Dr. Holland, in his “Life of Abraham Lincoln,” I regret to observe,
has thought it worth while to notice the reports, which in one way
and another have obtained circulation, that the President habitually
indulged, in ordinary conversation, in a class of objectionable
stories. The biographer, it is true, attempts to palliate this, on
the ground that it was no innate love of impurity which prompted such
relations, but a keen relish for wit, in any form, the lack of refining
influences in early life, and his experience as a lawyer, which
necessarily induced professional familiarity with the foulest phases
of human nature. The fault is a common one with many men of otherwise
unblemished reputation, and cannot be too severely reprehended. The
sooner, however, such things can be forgotten, of neighbor, friend, or
President, the better. Weaknesses and blemishes are inseparable from
common humanity in the present stage of its development; and though,
like the spots on the sun, they may serve to inspire in us a feeling of
kindred,--let the orb once set, never again to rise on the world, and
he who should remember the trifling defects in the universal loss would
certainly be considered, if not captious, at least a most inopportune
critic.
Mr. Lincoln, I am convinced, has been greatly wronged in this respect.
Every foul-mouthed man in the country gave currency to the slime and
filth of his own imagination by attributing it to the President. It
is but simple justice to his memory that I should state, that during
the entire period of my stay in Washington, after witnessing his
intercourse with nearly all classes of men, embracing governors,
senators, members of Congress, officers of the army, and intimate
friends, I cannot recollect to have heard him relate a circumstance
to any one of them, which would have been out of place uttered in a
ladies’ drawing-room. And this testimony is not unsupported by that
of others, well entitled to consideration. Dr. Stone, his family
physician, came in one day to see my studies. Sitting in front of that
of the President,--with whom he did not sympathize politically,--he
remarked, with much feeling, “It is the province of a physician to
probe deeply the interior lives of men; and I affirm that Mr. Lincoln
is the purest hearted man with whom I ever came in contact.” Secretary
Seward, who of the Cabinet officers was probably most intimate with the
President, expressed the same sentiment in still stronger language. He
once said to the Rev. Dr. Bellows: “Mr. Lincoln is the best man I ever
knew!”