“There are already those among us, who, if the Union be preserved, will
live to see it contain two hundred and fifty millions. The struggle
_of_ to-day is not altogether _for_ to-day; it is for a vast future
also.”
“The President,” said a leading member of the Cabinet, on one occasion,
“is his own War-Minister. He directs personally the movements of the
armies, and is fond of strategy; but pays much less attention to
official details than is generally supposed.”
Mr. Lincoln’s wit was never malicious nor rudely personal. Once when
Mr. Douglas had attempted to parry an argument by impeaching the
veracity of a senator whom Mr. Lincoln had quoted, he answered that
the question was not one of veracity, but simply one of argument. “By
a course of reasoning, Euclid proves that all the angles in a triangle
are equal to two right angles. Now, if you undertake to disprove
that proposition, would you prove it to be false by calling Euclid a
liar?”[15]
A couple of well-known New York gentlemen called upon the President
one day to solicit a pardon for a man who, while acting as mate of a
sailing vessel, had struck one of his men a blow which resulted in his
death. Convicted and sentenced for manslaughter, a powerful appeal was
made in his behalf, as he had previously borne an excellent character.
Giving the facts a hearing, Mr. Lincoln responded:--
“Well, gentlemen, leave your papers, and I will have the
Attorney-General, Judge Bates, look them over, and we will see what can
be done. Being both of us ‘_pigeon-hearted_’ fellows, the chances are
that, if there is any ground whatever for interference, the scoundrel
will get off!”
Attorney-General Bates was once remonstrating with the President
against the appointment to a judicial position of considerable
importance of a western man, who, though once on the “bench,” was of
indifferent reputation as a lawyer.
“Well now, Judge,” returned Mr. Lincoln, “I think you are rather too
hard on ----. Besides that, I must tell you, he did me a good turn long
ago. When I took to the law, I was going to court one morning, with
some ten or twelve miles of bad road before me, when ---- overtook me
in his wagon. ‘Hallo, Lincoln!’ said he; ‘going to the court-house?
come in and I will give you a seat.’ Well, I got in, and ---- went
on reading his papers. Presently the wagon struck a stump on one
side of the road; then it hopped off to the other. I looked out and
saw the driver was jerking from side to side in his seat: so said I,
‘Judge, I think your coachman has been taking a drop too much this
morning.’ ‘Well, I declare, Lincoln,’ said he, ‘I should not much
wonder if you are right, for he has nearly upset me half-a-dozen times
since starting.’ So, putting his head out of the window, he shouted,
‘Why, you infernal scoundrel, you are drunk!’ Upon which, pulling up
his horses and turning round with great gravity, the coachman said:
‘Be-dad! but that’s the first rightful decision your honor has given
for the last twelve months.’”
Some gentlemen fresh from a western tour, during a call at the White
House, referred in the course of conversation to a body of water
in Nebraska which bore an Indian name signifying “weeping water.”
Mr. Lincoln instantly responded: “As ‘laughing water,’ according to
Longfellow, is ‘Minnehaha,’ this evidently should be ‘Minneboohoo.’”
A farmer from one of the border counties went to the President on a
certain occasion with the complaint that the Union soldiers in passing
his farm had helped themselves not only to hay but to his horse; and
he hoped the proper officer would be required to consider his claim
immediately.
“Why, my good sir,” replied Mr. Lincoln, “If I should attempt to
consider every such individual case, I should find work enough for
twenty Presidents! In my early days, I knew one Jack Chase, who was
a lumberman on the Illinois, and, when steady and sober, the best
raftsman on the river. It was quite a trick twenty-five years ago to
take the logs over the rapids, but he was skilful with a raft, and
always kept her straight in the channel. Finally a steamer was put on,
and Jack--he’s dead now, poor fellow!--was made captain of her. He
always used to take the wheel going through the rapids. One day, when
the boat was plunging and wallowing along the boiling current, and
Jack’s utmost vigilance was being exercised to keep her in the narrow
channel, a boy pulled his coat-tail and hailed him with: ‘Say, Mister
Captain! I wish you would just stop your boat a minute--I’ve lost my
apple overboard!’”
At a time of financial difficulty, a committee of New York bankers
waited upon the Secretary of the Treasury and volunteered a loan to
the government, which was gratefully accepted. Mr. Chase subsequently
accompanied the gentlemen to the White House and introduced them to the
President, saying they had called to have a talk with him about money.
“Money,” replied Mr. Lincoln; “I don’t know anything about ‘_money_.’ I
never had enough of my own to fret me, and I have no opinion about it
any way.”
“It is considered rather necessary to the carrying on of a war,
however,” returned the Secretary.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” rejoined Mr. Lincoln, turning
crosswise in his chair, swinging both legs backward and forward. “We
don’t read that ‘Hannibal’ had any ‘_money_’ to prosecute his wars
with.”
The President was one day speaking of a visit he had just received from
another delegation of bankers, from New York and Boston, who had been
urging the removal of General Cameron from the Cabinet.
“They talked very glibly,” said he, “especially a man named G----
from Boston; and I finally told them as much--adding, nevertheless,
that I was not convinced. ‘Now,’ said I, ‘gentlemen, if you want
General Cameron removed, you have only to bring me _one proved_ case
of dishonesty, and I promise you his “head”; but I assure you I am not
going to act on what seems to me the most unfounded gossip.’”
The Hon. Mr. Hubbard of Connecticut once called upon the President in
reference to a newly invented gun, concerning which a committee had
been appointed to make a report.
