The Hon. W. H. Herndon, of Springfield, Illinois, for more than twenty
years the law-partner of Mr. Lincoln, delivered an address in that
city, December 12th, 1865, upon the life and character of the lamented
President, which, for masterly analysis, has scarcely an equal in
the annals of biographical literature. Quaint and original in style
and construction, this description--an imperfect abstract of which I
subjoin--is in singular harmony with the character it depicts. To those
who knew Mr. Lincoln personally, so thorough a dissection of his nature
and traits will need no indorsement; while to the multitude who knew
him not, it may be commended as probably more complete and exhaustive
in its treatment of the subject, than anything which has been given to
the world.
“Abraham Lincoln was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, February 12th,
1809. He moved to Indiana in 1816; came to Illinois in March, 1830; to
old Sangamon County in 1831, settling in New Salem, and from this last
place to this city in April, 1837: coming as a rude, uncultivated boy,
without polish or education, and having no friends. He was about six
feet four inches high, and when he left this city was fifty-one years
old, having good health and no gray hairs, or but few on his head. He
was thin, wiry, sinewy, raw-boned; thin through the breast to the back,
and narrow across the shoulders; standing, he leaned forward--was
what may be called stoop-shouldered, inclining to the consumptive
by build. His usual weight was one hundred and sixty pounds. His
organization--rather his structure and functions--worked slowly. His
blood had to run a long distance from his heart to the extremities of
his frame, and his nerve-force had to travel through dry ground a long
distance before his muscles were obedient to his will. His structure
was loose and leathery; his body was shrunk and shrivelled, having dark
skin, dark hair,--looking woe-struck. The whole man, body and mind,
worked slowly, creakingly, as if it needed oiling. Physically, he was
a very powerful man, lifting with ease four hundred or six hundred
pounds. His mind was like his body, and worked slowly but strongly.
When he walked, he moved cautiously but firmly, his long arms and
hands on them, hanging like giant’s hands, swung down by his side. He
walked with even tread, the inner sides of his feet being parallel.
He put the whole foot flat down on the ground at once, not landing on
the heel; he likewise lifted his foot all at once, not rising from the
toe, and hence he had no spring to his walk. He had economy of fall and
lift of foot, though he had no spring or apparent ease of motion in
his tread. He walked undulatory, up and down, catching and pocketing
tire, weariness, and pain, all up and down his person, preventing them
from locating. The first opinion of a stranger, or a man who did not
observe closely, was that his walk implied shrewdness, cunning,--a
tricky man; but his was the walk of caution and firmness. In sitting
down on a common chair he was no taller than ordinary men. His legs and
arms were, abnormally, unnaturally long, and in undue proportion to the
balance of his body. It was only when he stood up that he loomed above
other men.
“Mr. Lincoln’s head was long and tall from the base of the brain and
from the eyebrows. His head ran backwards, his forehead rising as it
ran back at a low angle, like Clay’s, and, unlike Webster’s, almost
perpendicular. The size of his hat, measured at the hatter’s block,
was 7⅛, his head being, from ear to ear, 6½ inches, and from the front
to the back of the brain 8 inches. Thus measured, it was not below
the medium size. His forehead was narrow but high; his hair was dark,
almost black, and lay floating where his fingers or the winds left it,
piled up at random. His cheek-bones were high, sharp, and prominent;
his eyebrows heavy and prominent; his jaws were long, upcurved, and
heavy; his nose was large, long, and blunt, a little awry towards the
right eye; his chin was long, sharp, and upcurved; his eyebrows cropped
out like a huge rock on the brow of a hill; his face was long, sallow,
and cadaverous, shrunk, shrivelled, wrinkled, and dry, having here and
there a hair on the surface; his cheeks were leathery; his ears were
large, and ran out almost at right angles from his head, caused partly
by heavy hats and partly by nature; his lower lip was thick, hanging,
and undercurved, while his chin reached for the lip upcurved; his neck
was neat and trim, his head being well balanced on it; there was the
lone mole on the right cheek, and Adam’s apple on his throat.
