bankers who had been sent to the Peace Congress called upon Lincoln to
remonstrate against the use of force to restrain the South, and to plead
for a conciliatory policy towards the slave-holders. Mr. William E.
Dodge declared that the whole world was anxiously awaiting the inaugural
address, and added, "It is for you, sir, to say whether the nation shall
be plunged into bankruptcy, and whether the grass shall grow in the
streets of our commercial cities."
"Then I say it shall not," Lincoln answered coolly, with a twinkle in
his eye. "If it depends upon me, the grass will not grow anywhere except
in the fields and meadows."
"Then you must yield to the just demands of the South," declared Mr.
Dodge." You must leave her to control her own institutions. You will
admit slave States into the Union on the same conditions as free States.
You will not go to war on account of slavery."
A sad but stern expression swept over Lincoln's face. "I do not know
that I understand your meaning, Mr. Dodge," he answered, without raising
his voice; "nor do I know what my acts or my opinions may be in the
future, beyond this. If I ever come to the great office of the President
of the United States, I shall take an oath. I shall swear that I will
faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States, and
that I will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend
the Constitution of the United States. That is a great and solemn duty.
With the support of the people and the assistance of the Almighty I
shall undertake to perform it. It is not the Constitution as I should
like to have it, but as it is, that is to be defended. The Constitution
will be preserved and defended until it is enforced and obeyed in every
part of every one of the United States. It must be so respected, obeyed,
and enforced and defended, let the grass grow where it may."
In 1862 the people of New York City feared bombardment by Confederate
cruisers, and public meetings were held to consider the gravity of
the situation. Finally a delegation of fifty gentlemen, representing
hundreds of millions of dollars, was selected to go to Washington and
persuade the President to detail a gunboat to protect their property.
David Davis, while on the Supreme Bench, went to the White House and
presented them to the President.
Mr. Lincoln heard them attentively, much impressed, apparently, by the
"hundreds of millions." When they had concluded, he said,--
"Gentlemen, I am, by the Constitution, Commander-in-Chief of the Army
and the Navy of the United States, and as a matter of law I can order
anything to be done that is practicable to be done. I am in command of
the gunboats and ships of war; but, as a matter of fact, I do not know
exactly where they are. I presume they are actively engaged, and it
therefore is impossible for me to furnish you a gunboat. The credit of
the government is at a very low ebb; greenbacks are not worth more than
forty or fifty cents on the dollar, and in this condition of things, if
I were worth half as much as you gentlemen are represented to be, and as
badly frightened as you seem to be, I would build a gunboat and give it
to the government."
Judge Davis said he never saw one hundred millions sink to such
insignificant proportions as it did when the delegation left the White
House.
X
LINCOLN'S PHILOSOPHY, MORALS, AND RELIGION
Abraham Lincoln has left us abundant testimony in words and works of
his code of morals and religious creed. He was a man of keen perception
of right and wrong, of acute conscience and deep religious sentiment,
although he was not "orthodox." He declined to join a church because
of conscientious scruples. He would not confess a faith that was not
in him. His reason forbade him to accept some of the doctrines taught
by the Baptist and Christian churches, to which his parents belonged,
and the Presbyterian denomination, of which his wife was a member.
Nevertheless, he was regular and reverential in his attendance upon
worship. Shortly after his marriage he rented a pew in the First
Presbyterian Church of Springfield, and occupied it with his wife and
children at the service each Sunday morning unless detained by illness.
In Washington he was an habitual attendant of the New York Avenue
Presbyterian Church, and his pastor, the Reverend Dr. Gurley, who
was also his intimate friend, tells us that he was "a true believer"
and "entirely without guile." One of Lincoln's mental traits was his
inability to accept or put aside a proposition until he understood it.
His conscience required him to see his way clearly before making a
start, and his honesty of soul would not allow him to make a pretence
that was not well founded. No consideration or argument would induce him
to abandon a line of conduct or accept a theory which his analytical
powers or sense of caution taught him to doubt.