The “report” was sent for, and when it came in was found to be of the
most voluminous description. Mr. Lincoln glanced at it, and said: “I
should want a new lease of life to read this through!” Throwing it
down upon the table, he added: “Why can’t a committee of this kind
occasionally exhibit a grain of common sense? If I send a man to buy
a horse for me, I expect him to tell me his ‘_points_’--not how many
_hairs_ there are in his tail.”
Late one evening, the President brought in to see my picture his
friend and biographer, the Hon. J. H. Barrett, and a Mr. M----,
of Cincinnati. An allusion to a question of law in the course of
conversation suggesting the subject, Mr. Lincoln said: “The strongest
example of ‘rigid government’ and ‘close construction’ I ever knew,
was that of Judge ----. It was once said of him that he would _hang_ a
man for blowing his nose in the street, but that he would _quash_ the
indictment if it failed to specify which _hand_ he blew it with!”
A new levy of troops required, on a certain occasion, the appointment
of a large additional number of brigadier and major-generals. Among
the immense number of applications, Mr. Lincoln came upon one wherein
the claims of a certain worthy (not in the service at all) for a
generalship were glowingly set forth. But the applicant didn’t specify
whether he wanted to be brigadier or major-general. The President
observed this difficulty, and solved it by a lucid indorsement. The
clerk, on receiving the paper again, found written across its back:
“Major-General, I reckon. A. Lincoln.”
A juvenile “Brigadier” from New York, with a small detachment of
cavalry, having imprudently gone within the Rebel lines near Fairfax
Court House, was captured by “guerillas.” Upon the fact being reported
to Mr. Lincoln, he said that he was very sorry to lose the horses!
“What do you mean?” inquired his informant.
“Why,” rejoined the President, “I can make a better ‘brigadier’ any
day; but those horses cost the government a hundred and twenty-five
dollars a head!”
Mr. Lincoln sometimes had a very effective way of dealing with men who
troubled him with questions. A visitor once asked him how many men the
Rebels had in the field. The President replied, very seriously, “Twelve
hundred thousand, according to the best authority.” The interrogator
blanched in the face, and ejaculated, “Good Heavens!” “Yes sir, twelve
hundred thousand--no doubt of it. You see, all of our generals, when
they get whipped, say the enemy outnumbers them from three or five to
one, and I must believe them. We have four hundred thousand men in the
field, and three times four make twelve. Don’t you see it?”
Some gentlemen were discussing in Mr. Lincoln’s presence on a certain
occasion General McClellan’s military capacity. “It is doubtless true
that he is a good ‘engineer,’” said the President; “but he seems to
have a special talent for developing a ‘_stationary_’ engine.”
When Mr. Lincoln handed to his friend Gilbert his appointment as
assessor in the Wall Street district, New York, he said: “Gilbert, from
what I can learn, I judge that you are going upon good ‘missionary’
ground. Preach God and Liberty to the ‘bulls’ and ‘bears,’ and get all
the money you can for the government!”
A gentleman calling at the White House one evening carried a cane,
which, in the course of conversation, attracted the President’s
attention. Taking it in his hand, he said: “I always used a cane when
I was a boy. It was a freak of mine. My favorite one was a knotted
beech stick, and I carved the head myself. There’s a mighty amount
of character in sticks. Don’t you think so? You have seen these
fishing-poles that fit into a cane? Well that was an old idea of mine.
Dogwood clubs were favorite ones with the boys. I suppose they use them
yet. Hickory is too heavy, unless you get it from a young sapling. Have
you ever noticed how a stick in one’s hand will change his appearance?
Old women and witches wouldn’t look so without sticks. Meg Merrilies
understands that.”
One of Mr. Lincoln’s “illustrations” in my hearing, on one occasion,
was of a man who, in driving the hoops of a hogshead to “head” it up,
was much annoyed by the constant falling in of the top. At length the
bright idea struck him of putting his little boy inside to “hold it
up.” This he did; it never occurring to him till the job was done, how
he was to get his child out. “This,” said he, “is a fair sample of the
way some people always do business.”
In a time of despondency, some visitors were telling the President of
the “breakers” so often seen ahead--“this time surely coming.” “That,”
said he, “suggests the story of the school-boy, who never could
pronounce the names ‘Shadrach,’ ‘Meshach,’ and ‘Abednego.’ He had been
repeatedly whipped for it without effect. Sometime afterwards he saw
the names in the regular lesson for the day. Putting his finger upon
the place, he turned to his next neighbor, an older boy, and whispered,
‘Here come those “tormented Hebrews” again.’”
Referring to the divisions upon the Missouri Compromise, Mr. Lincoln
once said: “It used to amuse me to hear the slave-holders talk about
wanting more territory, because they had not room enough for their
slaves; and yet they complained of not having the slave-trade, because
they wanted more slaves for their room.”
Speaking on a certain occasion, of a prominent man who had the
year before been violent in his manifestations of hostility to the
Administration, but was then ostensibly favoring the same policy
previously denounced, Mr. Lincoln expressed his entire readiness to
treat the past as if it had not been, saying, “I choose always to make
my ‘statute of limitations’ a short one.”