“Thus stood, walked, acted, and looked Abraham Lincoln. He was not a
pretty man by any means, nor was he an ugly one; he was a homely man,
careless of his looks, plain-looking and plain-acting. He had no pomp,
display, or dignity, so-called. He appeared simple in his carriage and
bearing. He was a sad-looking man; his melancholy dripped from him
as he walked. His apparent gloom impressed his friends, and created
a sympathy for him,--one means of his great success. He was gloomy,
abstracted, and joyous,--rather humorous,--by turns. I do not think he
knew what real joy was for many years.
“Mr. Lincoln sometimes walked our streets cheerily,--good-humoredly,
perhaps joyously,--and then it was, on meeting a friend, he cried ‘How
d’ y?’ clasping one of his friend’s hands in both of his, giving a good
hearty soul-welcome. Of a winter’s morning, he might be seen stalking
and stilting it towards the market-house, basket on arm, his old gray
shawl wrapped around his neck, his little Willie or Tad running along
at his heels, asking a thousand little quick questions, which his
father heard not, not even then knowing that little Willie or Tad
was there, so abstracted was he. When he thus met a friend, he said
that something put him in mind of a story which he heard in Indiana or
elsewhere, and tell it he would, and there was no alternative but to
listen.
“Thus, I say, stood and walked and looked this singular man. He was
odd, but when that gray eye and face and every feature were lit
up by the inward soul in fires of emotion, _then_ it was that all
these apparently ugly features sprang into organs of beauty, or sunk
themselves into a sea of inspiration that sometimes flooded his face.
Sometimes it appeared to me that Lincoln’s soul was just fresh from the
presence of its Creator.
* * * * *
“I have asked the friends and foes of Mr. Lincoln alike, what they
thought of his perceptions. One gentleman of undoubted ability and free
from all partiality or prejudice, said, ‘Mr. Lincoln’s perceptions are
slow, a little perverted, if not somewhat distorted and diseased.’ If
the meaning of this is that Mr. Lincoln saw things from a peculiar
angle of his being, and from this was susceptible to Nature’s impulses,
and that he so expressed himself, then I have no objection to what is
said. Otherwise, I dissent. Mr. Lincoln’s perceptions were slow, cold,
precise, and exact. Everything came to him in its precise shape and
color. To some men the world of matter and of man comes ornamented with
beauty, life, and action, and hence more or less false and inexact.
No lurking illusion or other error, false in itself, and clad for the
moment in robes of splendor, ever passed undetected or unchallenged
over the threshold of his mind,--that point that divides vision
from the realm and home of thought. Names to him were nothing, and
titles naught,--assumption always standing back abashed at his cold,
intellectual glare. Neither his perceptions nor intellectual vision
were perverted, distorted, or diseased. He saw all things through a
perfect mental lens. There was no diffraction or refraction there. He
was not impulsive, fanciful, or imaginative, but cold, calm, precise,
and exact. He threw his whole mental light around the object, and in
time, substance, and quality stood apart; form and color took their
appropriate places, and all was clear and exact in his mind. His
fault, if any, was that he saw things less than they really were; less
beautiful and more frigid. In his mental view he crushed the unreal,
the inexact, the hollow, and the sham. He saw things in rigidity rather
than in vital action. Here was his fault. He saw what no man could
dispute; but he failed to see what might have been seen. To some minds
the world is all life, a soul beneath the material; but to Mr. Lincoln
no life was individual or universal that did not manifest itself to
him. His mind was his standard. His perceptions were cool, persistent,
pitiless in pursuit of the truth. No error went undetected, and no
falsehood unexposed, if he once was aroused in search of truth. If his
perceptions were perverted, distorted, and diseased, would to Heaven
that more minds were so.
* * * * *
“The true peculiarity of Mr. Lincoln has not been seen by his various
biographers; or, if seen, they have failed wofully to give it that
prominence which it deserves. It is said that Newton saw an apple fall
to the ground from a tree, and beheld the law of the universe in that
fall; Shakspeare saw human nature in the laugh of a man; Professor
Owen saw the animal in its claw; and Spencer saw the evolution of the
universe in the growth of a seed. Nature was suggestive to all these
men. Mr. Lincoln no less saw philosophy in a story, and a schoolmaster
in a joke. No man, no men, saw nature, fact, thing, or man from his
stand-point. His was a new and original position, which was always
suggesting, hinting something to him. Nature, insinuations, hints, and
suggestions were new, fresh, original, and odd to him. The world, fact,
man, principle, all had their powers of suggestion to his susceptible
soul. They continually put him in mind of something. He was odd,
fresh, new, original, and peculiar for this reason, that he was a new,
odd, and original creation and fact. He had keen susceptibilities to
the hints and suggestions of nature, which always put him in mind of
something known or unknown. Hence his power and tenacity of what is
called association of ideas must have been great. His memory was
tenacious and strong. His susceptibility to all suggestions and hints
enabled him at will to call up readily the associated and classified
fact and idea.