From his mother he inherited a rigid honesty which was demanded by
public opinion in early days and was the safeguard of the frontier.
There were no locks upon the cabin doors nor upon the stables. A man
who committed a theft would not be tolerated in a community, and if
he took a horse or a cow or any article which was necessary for the
sustenance of a family he was outlawed, if he escaped with his life.
Merchants never thought of locking up their stores, and often left
them entirely unprotected for days at a time while they went to the
nearest source of supply to replenish their stock or were absent for
other reasons. If their patrons found no one to serve them, they helped
themselves, and, as prices varied little from year to year, they were
able to judge for themselves of the value of the goods, and reported the
purchase and paid the bill the next time they found the merchant at home.
When Abraham Lincoln was clerking for Denton Offutt, he walked three
miles one evening after the store was closed to return a sixpence which
had been overpaid. On another occasion he gave four ounces for half a
pound of tea and delivered the difference before he slept. For this and
other acts of the same sort he became known as "Honest Old Abe," but he
was no more conspicuous for that quality than many of his neighbors. He
was the type and representative of a community which not only respected
but required honesty, and were extremely critical and intolerant
towards moral delinquencies. Accustomed all their lives to face danger
and grapple with the mysterious forces of nature, their personal and
moral courage were qualities without which no man could be a leader
or have influence. A liar, a coward, a swindler, and an insincere man
were detected and branded with public contempt. Courage and truth were
commonplace and recognized as essential to manhood.
Abraham Lincoln's originality, fearlessness, and self-confidence, his
unerring perceptions of right and wrong, made him a leader and gave
him an influence which other men did not have. He was born in the same
poverty and ignorance, he grew up in the same environment, and his
muscles were developed by the same labor as his neighbors', but his
mental powers were much keener and acute, his ambition was much higher,
and a consciousness of intellectual superiority sustained him in his
efforts to rise above his surroundings and take the place his genius
warranted. Throughout his entire life he adhered to the code of the
frontier. As a lawyer he would not undertake a case unless it was a good
one. He often said he was a very poor man on a poor case. His sense of
justice had to be aroused before he could do his best. If his client
were wrong, he endeavored to settle the dispute the best way he could
without going into court; if the evidence had been misrepresented to
him, he would throw up the case in the midst of the trial and return the
fee. The public knowledge of that fact gave him great influence with the
courts and kept bad clients away from him.
To a man who once offered him a case the merits of which he did not
appreciate, he made, according to his partner, Mr. Herndon, the
following response:
"Yes, there is no reasonable doubt that I can gain your case for you. I
can set a whole neighborhood at loggerheads; I can distress a widowed
mother and her six fatherless children, and thereby get for you six
hundred dollars which rightly belong, it appears to me, as much to them
as it does to you. I shall not take your case, but I will give you a
little advice for nothing. You seem a sprightly, energetic man. I would
advise you to try your hand at making six hundred dollars in some other
way."
He carried this code of morals into the Legislature, and there are
several current anecdotes of his refusal to engage in schemes that were
not creditable. On one occasion a caucus was held for consultation over
a proposition Lincoln did not approve. The discussion lasted until
midnight, but he took no part in it. Finally, an appeal was made to
him by his colleagues, who argued that the end would justify the means.
Lincoln closed the debate and defined his own position by saying,--
"You may burn my body to ashes and scatter them to the winds of heaven;
you may drag my soul down to the regions of darkness and despair to be
tormented forever; but you will never get me to support a measure which
I believe to be wrong, although by doing so I may accomplish that which
I believe to be right."
Lincoln did not often indulge in hysterical declamation, but that
sentence is worth quoting because it contains his moral code.