At the White House one day some gentlemen were present from the
West, excited and troubled about the commissions or omissions of the
Administration. The President heard them patiently, and then replied:
“Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were worth was in gold, and
you had put it in the hands of Blondin to carry across the Niagara
River on a rope, would you shake the cable, or keep shouting out to
him, ‘Blondin, stand up a little straighter--Blondin, stoop a little
more--go a little faster--lean a little more to the north--lean a
little more to the south.’ No, you would hold your breath as well
as your tongue, and keep your hands off until he was safe over. The
Government are carrying an immense weight. Untold treasures are in
their hands. They are doing the very best they can. Don’t badger them.
Keep silence, and we’ll get you safe across.”
The President was once speaking of an attack made on him by the
Committee on the Conduct of the War, for a certain alleged blunder, or
some thing worse, in the Southwest--the matter involved being one which
had fallen directly under the observation of the officer to whom he was
talking, who possessed official evidence completely upsetting all the
conclusions of the Committee.
“Might it not be well for me,” queried the officer, “to set this matter
right in a letter to some paper, stating the facts as they actually
transpired?”
“Oh, no,” replied the President, “at least, not now. If I were to try
to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might
as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know
how--the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If
the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount
to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was
right would make no difference.”
“I shall ever cherish among the brightest memories of my life,” says
the Rev. J. P. Thompson, of New York, “the recollection of an hour
in Mr. Lincoln’s working-room in September, ’64, which was one broad
sheet of sunshine.... I spoke of the rapid rise of Union feeling since
the promulgation of the Chicago Platform, and the victory at Atlanta;
and the question was started, which had contributed the most to the
reviving of Union sentiment--the victory or the platform. ‘I guess,’
said the President, ‘it was the victory; at any rate, I’d rather have
that repeated.’”
Being informed of the death of John Morgan, he said: “Well, I wouldn’t
crow over anybody’s death; but I can take this as _resignedly_ as any
dispensation of Providence.”
The celebrated case of Franklin W. Smith and brother, was one of those
which most largely helped to bring military tribunals into public
contempt. Those two gentlemen were arrested and kept in confinement,
their papers seized, their business destroyed, their reputation
damaged, and a naval court-martial, “organized to convict,” pursued
them unrelentingly till a wiser and juster hand arrested the malice
of their persecutors. It is known that President Lincoln, after full
investigation of the case, annulled the whole proceedings, but it
is remarkable that the actual record of his decision could never be
obtained from the Navy Department. An exact copy being withheld, the
following was presented to the Boston Board of Trade as being very
nearly the words of the late President:--
“_Whereas_, Franklin W. Smith had transactions with the Navy
Department to the amount of one million and a quarter of a million
of dollars; and _whereas_, he had the chance to steal a quarter of
a million, and was only charged with stealing twenty-two hundred
dollars--and the question now is about his stealing a hundred--I
don’t believe he stole anything at all. Therefore, the record
and findings are disapproved--declared null and void, and the
defendants are fully discharged.”
“It would be difficult,” says the New York “Tribune,” “to sum up the
rights and wrongs of the business more briefly than that, or to find a
paragraph more characteristically and unmistakably Mr. Lincoln’s.”
A gentleman was pressing very strenuously the promotion of an officer
to a “Brigadiership.” “But we have already more generals than we know
what to do with,” replied the President. “But,” persisted the visitor,
“my friend is very strongly recommended.” “Now, look here,” said Mr.
Lincoln, throwing one leg over the arm of his chair, “you are a farmer,
I believe; if not, you will understand me. Suppose you had a large
cattle-yard full of all sorts of cattle,--cows, oxen, bulls,--and
you kept killing and selling and disposing of your cows and oxen, in
one way and another,--taking good care of your bulls. By-and-by you
would find that you had nothing but a yard full of old bulls, good for
nothing under heaven. Now, it will be just so with the army, if I don’t
stop making brigadier-generals.”
Captain Mix, the commander, at one period, of the President’s
body-guard, told me that on their way to town one sultry morning,
from the “Soldiers’ Home,” they came upon a regiment marching into
the city. A “straggler,” very heavily loaded with camp equipage, was
accosted by the President with the question: “My lad, what is that?”
referring to the designation of his regiment. “It’s a regiment,” said
the soldier, curtly, plodding on, his gaze bent steadily upon the
ground. “Yes, I see that,” rejoined the President, “but I want to know
_what_ regiment.” “---- Pennsylvania,” replied the man in the same
tone, looking neither to the right nor the left. As the carriage passed
on, Mr. Lincoln turned to Captain Mix and said, with a merry laugh,
“It is very evident that chap smells no blood of ‘_royalty_’ in this
establishment.”
Captain Mix was frequently invited to breakfast with the family at
the “Home” residence. “Many times,” said he, “have I listened to our
most eloquent preachers, but _never_ with the same feeling of awe and
reverence, as when our Christian President, his arm around his son,
with his deep, earnest tone, each morning read a chapter from the
Bible.”
Some one was discussing, in the presence of Mr. Lincoln, the character
of a time-serving Washington clergyman. Said Mr. Lincoln to his
visitor:--
“I think you are rather hard upon Mr. ----. He reminds me of a man
in Illinois, who was tried for passing a counterfeit bill. It was in
evidence that before passing it he had taken it to the cashier of a
bank and asked his opinion of the bill, and he received a very prompt
reply that it was a counterfeit. His lawyer, who had heard of the
evidence to be brought against his client, asked him, just before going
into court, ‘Did you take the bill to the cashier of the bank and ask
him if it was good?’ ‘I did,’ was the reply. ‘Well, what was the reply
of the cashier?’ The rascal was in a corner, but he got out of it in
this fashion: ‘He said it was a pretty tolerable, respectable sort of a
bill.’”