“As an evidence of this, especially peculiar to Mr. Lincoln, let me
ask one question. Were Mr. Lincoln’s expression and language odd and
original, standing out peculiar from those of all other men? What does
this imply? Oddity and originality of _vision_ as well as expression;
and what is expression in words and human language, but a telling of
what we see, defining the idea arising from and created by vision
and view in us. Words and language are but the counterparts of the
idea,--the other half of the idea; they are but the stinging, hot,
heavy, leaden bullets that drop from the mould; and what are they in a
rifle with powder stuffed behind them and fire applied, but an embodied
force pursuing their object. So are words an embodied power feeling
for comprehension in other minds. Mr. Lincoln was often perplexed to
give expression to his ideas: first, because he was not master of the
English language; and, secondly, because there were no words in it
containing the coloring, shape, exactness, power, and gravity of his
ideas. He was frequently at a loss for a word, and hence was compelled
to resort to stories, maxims, and jokes to embody his idea, that it
might be comprehended. So true was this peculiar mental vision of his,
that though mankind has been gathering, arranging, and classifying
facts for thousands of years, Lincoln’s peculiar stand-point could give
him no advantage of other men’s labor. Hence he tore up to the deep
foundations all arrangements of facts, and coined and arranged new
plans to govern himself. He was compelled, from his peculiar mental
organization, to do this. His labor was great, continuous, patient, and
all-enduring.
“The truth about this whole matter is that Mr. Lincoln read _less_ and
thought _more_ than any man in his sphere in America. No man can put
his finger on any great book written in the last or present century
that he read. When young he read the Bible, and when of age he read
Shakspeare. This latter book was scarcely ever out of his mind. Mr.
Lincoln is acknowledged to have been a great man, but the question is
what made him great. I repeat, that he read less and thought more than
any man of his standing in America, if not in the world. He possessed
originality and power of thought in an eminent degree. He was cautious,
cool, concentrated, with continuity of reflection; was patient and
enduring. These are some of the grounds of his wonderful success.
“Not only was nature, man, fact, and principle suggestive to Mr.
Lincoln, not only had he accurate and exact perceptions, but he was
causative, _i. e._, his mind ran back behind all facts, things, and
principles to their origin, history, and first cause,--to that point
where forces act at once as effect and cause. He would stop and stand
in the street and analyze a machine. He would whittle things to a
point, and then count the numberless inclined planes, and their pitch,
making the point. Mastering and defining this, he would then cut that
point back, and get a broad transverse section of his pine stick, and
peel and define that. Clocks, omnibuses, and language, paddle-wheels,
and idioms, never escaped his observation and analysis. Before he
could form any idea of anything, before he would express his opinion
on any subject, he must know it in origin and history, in substance
and quality, in magnitude and gravity. He must know his subject inside
and outside, upside and downside. He searched his own mind and nature
thoroughly, as I have often heard him say. He must analyze a sensation,
an idea, and words, and run them back to their origin, history,
purpose, and destiny. He was most emphatically a remorseless analyzer
of facts, things, and principles. When all these processes had been
well and thoroughly gone through, he could form an opinion and express
it, but no sooner. He had no faith. ‘Say so’s’ he had no respect for,
coming though they might from tradition, power, or authority.
“All things, facts, and principles had to run through his crucible and
be tested by the fires of his analytic mind; and hence, when he did
speak his utterances rang out gold-like, quick, keen, and current upon
the counters of the understanding. He reasoned logically, through
analogy and comparison. All opponents dreaded him in his originality
of idea, condensation, definition, and force of expression, and woe be
to the man who hugged to his bosom a secret error if Mr. Lincoln got
on the chase of it. I say, woe to him! Time could hide the error in no
nook or corner of space in which he would not detect and expose it.