As President he was called upon to deliver a reprimand to an officer who
had been tried by court-martial for quarrelling. It was probably the
"gentlest," say his biographers, Nicolay and Hay, "ever recorded in the
annals of penal discourses." It was as follows:
"The advice of a father to his son, 'Beware of entrance to a quarrel,
but, being in, bear it that the opposed may beware of thee!' is good,
but not the best. Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most
of himself can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he
afford to take all the consequences, including the vitiating of his
temper and the loss of self-control. Yield larger things to which you
can show no more than equal right, and yield lesser ones, though clearly
your own. Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in
contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite."
Even as a boy in Indiana he acquired a reputation for gentleness,
kindness, and good-nature. He was appealed to by people in trouble, and
his great physical strength and quick intelligence made him a valuable
aid on all occasions. Once he saved the life of the town drunkard,
whom he found freezing by the roadside on a winter night. Picking
him up in his arms, he carried him to the nearest tavern and worked
over him until he revived. The people who lived in the neighborhood
of Gentryville, Indiana, and New Salem, Illinois, where his early
life was spent, have many traditions of his unselfishness and helpful
disposition. He chopped wood for poor widows and sat up all night with
the sick; if a wagon stuck in the mud, he was always the first to offer
assistance, and his powerful arms were equal to those of any three men
in the town. When he was living at the Rutledge tavern at New Salem he
was always willing to give up his bed to a traveller when the house
was full, and to sleep on a counter in his store. He never failed to
be present at a "moving," and would neglect his own business to help a
neighbor out of difficulty. His sympathetic disposition and tender tact
enabled him to enter the lives of the people and give them assistance
without offence, and he was never so happy as when he was doing good.
His religious training was limited. His father and mother, while in
Kentucky, belonged to the sect known as Free-will Baptists, and when
they went to Indiana they became members of the Predestinarian Church,
as it was called; not from any change in belief, but because it was the
only denomination in the neighborhood. Public worship was very rare,
being held only when an itinerant preacher visited that section. Notice
of his approach would be sent throughout the neighborhood for twenty
miles around, and the date would be fixed as far in advance as possible.
When the preacher appeared he would find the entire population gathered
in camp at the place of meeting, which was usually at cross-roads
where there were fodder for the horses and water for man and beast.
After morning preaching people from the same neighborhood or intimate
acquaintances would gather in groups, open their lunch-baskets, and
picnic together. At the afternoon service children and "confessors"
would be baptized, and towards night the party would separate for their
homes, refreshed in faith and uplifted in spirit.
When Thomas Lincoln removed to Illinois he united with the Christian
church commonly called "Campbellites," and in that faith he died.
Abraham Lincoln's belief was clear and fixed so far as it went, but he
rejected important dogmas which are considered essential to salvation
by some of the evangelistic denominations. "Whenever any church will
inscribe over its altar as a qualification for membership the Saviour's
statement of the substance of the law and Gospel, 'Thou shall love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind, and thy neighbour as thyself,' that church will I join with all my
heart and soul."
He was an habitual reader of the Bible. He was more familiar with its
contents than most clergymen, and considered it the highest example of
literature in existence as well as the highest code of morals. His study
of the Bible and familiarity with its pages are shown in his literary
style and frequent quotations. In 1864 he wrote his old friend, Joshua
Speed, "I am profitably engaged reading the Bible. Take all of this book
upon reason that you can and the balance upon faith and you will live
and die a better man."
He had no sympathy with theologians. He frequently declared that it was
blasphemy for a preacher to "twist the words of Christ around so as to
sustain his own doctrine," and often remarked that "the more a man knew
of theology the farther he got away from the true spirit of Christ."
"John," he one day said to a friend, "it depends a great deal how you
state a case. When Daniel Webster did it, it was half argument. Now,
you take the subject of predestination, for example. You may state it
one way and you cannot make much out of it; you state it another and it
seems quite reasonable."