Mr. Lincoln thought the clergyman was “a pretty tolerable, respectable
sort of a clergyman.”
A visitor, congratulating Mr. Lincoln on the prospects of his
reëlection, was answered with an anecdote of an Illinois farmer who
undertook to blast his own rocks. His first effort at producing an
explosion proved a failure. He explained the cause by exclaiming,
“Pshaw, this powder has been shot before!”
An amusing, yet touching instance of the President’s preoccupation of
mind, occurred at one of his levees, when he was shaking hands with
a host of visitors passing him in a continuous stream. An intimate
acquaintance received the usual conventional hand-shake and salutation,
but perceiving that he was not recognized, kept his ground instead
of moving on, and spoke again; when the President, roused to a dim
consciousness that something unusual had happened, perceived who stood
before him, and seizing his friend’s hand, shook it again heartily,
saying, “How do you do? How do you do? Excuse me for not noticing
you. I was thinking of a man down South.” He afterward privately
acknowledged that the “man down South” was Sherman, then on his march
to the sea.
Mr. Lincoln may not have expected death from the hand of an assassin,
but he had an impression, amounting to a “presentiment,” that his life
would end with the war. This was expressed not only to Mr. Lovejoy, as
stated on a previous page, but to Mrs. Stowe and others.
“He told me, in July, 1864,” says a correspondent of the Boston
“Journal,” “that he was certain he should not outlast the rebellion.
“It was a time of dissension among the Republican leaders. Many of
his best friends had deserted him, and were talking of an opposition
convention to nominate another candidate; and universal gloom was among
the people.
“The North was tired of the war, and supposed an honorable peace
attainable. Mr. Lincoln knew it was not,--that any peace at that time
would be only disunion. Speaking of it, he said: ‘I have faith in the
people. They will not consent to disunion. The danger is, in their
being misled. Let them know the truth, and the country is safe.’ He
looked haggard and careworn; and further on in the interview I remarked
on his appearance, ‘You are wearing yourself out with work.’ ‘I can’t
work less,’ he answered; ‘but it isn’t that,--work never troubled
me. Things look badly, and I can’t avoid anxiety. Personally, I care
nothing about a reëlection; but if our divisions defeat us, I fear for
the country.’ When I suggested that right must eventually triumph, that
I had never despaired of the result, he said:--
“‘Neither have I, but I may never live to see it. I feel a presentiment
that I shall not outlast the Rebellion. When it is over, my work will
be done.’”
“The Freedmen,” once said the President to the Secretary of War, “are
the ‘wards’ of the nation.”
“Yes,” replied Stanton, “wards in chancery.”
A few days before the President’s death, Secretary Stanton tendered
his resignation of the War Department. He accompanied the act with a
heart-felt tribute to Mr. Lincoln’s constant friendship and faithful
devotion to the country; saying, also, that he as Secretary had
accepted the position to hold it only until the war should end, and
that now he felt his work was done, and his duty was to resign.
Mr. Lincoln was greatly moved by the Secretary’s words, and tearing
in pieces the paper containing the resignation, and throwing his arms
about the Secretary, he said: “Stanton, you have been a good friend and
a faithful public servant, and it is not for you to say when you will
no longer be needed here.” Several friends of both parties were present
on the occasion, and there was not a dry eye that witnessed the scene.
“On the night of the 3rd of March, the Secretary of War, with others
of the Cabinet, were in the company of the President, at the Capitol,
awaiting the passage of the final bills of Congress. In the intervals
of reading and signing these documents, the military situation was
considered,--the lively conversation tinged by the confident and
glowing account of General Grant, of his mastery of the position,
and of his belief that a few days more would see Richmond in our
possession, and the army of Lee either dispersed utterly or captured
bodily,--when the telegram from Grant was received, saying that Lee had
asked an interview with reference to peace. Mr. Lincoln was elated,
and the kindness of his heart was manifest in intimations of favorable
terms to be granted to the conquered Rebels.
“Stanton listened in silence, restraining his emotion, but at
length the tide burst forth. ‘Mr. President,’ said he, ‘to-morrow is
inauguration day. If you are not to be the President of an obedient
and united people, you had better not be inaugurated. Your work is
already done, if any other authority than yours is for one moment to be
recognized, or any terms made that do not signify you are the supreme
head of the nation. If generals in the field are to negotiate peace,
or any other chief magistrate is to be acknowledged on this continent,
then you are not needed, and you had better not take the oath of
office.’
“‘Stanton, you are right!’ said the President, his whole tone changing.
‘Let me have a pen.’
“Mr. Lincoln sat down at the table, and wrote as follows:--
“The President directs me to say to you that he wishes you to have no
conference with General Lee, unless it be for the capitulation of Lee’s
army, or on some minor or purely military matter. He instructs me to
say that you are not to decide, discuss, or confer upon any political
question. Such questions the President holds in his own hands, and will
submit them to no military conferences or conventions. In the mean time
you are to press to the utmost your military advantages.’
“The President read over what he had written, and then said:--
“‘Now Stanton, date and sign this paper, and send it to Grant. We’ll
see about this peace business.’