* * * * *
“Though Mr. Lincoln had accurate perceptions, though nature was
extremely suggestive to him, though he was a profound thinker as well
as analyzer, still his judgments and opinions formed upon minor matters
were often childish. I have sometimes asked prominent, talented, and
honest men in this and other States for their manly opinion of Mr.
Lincoln’s judgments. I did this to confirm or overthrow my own opinions
on this point. Their answers were that his judgments were poor. But now
what do we understand by the word ‘judgments?’ It is not reason, it is
not will, nor is it understanding; but it is the judging faculty,--that
capacity or power that forms opinions and decides on the fitness,
beauty, harmony, and appropriateness of things under all circumstances
and surroundings, quickly, wisely, accurately. Had Mr. Lincoln this
quality of mind? I think not. His mind was like his body, and worked
slowly.
* * * * *
“One portion of mankind maintained that Mr. Lincoln was weak-minded,
and they look at him only from the stand-point of his judgments.
Another class maintain that he was a great, deep, profound man in his
judgments. Do these two classes understand themselves? Both views
cannot be correct. Mr. Lincoln’s mind was slow, angular, and ponderous,
rather than quick and finely discriminating, and _in time_ his great
powers of reason on cause and effect, on creation and relation, on
substance and on truth, would form a proposition, an opinion wisely and
well,--_that_ no human being can deny. When his mind could not grasp
premises from which to argue he was weaker than a child, because he had
none of the child’s intuitions,--the soul’s quick, bright flash over
scattered and unarranged facts.
“Mr. Lincoln was a peculiar man, having a peculiar mind; he was gifted
with a peculiarity, namely, a new lookout on nature. Everything had
to be newly created for him,--facts newly gathered, newly arranged,
and newly classed. He had no faith, as already expressed. In order to
believe he must see and feel, and thrust his hand into the place. He
must taste, smell, and handle before he had faith, _i. e._, belief.
Such a mind as this must act slowly,--must have its time. His forte and
power lay in his love of digging out for himself and hunting up for his
own mind its own food, to be assimilated unto itself; and then in time
he could and would form opinions and conclusions that no human power
could overthrow. They were as irresistible as iron thunder, as powerful
as logic embodied in mathematics.
“I have watched men closely in reference to their approaches to Mr.
Lincoln. Those who approached him on his judgment side treated him
tenderly--sometimes respectfully, but always as a weak-minded man. This
class of men take the judgment as the standard of the mind. I have
seen another class approach him on his reason-side, and they always
crouched low down and truckled, as much as to say, ‘great,’ ‘grand,’
‘omnipotent.’ Both these classes were correct. One took judgment as
the standard of the man, and the other took reason. Yet both classes
were wrong in this,--they sunk out of view one side of Mr. Lincoln. A
third class knew him well, and always treated him with human respect:
not that awe and reverence with which we regard the Supreme Being; not
that supercilious haughtiness which greatness shows to littleness. Each
will please to examine itself, and then judge of what I say. I have
approached Mr. Lincoln on all sides, and treated him according to the
angle approached.
* * * * *
“An additional question naturally suggests itself here, and it is this:
Had Mr. Lincoln great, good common sense? Different persons, of equal
capacity and honesty, hold different views on this question,--one class
answering in the affirmative, and the other in the negative.
“These various opinions necessarily spring out of the question just
discussed. If the true test is that a man shall quickly, wisely,
and well judge the rapid rush and whirl of human transactions, as
accurately as though indefinite time and proper conditions were at his
disposal, then I am compelled to follow the logic of things, and say
that Mr. Lincoln had no more than ordinary common sense. The world, men
and their actions, must be judged as they rush and pass along. They
will not wait on us; will not stay for our logic and analysis; they
must be seized as they run. We all our life act on the moment. Mr.
Lincoln knew himself, and never trusted his dollar or his fame on his
casual opinions; he never acted hastily on great matters.
* * * * *
“Mr. Lincoln very well knew that the great leading law of human nature
was _motive_. He reasoned all ideas of a disinterested action from my
mind. I used to hold that an action could be pure, disinterested, and
holy, free from all selfishness, but he divested me of that delusion.