When he was a young man at New Salem in 1834 Thomas Paine's "Age of
Reason" and Volney's "Ruines" made a great impression upon him, and
he prepared a review of these books, which it is supposed he intended
to read before a literary society that had been organized in the
neighborhood. His friend, Samuel Hill, with his old-fashioned notions
of atheism, got hold of the manuscript and burned it. Lincoln was quite
indignant at the time, but afterwards admitted that Hill had done him
a service. This incident has often been cited as evidence that Lincoln
was an agnostic, just as other incidents in his life have been used
to prove that he was a spiritualist, and still others that he was a
Freemason; but he was none of them. He commended Masonry, but never
joined that order; his inquisitive mind led him to investigate certain
spiritualistic phenomena, and his essay at New Salem was nothing more
than a presentation of the views of two famous unbelievers without
personal endorsement.
Like Napoleon, Wellington, Bismarck, and other famous men, Lincoln was
very superstitious. That peculiarity appeared frequently during his
life. Even to the very day of his death, as related in Chapter VII., he
told his Cabinet and General Grant of a dream which he was accustomed to
have before important events in the war. A curious incident is related
in his own language:
"A very singular occurrence took place the day I was nominated at
Chicago, four years ago, of which I am reminded to-night. In the
afternoon of the day, returning home from down town, I went upstairs
to Mrs. Lincoln's reading-room. Feeling somewhat tired, I lay down
upon a couch in the room, directly opposite a bureau, upon which was
a looking-glass. As I reclined, my eye fell upon the glass, and I saw
distinctly two images of myself, exactly alike, except that one was a
little paler than the other. I arose, and lay down again with the same
result. It made me quite uncomfortable for a few moments, but, some
friends coming in, the matter passed out of my mind. The next day, while
walking on the street, I was suddenly reminded of the circumstance,
and the disagreeable sensation produced by it returned. I had never
seen anything of the kind before, and did not know what to make of it.
I determined to go home and place myself in the same position, and if
the same effect was produced, I would make up my mind that it was the
natural result of some principle of refraction of optics which I did not
understand, and dismiss it. I tried the experiment, with a like result;
and, as I had said to myself, accounting for it on some principle
unknown to me, it ceased to trouble me. But some time ago I tried to
produce the same effect here by arranging a glass and couch in the same
position, without success."
He did not say, at this time, that either he or Mrs. Lincoln attached
any significance to the phenomenon, but it is known that Mrs. Lincoln
regarded it as a sign that the President would be re-elected.
President Lincoln once invited a famous medium to display his alleged
supernatural powers at the White House, several members of the Cabinet
being present. For the first half-hour the demonstrations were of
a physical character. At length rappings were heard beneath the
President's feet, and the medium stated that an Indian desired to
communicate with him.
"I shall be happy to hear what his Indian majesty has to say," replied
the President, "for I have very recently received a deputation of our
red brethren, and it was the only delegation, black, white, or blue,
which did not volunteer some advice about the conduct of the war."
The medium then called for a pencil and paper, which were laid upon the
table and afterwards covered with a handkerchief. Presently knocks were
heard and the paper was uncovered. To the surprise of all present, it
read as follows:
"Haste makes waste, but delays cause vexations. Give vitality by energy.
Use every means to subdue. Proclamations are useless. Make a bold
front and fight the enemy; leave traitors at home to the care of loyal
men. Less note of preparation, less parade and policy talk, and more
action.--Henry Knox."
"That is not Indian talk," said the President. "Who is Henry Knox?"
The medium, speaking in a strange voice, replied, "The first Secretary
of War."
"Oh, yes; General Knox," said the President. "Stanton, that message is
for you; it is from your predecessor. I should like to ask General Knox
when this rebellion will be put down."
The answer was oracularly indefinite. The medium then called up
Napoleon, who thought one thing, Lafayette another, and Franklin
differed from both.
"Ah!" exclaimed the President; "opinions differ among the saints as
well as among the sinners. Their talk is very much like the talk of my
Cabinet. I should like, if possible, to hear what Judge Douglas says
about this war," said the President.