“The duty was discharged only too gladly by the energetic and
far-sighted Secretary; with what effect and renown the country knows
full well.”[16]
Governor Yates, of Illinois, in a speech at Springfield, quoted one
of Mr. Lincoln’s early friends--W. T. Greene--as having said that
the first time he ever saw Mr. Lincoln, he was in the Sangamon River
with his trousers rolled up five feet, more or less, trying to pilot
a flatboat over a mill-dam. The boat was so full of water that it was
hard to manage. Lincoln got the prow over, and then, instead of waiting
to bail the water out, bored a hole through the projecting part and let
it run out; affording a forcible illustration of the ready ingenuity of
the future President in the quick invention of moral expedients.
“Some two years ago,” said Colonel Forney, in a speech at Weldon,
Pennsylvania, before the “Soldiers’ Aid Society,” in 1865, “a
deputation of colored people came from Louisiana, for the purpose of
laying before the President a petition asking certain rights, not
including the right of universal suffrage. The interview took place
in the presence of a number of distinguished gentlemen. After reading
their memorial, he turned to them and said: ‘I regret, gentlemen, that
you are not able to secure all your rights, and that circumstances
will not permit the government to confer them upon you. I wish you
would amend your petition, so as to include several suggestions which
I think will give more effect to your prayer, and after having done
so please hand it to me.’ The leading colored man said: ‘If you will
permit me, I will do so here.’ ‘Are you, then, the author of this
eloquent production?’ asked Mr. Lincoln. ‘Whether eloquent or not,’
was the reply, ‘it is my work;’ and the Louisiana negro sat down at
the President’s side and rapidly and intelligently carried out the
suggestions that had been made to him. The Southern gentlemen who were
present at this scene did not hesitate to admit that their prejudices
had just received another shock.
“To show the magnanimity of Mr. Lincoln, I may mention that on one
occasion, when an editorial article appeared in my newspaper, the
Washington ‘Chronicle,’ speaking well of the bravery and the mistaken
sincerity of Stonewall Jackson, the news of whose death had been just
received, the President wrote me a letter thanking me warmly for
speaking kindly of a fallen foe. These were his words:--
“‘I honor you for your generosity to one who, though contending against
us in a guilty cause, was nevertheless a gallant man. Let us forget his
sins over his fresh-made grave.’
“Again, I happened to be in the Executive Chamber when a number of
Kentuckians insisted that troops should not be sent through that State
for the purpose of putting down the rebel spirit in Tennessee. The
President was hesitating what to do, and they were pressing immediate
action.
“‘I am,’ he said, ‘a good deal like the farmer who, returning to his
home one winter night, found his two sweet little boys asleep with a
hideous serpent crawling over their bodies. He could not strike the
serpent without wounding or killing the children, so he calmly waited
until it had moved away. Now I do not want to act in a hurry about this
matter; I don’t want to hurt anybody in Kentucky; but I will get the
serpent out of Tennessee.’
“And he did march through Kentucky, to the aid of Andrew Johnson’s
mountaineers.”
“The roll containing the Emancipation Proclamation was taken to Mr.
Lincoln at noon on the first day of January, 1863, by Secretary Seward
and his son Frederick. As it lay unrolled before him, Mr. Lincoln took
a pen, dipped it in ink, moved his hand to the place for the signature,
held it a moment, and then removed his hand and dropped the pen. After
a little hesitation he again took up the pen and went through the same
movement as before. Mr. Lincoln then turned to Mr. Seward, and said:--
“‘I have been shaking hands since nine o’clock this morning, and my
right arm is almost paralyzed. If my name ever goes into history it
will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles
when I sign the Proclamation, all who examine the document hereafter
will say, “He hesitated.”’
“He then turned to the table, took up the pen again, and slowly,
firmly wrote that ‘Abraham Lincoln’ with which the whole world is now
familiar. He looked up, smiled, and said: ‘That will do.’”[17]
What Mr. Lincoln’s policy on the subject of “reconstruction” would
have been, had he lived, is clearly foreshadowed in the following
extract from a letter to General Wadsworth, who was killed in one of
the battles of the Wilderness. Few sentences from Mr. Lincoln’s lips or
pen are more worthy the profound consideration and remembrance of his
countrymen.
“You desire to know, in the event of our complete success in the field,
the same being followed by a loyal and cheerful submission on the part
of the South, if universal amnesty should not be accompanied with
universal suffrage.
“Now, since you know my private inclinations as to what terms should
be granted to the South in the contingency mentioned, I will here add,
that if our success should thus be realized, followed by such desired
results, I cannot see, if universal amnesty is granted, how, under the
circumstances, I can avoid exacting in return universal suffrage, or at
least suffrage on the basis of intelligence and military service.
“How to better the condition of the colored race has long been a
study which has attracted my serious and careful attention; hence I
think I am clear and decided as to what course I shall pursue in the
premises, regarding it a religious duty, as the nation’s guardian of
these people who have so heroically vindicated their manhood on the
battle-field, where, in assisting to save the life of the Republic,
they have demonstrated in blood their right to the ballot, which is but
the humane protection of the flag they have so fearlessly defended.”
When Mr. Lincoln was in Congress, General Cass was nominated by the
Democratic party for President. In a speech on the floor of the House
shortly afterward, Mr. Lincoln subjected the political course of the
candidate to scathing criticism. Quoting extracts from the speeches
of General Cass, to show his vacillation in reference to the Wilmot
Proviso, he added: “These extracts show that in 1846 General Cass was
for the Proviso at once; that in March, 1847, he was still for it, but
not just then; and that in December, he was against it altogether.