His idea was that all human actions were caused by _motives_, and that
at the bottom of those motives was _self_. He defied me to act without
a motive and unselfishly; and when I did the act and told him of it,
he analyzed and sifted it, and demonstrated beyond the possibility of
controversy that it was altogether selfish. Though he was a profound
analyzer of the laws of human nature, still he had no idea of the
peculiar motives of the particular individual. He could not well
discriminate in human nature. He knew but little of the play of the
features as seen in ‘the human face divine.’ He could not distinguish
between the paleness of anger and the crimson tint of modesty. He could
not determine what each play of the features indicated.
* * * * *
“The great predominating elements of Mr. Lincoln’s peculiar character,
were: First, his great capacity and _power of reason_; secondly, his
excellent _understanding_; thirdly, an exalted idea of the sense of
_right and equity_; and, fourthly, his intense veneration of what was
_true and good_. His reason ruled despotically all other faculties and
qualities of his mind. His conscience and heart were ruled by it. His
conscience was ruled by one faculty--reason. His heart was ruled by
two faculties--reason and conscience. I know it is generally believed
that Mr. Lincoln’s heart, his love and kindness, his tenderness and
benevolence, were his ruling qualities; but this opinion is erroneous
in every particular. First, as to his _reason_. He dwelt in the mind,
not in the conscience, and not in the heart. He lived and breathed and
acted from his reason,--the throne of logic and the home of principle,
the realm of Deity in man. It is from this point that Mr. Lincoln must
be viewed. His views were correct and original. He was cautious not to
be deceived; he was patient and enduring. He had concentration and
great continuity of thought; he had a profound analytic power; his
visions were clear, and he was emphatically the master of statement.
His pursuit of the truth was indefatigable, terrible. He reasoned
from his well-chosen principles with such clearness, force, and
compactness, that the tallest intellects in the land bowed to him with
respect. He was the strongest man I ever saw, looking at him from the
stand-point of his reason,--the throne of his logic. He came down
from that height with an irresistible and crushing force. His printed
speeches will prove this; but his speeches before courts, especially
before the Supreme Courts of the State and Nation, would demonstrate
it: unfortunately none of them have been preserved. Here he demanded
time to think and prepare. The office of reason is to determine the
truth. Truth is the power of reason--the child of reason. He loved and
idolized truth for its own sake. It was reason’s food.
“Conscience, the second great quality and forte of Mr. Lincoln’s
character, is that faculty which loves the just: its office is justice;
right and equity are its correlatives. It decides upon all acts of all
people at all times. Mr. Lincoln had a deep, broad, living conscience.
His great reason told him what was true, good, and bad, right, wrong,
just or unjust, and his conscience echoed back its decision; and it was
from this point that he acted and spoke and wove his character and fame
among us. His conscience ruled his heart; he was always just before he
was gracious. This was his motto, his glory: and this is as it should
be. It cannot be truthfully said of any mortal man that he was always
just. Mr. Lincoln was not always just; but his great general life was.
It follows that if Mr. Lincoln had great reason and great conscience,
he was an honest man. His great and general life was honest, and he
was justly and rightfully entitled to the appellation, ‘Honest Abe.’
Honesty was his great polar star.
“Mr. Lincoln had also a good understanding; that is, the faculty that
understands and comprehends the exact state of things, their near
and remote relation. The understanding does not necessarily inquire
for the reason of things. I must here repeat that Mr. Lincoln was
an odd and original man; he lived by himself and out of himself.
He could not absorb. He was a very sensitive man, unobtrusive and
gentlemanly, and often hid himself in the common mass of men, in order
to prevent the discovery of his individuality. He had no insulting
egotism, and no pompous pride; no haughtiness, and no aristocracy.
He was not indifferent, however, to approbation and public opinion.
He was not an upstart, and had no insolence. He was a meek, quiet,
unobtrusive gentleman. These qualities of his nature merged somewhat
his identities. Read Mr. Lincoln’s speeches, letters, messages, and
proclamations, read his whole record in his actual life, and you
cannot fail to perceive that he had good understanding. He understood
and fully comprehended himself, and what he did and why he did it,
better than most living men.
