Among the numerous visitors on one of the President’s reception days,
were a party of Congressmen, among whom was the Hon. Thomas Shannon, of
California. Soon after the customary greeting, Mr. Shannon said:--
“Mr. President, I met an old friend of yours in California last summer,
Thompson Campbell, who had a good deal to say of your Springfield
life.” “Ah!” returned Mr. Lincoln, “I am glad to hear of him.
Campbell used to be a dry fellow,” he continued. “For a time he was
Secretary of State. One day, during the legislative vacation, a meek,
cadaverous-looking man, with a white neck-cloth, introduced himself
to him at his office, and, stating that he had been informed that Mr.
C. had the letting of the Assembly Chamber, said that he wished to
secure it, if possible, for a course of lectures he desired to deliver
in Springfield. ‘May I ask,’ said the Secretary, ‘what is to be the
subject of your lectures?’ ‘Certainly,’ was the reply, with a very
solemn expression of countenance. ‘The course I wish to deliver, is
on the Second Coming of our Lord.’ ‘It is of no use,’ said C. ‘If you
will take my advice, you will not waste your time in this city. It is
my private opinion that if the Lord has been in Springfield _once_, He
will not come the second time!’”
Representative Shannon, previous to the war, had been an “Old Hunker”
Democrat. Converted by the Rebellion, he had gone to the other extreme,
and was one of the radical Abolitionists of the Thirty-Eighth Congress.
The last Sunday in May, the Rev. Dr. Cheever, of New York, delivered
one of his most pungent, denunciatory anti-slavery discourses, in the
Hall of the House of Representatives. Among the numerous auditors
attracted by the name of the preacher, I noticed Mr. Shannon, whose
face was not often seen in church. On the way to my hotel, we fell
in together. “Well, S.,” said I, “what think you of that style of
preaching?” “It was the first ‘_Gospel_’ sermon I ever heard in my
life!” was the emphatic rejoinder.
One of Mr. Shannon’s California colleagues, the Hon. Mr. Higby, told me
that having special business one evening, which called him to the White
House, the President came into the office, dressed for a state dinner.
In the conversation which followed, holding up his hands, encased in
white gloves, he remarked, with a laugh, that one of his Illinois
friends never could see his hands in that “predicament,” without being
reminded of “_canvassed hams_!”
Mr. Lincoln was always ready to join in a laugh at the expense of his
person, concerning which he was very indifferent. Many of his friends
will recognize the following story,--the incident having actually
occurred,--which he used to tell with great glee:--
“In the days when I used to be ‘on the circuit,’ I was once accosted
in the cars by a stranger, who said, ‘Excuse me, sir, but I have an
article in my possession which belongs to you.’ ‘How is that?’ I asked,
considerably astonished. The stranger took a jack-knife from his
pocket. ‘This knife,’ said he, ‘was placed in my hands some years ago,
with the injunction that I was to keep it until I found a man _uglier_
than myself. I have carried it from that time to this. Allow me _now_
to say, sir, that I think _you_ are fairly entitled to the property.’”