This is a true index of the whole man. When the question was raised in
1846, he was in a blustering hurry to take ground for it, ... but soon
he began to see glimpses of the great Democratic ox-gad waving in his
face, and to hear indistinctly a voice saying: ‘Back! back, sir! back
a little!’ He shakes his head, and bats his eyes, and blunders back to
his position of March, 1847; but still the ‘gad’ waves, and the voice
grows more distinct and sharper still: ‘Back, sir! back, I say! further
back!’ and back he goes to the position of December, 1847, at which
the ‘gad’ is still, and the voice soothingly says: ‘So! stand still at
that!’”
A party of gentlemen, among whom was a doctor of divinity of much
dignity of manner, calling at the White House one day, was informed
by the porter that the President was at dinner, but that he would
present their cards. The doctor demurred to this, saying that he would
call again. “Edward” assured them that he thought it would make no
difference, and went in with the cards. In a few minutes the President
walked into the room, with a kindly salutation, and a request that the
friends would take seats. The doctor expressed his regret that their
visit was so ill-timed, and that his Excellency was disturbed while at
dinner. “Oh! no consequence at all,” said Mr. Lincoln, good-naturedly.
“Mrs. Lincoln is absent at present, and when she is away, I generally
‘_browse_’ around.”
“Upon entering the President’s office one afternoon,” says a Washington
correspondent, “I found Mr. Lincoln busily counting greenbacks. ‘This,
sir,’ said he, ‘is something out of my usual line; but a President
of the United States has a multiplicity of duties not specified in
the Constitution or acts of Congress. This is one of them. This money
belongs to a poor negro who is a porter in the Treasury Department,
at present very bad with the small-pox. He is now in hospital, and
could not draw his pay because he could not sign his name. I have
been at considerable trouble to overcome the difficulty and get it
for him, and have at length succeeded in cutting red tape, as you
newspaper men say. I am now dividing the money and putting by a
portion labelled, in an envelope, with my own hands, according to his
wish;’ and he proceeded to indorse the package very carefully.” No one
witnessing the transaction could fail to appreciate the goodness of
heart which prompted the President of the United States to turn aside
for a time from his weighty cares to succor one of the humblest of his
fellow-creatures in sickness and sorrow.
When General Phelps took possession of Ship Island, near New Orleans,
early in the war, it will be remembered that he issued a proclamation,
somewhat bombastic in tone, freeing the slaves. To the surprise of many
people, on both sides, the President took no official notice of this
movement. Some time had elapsed, when one day a friend took him to task
for his seeming indifference on so important a matter.
“Well,” said Mr. Lincoln, “I feel about that a good deal as a man whom
I will call ‘Jones,’ whom I once knew, did about his wife. He was one
of your meek men, and had the reputation of being badly henpecked. At
last, one day his wife was seen switching him out of the house. A day
or two afterward a friend met him in the street, and said: ‘Jones, I
have always stood up for you, as you know; but I am not going to do it
any longer. Any man who will stand quietly and take a switching from
his wife, deserves to be horsewhipped.’ ‘Jones’ looked up with a wink,
patting his friend on the back. ‘Now _don’t_,’ said he: ‘why, it didn’t
_hurt_ me any; and you’ve no idea what a _power_ of _good_ it did Sarah
Ann?’”
The Rev. Dr. Bellows, of New York, as President of the Sanitary
Commission, backed by powerful influences, had pressed with great
strenuousness upon the President the appointment of Dr. Hammond
as Surgeon-General. For some unexplained reason, there was an
unaccountable delay in making the appointment. One stormy evening--the
rain falling in torrents--Dr. Bellows, thinking few visitors likely
to trouble the President in such a storm, determined to make a final
appeal, and stepping into a carriage, he was driven to the White House.
Upon entering the Executive Chamber, he found Mr. Lincoln alone, seated
at the long table, busily engaged in signing a heap of congressional
documents, which lay before him. He barely nodded to Dr. Bellows as
he entered, having learned what to expect, and kept straight on with
his work. Standing opposite to him, Dr. B. employed his most powerful
arguments, for ten or fifteen minutes, to accomplish the end sought,
the President keeping steadily on signing the documents before him.
Pausing, at length, to take breath, the clergyman was greeted in the
most unconcerned manner, the pen still at work, with,--“Shouldn’t
wonder if Hammond was at this moment ‘Surgeon-General,’ and had been
for some time.”
“You don’t mean to say, Mr. President,” asked Dr. B. in surprise, “that
the appointment has been made?”
“I may say to you,” returned Mr. Lincoln, for the first time looking
up, “that it _has_; only you needn’t _tell_ of it just yet.”
In August, 1864, the prospects of the Union party, in reference to
the Presidential election, became very gloomy. A friend, the private
secretary of one of the cabinet ministers, who spent a few days in New
York at this juncture, returned to Washington with so discouraging
an account of the political situation, that after hearing it, the
Secretary told him to go over to the White House and repeat it to the
President. My friend said that he found Mr. Lincoln alone, looking more
than usually careworn and sad. Upon hearing the statement, he walked
two or three times across the floor in silence. Returning, he said with
grim earnestness of tone and manner: “Well, I cannot run the political
machine; I have enough on my hands without _that_. It is the _people’s_
business,--the election is in their hands. If they turn their backs to
the fire, and get _scorched_ in the rear, they’ll find they have got to
‘_sit_’ on the ‘blister’!”