* * * * *
“There are contradictory opinions in reference to Mr. Lincoln’s _heart
and humanity_. One opinion is that he was cold and obdurate, and the
other opinion is that he was warm and affectionate. I have shown you
that Mr. Lincoln first lived and breathed upon the world from his
head and conscience. I have attempted to show you that he lived and
breathed upon the world through the tender side of his heart, subject
at all times and places to the logic of his reason, and to his exalted
sense of right and equity, namely, his conscience. He always held his
conscience subject to his head; he held his heart always subject to
his head and conscience. His heart was the lowest organ, the weakest
of the three. Some men would reverse this order, and declare that his
heart was his ruling organ; that always manifested itself with love,
regardless of truth and justice, right and equity. The question still
is, was Mr. Lincoln a cold, heartless man, or a warm, affectionate man?
Can a man be a warm-hearted man who is all head and conscience, or
nearly so? What, in the first place, do we mean by a warm-hearted man?
Is it one who goes out of himself and reaches for others spontaneously,
because of a deep love of humanity, apart from equity and truth, and
does what it does for love’s sake? If so, Mr. Lincoln was a cold
man. Or, do we mean that when a human being, man or child, approached
him in behalf of a matter of right, and that the prayer of such an
one was granted, that this is an evidence of his love? The African
was enslaved, his rights were violated, and a principle was violated
in them. Rights imply obligations as well as duties. Mr. Lincoln was
President; he was in a position that made it his duty through his sense
of right, his love of principle, his constitutional obligations imposed
upon him by oath of office, to strike the blow against slavery. But did
he do it for love? He himself has answered the question: ‘I would not
free the slaves if I could preserve the Union without it.’ I use this
argument against his too enthusiastic friends. If you mean that this
is love for love’s sake, then Mr. Lincoln was a warm-hearted man--not
otherwise. To use a general expression, his general life was cold. He
had, however, a strong latent capacity to love; but the object must
first come as principle, second as right, and third as lovely. He loved
abstract humanity when it was oppressed. This was an abstract love, not
concrete in the individual, as said by some. He rarely used the term
love, yet was he tender and gentle. He gave the key-note to his own
character, when he said, ‘with malice toward none, and with charity for
all,’ he did what he did. He had no intense loves, and hence no hates
and no malice. He had a broad charity for imperfect man, and let us
imitate his great life in this.
“‘But was not Mr. Lincoln a man of great humanity?’ asks a friend at my
elbow, a little angrily; to which I reply, ‘Has not that question been
answered already?’ Let us suppose that it has not. We must understand
each other. What do you mean by humanity? Do you mean that he had
much of human nature in him? If so, I will grant that he was a man of
humanity. Do you mean, if the above definition is unsatisfactory, that
Mr. Lincoln was tender and kind? Then I agree with you. But if you mean
to say that he so loved a man that he would sacrifice truth and right
for him, for love’s sake, then he was not a man of humanity. Do you
mean to say that he so loved man, for love’s sake, that his heart led
him out of himself, and compelled him to go in search of the objects of
his love, for their sake? He never, to my knowledge, manifested this
side of his character. Such is the law of human nature, that it cannot
be all head, all conscience, and all heart at one and the same time in
one and the same person. Our Maker made it so, and where God through
reason blazed the path, walk therein boldly. Mr. Lincoln’s glory and
power lay in the just combination of head, conscience, and heart, and
it is here that his fame must rest, or not at all.
“Not only were Mr. Lincoln’s perceptions good; not only was nature
suggestive to him; not only was he original and strong; not only had
he great reason, good understanding; not only did he love the true
and good--the eternal _right_; not only was he tender and kind,--but,
in due proportion and in legitimate subordination, had he a glorious
combination of them all. Through his perceptions,--the suggestiveness
of nature, his originality and strength; through his magnificent
reason, his understanding, his conscience, his tenderness, and
kindness, his heart, rather than love,--he approximated as nearly as
most human beings in this imperfect state to an embodiment of the great
moral principle, ‘Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you.’