After an interval, the medium rose from his chair and, resting his left
hand on the back, his right into his bosom, spoke in a voice no one
could mistake who had ever heard Mr. Douglas. He urged the President to
throw aside all advisers who hesitated about the policy to be pursued,
and said that, if victory were followed up by energetic action, all
would be well.
"I believe that," said the President, "whether it comes from spirit or
human. It needs not a ghost from the bourne from which no traveller
returns to tell that."
His taint of superstition, like his tendency to melancholy, was
doubtless inherited from his ancestors and was shared by all sensitive
people whose lives were spent in the mysterious solitude and isolation
of the Western frontier. It is manifested by the denizens of the
forests, the mountains, and the plains, and wherever else sensitive
natures are subjected to loneliness and the company of their own
thoughts. Lincoln's mind was peculiarly sensitive to impressions; his
nature was intensely sympathetic, his imagination was vivid, and his
observation was keen and comprehensive. With all his candor, he was
reticent and secretive in matters that concerned himself, and the
struggle of his early life, his dismal and depressing surroundings,
the death of his mother, and the physical conditions in which he was
born and bred were just the influences to develop the morbid tendency
which was manifested on several occasions in such a manner as to cause
anxiety and even alarm among his friends. He realized the danger of
submitting to it, and the cure invented and prescribed by himself was to
seek for the humorous side of every event and incident and to read all
the humorous books he could find.
His poetic temperament was developed early and frequently manifested
while he was in the White House. He loved melancholy as well as humorous
poems. He could repeat hymns by the hundreds, and quoted Dr. Watts' and
John Wesley's verses as frequently as he did Shakespeare or Petroleum V.
Nasby or Artemas Ward. His favorite poem was "Oh! Why should the Spirit
of Mortal be Proud."
Judge Weldon, of the Court of Claims, remembers the first time he heard
him repeat it. "It was during a term of court, in the same year, at
Lincoln, a little town named for Mr. Lincoln. We were all stopping at
the hotel, which had a very big room with four beds, called the lawyers'
room. Some of us thin fellows doubled up; but I remember that Judge
Davis, who was as large then as he was afterwards, when a Justice of the
Supreme Bench, always had a bed to himself. Mr. Lincoln was an early
riser, and one morning, when up early, as usual, and dressed, he sat
before the big old-fashioned fireplace and repeated aloud from memory
that whole hymn. Somebody asked him for the name of the author; but he
said he had never been able to learn who wrote it, but wished he knew.
There were a great many guesses, and some said that Shakespeare must
have written it. But Mr. Lincoln, who was better read in Shakespeare
than any of us, said that they were not Shakespeare's words. I made
a persistent hunt for the author, and years after found the hymn was
written by an Englishman, William Knox, who was born in 1789 and died in
1825."
All his life Lincoln was a temperance man. His first essay was a
plea for temperance. His second was a eulogy of the Declaration of
Independence. He belonged to the Sons of Temperance in Springfield, and
frequently made temperance speeches. Judge Weldon remembers that he was
once in Mr. Douglas's room at Springfield when Lincoln entered, and,
following the custom, Mr. Douglas produced a bottle and some glasses and
asked his callers to join him in a drink. Lincoln declined on the ground
that for thirty years he had been a temperance man and was too old to
change. Leonard Swett says,--
"He told me not more than a year before he was elected President that he
had never tasted liquor in his life. 'What!' I said, 'Do you mean to say
that you never tasted it?' 'Yes,' he replied, 'I never tasted it.'"
In one of his speeches is found this assertion: "Reasonable men have
long since agreed that intemperance is one of the greatest, if not the
greatest, of all evils of mankind."
Mr. C. C. Coffin, a famous newspaper writer of that time, who
accompanied the notification committee from the Chicago Convention to
Springfield, related in his newspaper a few days later an incident
that occurred on that occasion. He says that after the exchange of
formalities Lincoln said,--
"'Mrs. Lincoln will be pleased to see you, gentlemen. You will find her
in the other room. You must be thirsty after your long ride. You will
find a pitcher of water in the library.'