Mr. Lincoln came to have an almost morbid dread of office-seekers,
from whose importunity the executive of a republican government
can necessarily never be free. Harassed with applications of every
description, he once said that it sometimes seemed as if every visitor
“darted at him, and with thumb and finger carried off a portion of his
vitality.”
As the day of his reinauguration approached, he said to Senator Clark,
of New Hampshire, “Can’t you and others start a public sentiment in
favor of making no changes in offices except for good and sufficient
cause? It seems as though the bare thought of going through again what
I did the first year here, would _crush_ me.” To another he said, “I
have made up my mind to make very few changes in the offices in my gift
for my second term. I think now that I will not remove a single man,
except for delinquency. To remove a man is very easy, but when I go
to fill his place, there are _twenty_ applicants, and of these I must
make _nineteen_ enemies.” “Under these circumstances,” says one of his
friends, “Mr. Lincoln’s natural charity for all was often turned into
an unwonted suspicion of the motives of men whose selfishness cost
him so much wear of mind. Once he said, ‘Sitting here, where all the
avenues to public patronage seem to come together in a knot, it does
seem to me that our people are fast approaching the point where it can
be said that seven eighths of them are trying to find how to live at
the expense of the other eighth.’”
A year or more before Mr. Lincoln’s death, a delegation of clergymen
waited upon him in reference to the appointment of the army chaplains.
The delegation consisted of a Presbyterian, a Baptist, and an Episcopal
clergyman. They stated that the character of many of the chaplains
was notoriously bad, and they had come to urge upon the President the
necessity of more discretion in these appointments. “But, gentlemen,”
said the President, “that is a matter which the Government has nothing
to do with; the chaplains are chosen by the regiments.” Not satisfied
with this, the clergymen pressed, in turn, a change in the system. Mr.
Lincoln heard them through without remark, and then said, “Without
any disrespect, gentlemen, I will tell you a ‘little story.’ Once,
in Springfield, I was going off on a short journey, and reached the
depot a little ahead of time. Leaning against the fence just outside
the depot was a little darkey boy, whom I knew, named ‘Dick,’ busily
digging with his toe in a mud-puddle. As I came up, I said, ‘“Dick,”
what are you about?’ ‘Making a “_church_,”’ said he. ‘A church?’ said
I; ‘what do you mean?’ ‘Why, yes,’ said ‘Dick,’ pointing with his toe,
‘don’t you see? there is the shape of it; there’s the “steps” and
“front-door”--here the “pews,” where the folks set--and there’s the
“pulpit.”’ ‘Yes, I see,’ said I, ‘but why don’t you make a “minister?”’
‘Laws,’ answered ‘Dick,’ with a grin, ‘I hain’t got _mud_ enough!’”
Mr. Lincoln had a dread of people who could not appreciate humor. He
once instanced a member of his own cabinet, of whom he quoted the
saying of Sydney Smith, that “it required a surgical operation to get
a joke into his head.” The light trifles of conversation diverted his
mind, or, as he said of his theatre-going, gave him “a refuge from
himself and his weariness.”
One of the last stories I heard from Mr. Lincoln was concerning John
Tyler, for whom it was to be expected, as an old Henry Clay Whig,
he would entertain no great respect. “A year or two after Tyler’s
accession to the Presidency,” said he, “contemplating an excursion in
some direction, his son went to order a special train of cars. It so
happened that the railroad superintendent was a very strong Whig. On
‘Bob’s’ making known his errand, that official bluntly informed him
that his road did not run any special trains for the President. ‘What!’
said ‘Bob,’ ‘did you not furnish a special train for the funeral
of General Harrison?’ ‘Yes,’ said the superintendent, stroking his
whiskers; ‘and if you will only bring your father here in _that_ shape,
you shall have the best train on the road.’”
“Once--on what was called a ‘public day,’ when Mr. Lincoln received all
applicants in their turn--the writer[18] was struck by observing, as he
passed through the corridor, the heterogeneous crowd of men and women,
representing all ranks and classes, who were gathered in the large
waiting-room outside the Presidential suite of offices.
“Being ushered into the President’s chamber by Major Hay, the first
thing he saw was Mr. Lincoln bowing an elderly lady out of the
door,--the President’s remarks to her being, as she still lingered and
appeared reluctant to go: ‘I am really very sorry, madam; very sorry.
But your own good sense must tell you that I am not here to collect
small debts. You must appeal to the courts in regular order.’
“When she was gone, Mr. Lincoln sat down, crossed his legs, locked his
hands over his knees, and commenced to laugh,--this being his favorite
attitude when much amused.
“‘What odd kinds of people come to see me,’ he said; ‘and what odd
ideas they must have about my office! Would you believe it, Major,
that old lady who has just left, came in here to get from me an order
for stopping the pay of a treasury clerk, who owes her a board-bill of
about seventy dollars?’ And the President rocked himself backward and
forward, and appeared intensely amused.
“‘She may have come in here a loyal woman,’ continued Mr. Lincoln; ‘but
I’ll be bound she has gone away believing that the worst pictures of me
in the Richmond press only lack truth in not being half black and bad
enough.’
“This led to a somewhat general conversation, in which I expressed
surprise that he did not adopt the plan in force at all military
head-quarters, under which every applicant to see the general
commanding had to be filtered through a sieve of officers,--assistant
adjutant-generals, and so forth,--who allowed none in to take up
the general’s time save such as they were satisfied had business of
sufficient importance, and which could be transacted in no other manner
than by a personal interview.