* * * * *
“There are two opinions--radically different opinions--expressed
about Mr. Lincoln’s will, by men of equal and much capacity. One
opinion is, that he had _no_ will; and the other is, that he was _all_
will--omnipotently so. These two opinions are loudly and honestly
affirmed. Mr. Lincoln’s mind loved the true, the right, and good, all
the great truths and principles in the mind of man. He loved the true,
first; the right, second; and the good, the least. His mind struggled
for truths and his soul for substances. Neither in his head nor in
his soul did he care for forms, methods, ways,--the _non_-substantial
facts or things. He could not, by his very structure and formation
in mind and body, care anything about them. He did not intensely or
much care for particular individual man,--the dollar, property, rank,
order, manners, or such like things. He had no avarice in his nature,
or other like vice. He despised, somewhat, all technical rules in law
and theology and other sciences,--mere forms everywhere,--because they
were, as a general rule, founded on arbitrary thoughts and ideas, and
not on reason, truth, right, and the good. These things were without
substance, and he disregarded them because they cramped his original
nature. What suited a little, narrow, critical mind did not suit Mr.
Lincoln’s, any more than a child’s clothes did his body. Generally, Mr.
Lincoln could not take any interest in little local elections--town
meetings. He attended no gatherings that pertained to local or other
such interests, saving general political ones. He did not care (because
he could not, in his nature) who succeeded to the presidency of this
or that Christian Association or Railroad Convention; who made the
most money; who was going to Philadelphia, when and for what, and what
were the costs of such a trip. He could not care who, among friends,
got this office or that--who got to be street inspector or alley
commissioner. No principle of goodness, of truth, or right was here.
How could he be moved by such things as these? He could not understand
why men struggled for such things. He made this remark to me one day,
I think at Washington, ‘If ever this free people--if this Government
itself is ever utterly demoralized, it will come from this human
wriggle and struggle for office--a way to live without work; from
which nature I am not free myself.’ It puzzled him a good deal, at
Washington, to know and to get at the root of this dread desire,--this
contagious disease of national robbery in the nation’s death-struggle.
“Because Mr. Lincoln could not feel any interest in such little
things as I have spoken of, nor feel any particular interest in the
success of those who were thus struggling and wriggling, he was called
indifferent--nay, ungrateful--to his friends. Especially is this the
case with men who have aided Mr. Lincoln all their life. Mr. Lincoln
always and everywhere wished his friends well; he loved his friends and
clung to them tenaciously, like iron to iron welded; yet he could not
be actively and energetically aroused to the true sense of his friends’
particularly strong feelings of anxiety for office. From this fact Mr.
Lincoln has been called ungrateful. He was not an ungrateful man by
any means. He may have been a cool man--a passive man in his general
life; yet he was not ungrateful. Ingratitude is too positive a word--it
does not convey the truth. Mr. Lincoln may not have measured his
friendly duties by the applicant’s hot desire; I admit this. He was not
a selfish man,--if by selfishness is meant that Mr. Lincoln would do
any act, even to promote himself to the Presidency, if by that act any
human being was wronged. If it is said that Abraham Lincoln preferred
Abraham Lincoln to any one else, in the pursuit of his ambitions,
and that, because of this, he was a selfish man, then I can see no
objections to such an idea, for this is universal human nature.
“It must be remembered that Mr. Lincoln’s mind acted logically,
cautiously, and slowly. Now, having stated the above facts, the
question of his will and its power is easily solved. Be it remembered
that Mr. Lincoln cared nothing for simple facts, manners, modes,
ways, and such like things. Be it remembered that he _did_ care for
truth, right, for principle, for all that pertains to the good. In
relation to simple facts, unrelated to substance, forms, rules,
methods, ways, manners, he cared nothing; and if he could be aroused,
he would do anything for any body at any time, as well foe as friend.
As a politician he would courteously grant all facts and forms--all
non-essential things--to his opponent. He did so because he did not
care for them; they were rubbish, husks, trash. On the question of
substance, he hung and clung with all his might. On questions of
truth, justice, right, the good, on principle his will was as firm as
steel and as tenacious as iron. It was as firm, solid, real, vital,
and tenacious as an idea on which the world hinges or hangs. Ask Mr.
Lincoln to do a wrong thing, and he would scorn the request; ask him to
do an unjust thing, and he would cry, ‘Begone!’ ask him to sacrifice
his convictions of the truth, and his soul would indignantly exclaim,
‘The world perish first!’
“Such was Mr. Lincoln’s will. On manners and such like things, he was
pliable. On questions of right and substance, he was as firm as a rock.
