OF LIFE
Lincoln belonged to the Whig political party, but he was appointed
postmaster by the Democratic administration in 1833. That there was
not much mail may be inferred from the fact that it would cost
twenty-five cents, in those scarce times, to send a letter or the
ordinary magazine of today from any distance around of four hundred
miles. His kindliness of spirit is well illustrated in the fact that
he delivered most of the mail himself, knowing how precious it was to
the person addressed.
As postmaster, Lincoln had to make an accounting to the government for
its share of money received, and this was to be receipted for by the
postoffice agent. There was much chance for graft, and especially so
in this case, as the agent to settle the business did not appear. It
was not till Lincoln became a practicing lawyer in Springfield that
the agent called upon him to close up his accounts as postmaster at
New Salem.
The postoffice inspector produced a claim for seventeen dollars.
Lincoln paused a moment as if perplexed to remember just what it was.
A friend, seeing this, thought it was because Lincoln did not have the
money, and so offered to lend him that amount. Without answering,
Lincoln went to his trunk and brought out a package containing the
exact amount, put away all that time, awaiting the business call of
the postoffice agent.
As he turned over the money and received the receipt, he said, "I
never use any man's money but my own."
It is interesting to note that both Washington and Lincoln became
surveyors just before the opening of their great careers. It can be
reasonably said that, by analogy, and even by contrast, they were also
great surveyors for the rights of mankind.
Sangamon County was settling up so rapidly that John Calhoun, the
official surveyor, could not do the required work. He had heard of
Lincoln as being capable of doing almost anything required, so he sent
for him to come and take the position of deputy surveyor.
Lincoln, so far, had studied human beings and law. He knew nothing
about mathematics, much less about surveying, probably not more than
he knew about military tactics when he was elected captain. But he
knew he could learn what any one else had learned. He bought a book on
surveying and stayed with it almost day and night. He borrowed
wherever he could hear of a book on surveying. In six weeks he had
mastered the subject so that the many surveys he afterward made were
never disputed and were always found to be correct.
It is said that he was too poor at first to buy a surveyor's chain and
so used a grapevine. But even a grapevine in the hands of Lincoln told
the truth about measurements, and the town of Petersburg, Illinois, is
proud of having been surveyed and laid out by Lincoln.
III. OUT OF THE WILDERNESS PATHS INTO THE GREAT HIGHWAY
The Great Teacher in his "Sermon on the Mount," said, "Blessed are
they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be
filled." If that destitute boy had not hungered and thirsted after
right knowledge, the whole history of America, after his time, would
have been different. But what boy would read, or what other boy ever
did read such a book as the "Revised Statutes of Indiana?" To be sure,
not the boy who is most interested in getting merely the most pleasure
out of life, but the one who has a great desire to be useful and
worthwhile in the world.
The next book that deeply impressed his career and probably had most
to do with developing him to influence profoundly the history of our
country was that beginning of every lawyer's life, "Blackstone's
Commentaries."
This is the way Lincoln tells it himself: "One day a man, who was
migrating to the West, drove up in front of my store with a wagon
which contained his family and household plunder. He asked me if I
would buy an old barrel, for which he had no room in his wagon, which
he said contained nothing of value. I did not want it, but, to oblige
him, I bought it, and paid him, I think, a half-dollar. Without
further examination I put it away in the store, and forgot all about
it. Some time after, in overhauling things, I came upon the barrel,
and, emptying it upon the floor to see what it contained, I found at
the bottom of the rubbish a complete edition of Blackstone's
Commentaries. I began reading those famous works and the more I read
the more intensely interested I became. Never in my whole life was my
mind so thoroughly absorbed."
[Illustration: First Inauguration of Lincoln as President.]
It was that interest which made the man and the great historical
character of Lincoln. One lives according to his interest in life, and
the meaning realized in him as humanity.
In 1834 Lincoln again tried for the legislature, and this time was
elected. This gave him his long desired opportunity to study law. He
borrowed books and read them incessantly until he mastered them. He
never studied law with any one, as was the custom in those days. He
did not require a teacher to lay out or explain his mental tasks.
To a young man who asked him, twenty years later, how to become a
successful lawyer, he said, "Get books. Read and study them carefully.
Work, work, work is the main thing."
IV. LINCOLN'S FIRST LAW CASES
One of the first important law cases of Lincoln in its claims sounds
remarkably like the unsolved problems of today, and shows how rights
have to be developed year by year, how the public mind has to be built
up from idea to idea like an individual mind.
A public-spirited attempt was made to build a bridge across the upper
Mississippi. The boatmen declared it to be an invasion of human
rights, as they had vested interests at stake in the business they had
built up, ferrying people across the river. They declared that a man
was an enemy of the people who would try to destroy business. But
Lincoln won the case against them in favor of building the bridge for
the larger interest of the people.
In another significant case he set a legal precedent. A negro girl had
been sold in the free territory of Illinois. A note had been given for
her but the maker of the note could not pay it when it became due and
was sued for it.
Lincoln defended the maker of the note on the ground that the note was
invalid because a human being could not be bought and sold in
Illinois. The case was carried to the Supreme Court, where it was
decided that Lincoln's view of the case was correct law.
Another experience has still greater significance as to the
professional character of Lincoln. He was engaged as counsel in a
reaper patent case. It was to be tried at Cincinnati. The opposing
counsel was an eminent lawyer from the East. Lincoln's friends were
eager for him to win this case, as it would give him great renown and
prestige.