“‘Of every hundred people who come to see the general-in-chief
daily,’ I explained, ‘not ten have any sufficient business with him,
nor are they admitted. On being asked to explain for what purpose
they desire to see him, and stating it, it is found, in nine cases
out of ten, that the business properly belongs to some one or other
of the subordinate bureaus. They are then referred, as the case may
be, to the quartermaster, commissary, medical, adjutant-general,
or other departments, with an assurance that even if they saw the
general-in-chief he could do nothing more for them than give the same
direction. With these points courteously explained,’ I added, ‘they go
away quite content, although refused admittance.’
“‘Ah, yes!’ said Mr. Lincoln, gravely,--and his words on this matter
are important as illustrating a rule of his action, and to some extent,
perhaps, the essentially representative character of his mind and
of his administration,--‘ah, yes, such things do very well for you
military people, with your arbitrary rule, and in your camps. But
the office of President is essentially a civil one, and the affair
is very different. For myself, I feel--though the tax on my time is
heavy--that no hours of my day are better employed than those which
thus bring me again within the direct contact and atmosphere of the
average of our whole people. Men moving only in an official circle
are apt to become merely official--not to say arbitrary--in their
ideas, and are apter and apter, with each passing day, to forget that
they only hold power in a representative capacity. Now this is all
wrong. I go into these promiscuous receptions of all who claim to have
business with me twice each week, and every applicant for audience
has to take his turn, as if waiting to be shaved in a barber’s shop.
Many of the matters brought to my notice are utterly frivolous, but
others are of more or less importance, and all serve to renew in me a
clearer and more vivid image of that great popular assemblage out of
which I sprung, and to which at the end of two years I must return. I
tell you, Major,’ he said,--appearing at this point to recollect I was
in the room, for the former part of these remarks had been made with
half-shut eyes, as if in soliloquy,--‘I tell you that I call these
receptions my “_public-opinion baths_;” for I have but little time to
read the papers and gather public opinion that way; and though they
may not be pleasant in all their particulars, the effect, as a whole,
is renovating and invigorating to my perceptions of responsibility and
duty.’”
No nobler reply ever fell from the lips of ruler, than that uttered by
President Lincoln in response to the clergyman who ventured to say, in
his presence, that he _hoped_ “the LORD was on our side.”
“I am not at all concerned about that,” replied Mr. Lincoln, “for I
know that the LORD is _always_ on the side of the _right_. But it is my
constant anxiety and prayer that _I_ and _this nation_ should be on the
LORD’s _side_.”
In the midst of the despondency produced by the raid on Washington, in
the summer of 1864, and the successful return of the Rebel force to
Richmond, the President’s Proclamation of July 18th appeared, calling
for five hundred thousand more men.
In view of the impending presidential canvass, Mr. Lincoln’s strongest
friends looked upon this step, at this time, as calculated to utterly
defeat his chances of reëlection. Commissioner Dole ventured to say
as much upon the President’s announcement to him of his contemplated
purpose.
“It matters not what becomes of me,” replied Mr. Lincoln; “we must have
the men! If I go down, I intend to go like the _Cumberland_, with my
colors flying!”
Upon Mr. Lincoln’s return to Washington, after the capture of
Richmond, a member of the Cabinet asked him if it would be proper to
permit Jacob Thompson to slip through Maine in disguise, and embark
from Portland. The President, as usual, was disposed to be merciful,
and to permit the arch-rebel to pass unmolested, but the Secretary
urged that he should be arrested as a traitor. “By permitting him to
escape the penalties of treason,” persistently remarked the Secretary,
“you sanction it.” “Well,” replied Mr. Lincoln, “let me tell you
a story. There was an Irish soldier here last summer, who wanted
something to drink stronger than water, and stopped at a drug-shop,
where he espied a soda-fountain. ‘Mr. Doctor,’ said he, ‘give me,
plase, a glass of soda-wather, an’ if yees can put in a few drops of
whiskey unbeknown to any one, I’ll be obleeged.’ Now,” continued Mr.
Lincoln, “if Jake Thompson is permitted to go through Maine unbeknown
to any one, what’s the harm? So don’t have him arrested.”
I asked the President, during the progress of the battles of the
Wilderness, how General Grant personally impressed him as compared
with other officers of the army, and especially those who had been in
command.
“The great thing about Grant,” said he, “I take it, is his perfect
coolness and persistency of purpose. I judge he is not easily
excited,--which is a great element in an officer,--and he has the
_grit_ of a bull-dog! Once let him get his ‘teeth’ _in_, and nothing
can shake him off.”
One of the latest of Mr. Lincoln’s stories was told to a party of
gentlemen, who, amid the tumbling ruins of the ‘Confederacy,’ anxiously
asked “what he would do with ‘Jeff. Davis’?”
“There was a boy in Springfield,” rejoined Mr. Lincoln, “who saved
up his money and bought a ‘coon,’ which, after the novelty wore off,
became a great nuisance. He was one day leading him through the
streets, and had his hands full to keep clear of the little vixen, who
had torn his clothes half off of him. At length he sat down on the
curb-stone, completely fagged out. A man passing was stopped by the
lad’s disconsolate appearance, and asked the matter. ‘Oh,’ was the
reply, ‘this coon is such a _trouble_ to me!’ ‘Why don’t you get rid of
him, then?’ said the gentleman. ‘Hush!’ said the boy; ‘don’t you see he
is gnawing his rope off? I am going to let him do it, and then I will
go home and tell the folks _that he got away from me_?’”