One of these classes of men look at Mr. Lincoln from the stand-point of
things non-essential, and the other looks at him from the stand-point
of substance, rejecting forms. Hence the difference. Mr. Lincoln was
a man of firm, unyielding will, when, in human transactions, it was
necessary to be so, and _not_ otherwise. At one moment Mr. Lincoln was
as pliable and expansive as gentle air, and at the next moment he was
as biting, firm, tenacious, and unyielding as gravity itself.
“Thus I have traced Mr. Lincoln through his perceptions, his
suggestiveness, his judgments, and his four great predominant
qualities, namely,--his powers of reason, his great understanding, his
conscience, and his heart. I assert that Mr. Lincoln lived in the head.
He loved the truth; he loved the eternal right and the good,--never
yielding the fundamental conceptions of these to any man for any end.
“All the follies and wrong Mr. Lincoln ever fell into, or committed,
sprang or came out of his weak points, namely, his want of quick,
sagacious, intuitive judgment,--his want of quick, sagacious, intuitive
knowledge of the play and meaning of the features of men as written
on the face,--his tenderness and mercy, and, lastly, his utterly
unsuspecting nature. He was deeply and seriously honest himself, and
assumed that others were so organized. He never suspected men. These,
with other defects of his nature, caused all his follies and wrongs, if
he ever had any of either.
“All the wise and good things Mr. Lincoln ever did, sprang or came
out of his great reason, his conscience, his understanding, and his
heart, his love of truth, right, and the good. I am speaking now of
his particular and individual faculties and qualities, _not their
combination_, nor the result of wise or unwise combinations. Each man
and woman must form his or her own estimate of the man in the mind.
Run out these facts, qualities, and faculties, and see what they must
produce. For instance, a tender heart; a wise, strong reason; a good
understanding, an exalted conscience, a love of the good, must, in such
combination, practically applied, produce a man of great humanity.
“Take another illustration in the combination of his faculties
and qualities. Mr. Lincoln’s eloquence lay, 1st, in the strength
of his logical faculty, his supreme power of reasoning, his great
understanding, and his love of principle; 2d, in his clear, exact, and
very accurate vision; 3d, in his cool and masterly statement of his
principles, around which the issues gather; in the statement of those
issues, and the grouping of the facts that are to carry conviction,
aided by his logic, to the minds of men of every grade of intelligence.
He was so clear that he could not be misunderstood nor misrepresented.
He stood square and bolt upright to his convictions, and formed by
them his thoughts and utterances. Mr. Lincoln’s mind was not a wide,
deep, broad, generalizing, and comprehensive mind, nor versatile quick,
bounding here and there, as emergencies demanded it. His mind was deep,
enduring, and strong, running in deep iron grooves, with flanges on its
wheels. His mind was not keen, sharp, and subtile; it was deep, exact,
and strong.
“Whatever of life, vigor, force, and power of eloquence the whole of
the above qualities, or a wise combination will give; whatever there
is in a fair, manly, honest, and impartial administration of justice,
under law, to all men at all times,--through these qualities and
capabilities given, never deviating; whatever there is in a strong
will in the right, governed by tenderness and mercy; whatever there
is in toil and a sublime patience; whatever there is in particular
faculties, or a wise combination of them,--not forgetting his weak
points,--working wisely, sagaciously, and honestly, openly and
fairly;--I say, whatever there is in these, or a combination of them,
that Mr. Lincoln is justly entitled to in all the walks of life. These
limit, bound, and define him as statesman, orator, as an executive of
the nation, as a man of humanity, a good man, and a gentleman. These
limit, bound, and define him every way, in all the ways and walks of
life. He is under his law and his nature, and he never can get out of
it.
“This man, this long, bony, wiry, sad man, floated into our county in
1831, in a frail canoe, down the north fork of the Sangamon River,
friendless, pennyless, powerless, and alone,--begging for work in this
city,--ragged, struggling for the common necessaries of life. This man,
this peculiar man, left us in 1861, the President of the United States,
backed by friends and power, by fame, and all human force; and it is
well to inquire _how_.
“To sum up, let us say, here is a sensitive, diffident, unobtrusive,
natural-made gentleman. His mind was strong and deep, sincere and
honest, patient and enduring; having no vices, and having only
negative defects, with many positive virtues. His is a strong, honest,
sagacious, manly, noble life. He stands in the foremost rank of men
in all ages,--their equal,--one of the best types of this Christian
civilization.”