His client had four hundred thousand dollars at stake, an enormous
sum at that time, and the capitalist became frightened at the great
talent arrayed against Lincoln. He called in the services of a
correspondingly great Eastern lawyer, Edwin M. Stanton. This eminent
man was shocked at the sight of his colleague, Lincoln. He took entire
control of the case and not only ignored Lincoln, but openly insulted
him. Lincoln, through an open door in the hotel, heard Stanton
scornfully exclaim to the client who had employed Lincoln, "Where did
that long-armed creature come from and what can he expect to do in
this case?"
At another time Stanton spoke of Lincoln as "a long, lank creature
from Illinois, wearing a dirty linen duster for a coat, on the back of
which the perspiration had splotched wide stains that resembled a map
of the continent."
Lincoln, completely discouraged and thrown out of any possible council
with a man thus against him, quit the case and sorrowfully returned to
Illinois.
And yet, only a few years later, in the great crisis of approaching
disunion, Lincoln became President of the United States and he made
Stanton his Secretary of War. Very soon Stanton learned to prize "the
long-armed creature" as one of the noblest and greatest men in the
world. No one of Lincoln's colleagues ever questioned his superior
leadership as the supreme chief in a struggle profoundly affecting
all civilization and human government.
When we consider how Lincoln worked his way up, through such
destitution of knowledge and means, in twenty-five years,
from a five-dollar suit before a justice of the peace to a
five-thousand-dollar fee before the Supreme Court of the United
States, we know that such progress does not come about by accident nor
political fortunes, but by sheer interest and work.
V. THE MAN WHO COULD NOT LIVE FOR SELF ALONE
Henry Cabot Lodge says, "Lincoln could have said with absolute truth,
as Seneca's Pilot says, in Montaigne's paraphrase, 'Oh, Neptune, thou
mayest save me if thou wilt; thou mayest sink me if thou wilt; but
whatever may befall I shall hold my tiller true.'"
The moral process of his life, in which the recorded incidents are
only way-marks, is the only worthwhile interest for the American youth
or for the newcomer to our shores.
Lincoln's life-creed may be taken from a statement he has made of his
personal duty. "I am not bound to win," he said, "but I am bound to be
true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to the
light I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right. I must
stand with him while he is right, and I must part with him when he is
wrong."
That this does not mean infallible individual judgment executed at any
cost as imperial individual will may be inferred from the beginning of
the statement, but it does mean the infallible integrity of honest
conscience and character.
Lincoln had a conscience that was like harmony in music, and he could
not uphold a wrong thing any more than he could intentionally use a
wrong figure and hope to solve correctly his problem.
As an illustrating incident, one of his clients wanted to bring suit
against a widow with six children for six hundred dollars.
"Yes," said Lincoln, "there is no reasonable doubt that I can win this
case for you; I can set the whole neighborhood at loggerheads; I can
greatly distress a widow and her six fatherless children, and thereby
gain six hundred dollars for you which I can see belongs to them with
about as much right as to you, but I'll give you a little advice for
nothing. Try some other way to get six hundred dollars."
Like the rich man who went away so disturbed from the advice of
Christ, this man went away sorrowing.
In another instance Lincoln started in with a case believing his
client innocent, then he reached the belief that the man was guilty.
Turning to his associates in the case, he said, "Sweet, this man is
guilty. You defend him. I can't." The large fee in the case was
forfeited, but his self-respect, that nobility which carried him
through many great dark hours, was saved.
Once, when out with his lawyer-companions, he climbed a tree,
searching for a bird's nest, out of which two fledgelings had fallen.
His companions made sport of him for giving so much time and work to
such worthless things, but he exclaimed with such genuine feeling as
to silence them, "I could not have gone to sleep in peace if I had not
restored those little birds to their mother."
Lincoln liked to argue, and, to pass the time in a certain stage-coach
ride, he was arguing that every act, no matter how kind, was always
prompted by a selfish motive. About this time the stage passed a ditch
in which a pig was stuck fast in the mud. Lincoln asked the driver to
stop. He then jumped out and rescued the pig.
The passenger with whom Lincoln had been arguing thought that he now
had proof for his own side of the case.
"Now look here," he said as Lincoln climbed back into the stage, "you
can't say that was a selfish act."
"Yes, I can," replied Lincoln. "It was extremely selfish. If I had
left that little fellow sticking in the mud, it would have made me
uncomfortable till I forgot it. That's why I had to help him out."
General Littlefield says that one day a client came in with a very
profitable case for Lincoln. He told Lincoln his story. Lincoln
listened a little while and his look went up to the ceiling in a very
abstract way. Presently, he swung his chair around and said, "Well,
you have a pretty good case in technical law, but a pretty bad one in
equity and justice. You'll have to get some other fellow to win this
case for you. I couldn't do it. If I was talking to the jury in favor
of your case, I'd all the time be thinking, 'Lincoln, you're a liar,'
and I believe I'd forget myself and say it out loud."
Coleridge in his "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" might well have had
Lincoln in mind when he wrote,
"Farewell! Farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou wedding guest!
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."
That was Lincoln's religion, to love his fellow-men and his country.
In the turmoil of wrongs infesting the confusions that were
bewildering all minds at the close of the Civil War, all now know that
both North and South lost the noblest and most valued friend, the
ablest and wisest restorer, anywhere to be found in all the vast
regions of pain.