BEFORE passing to a brief and condensed view of the great panorama of
the war it will interest the reader and no doubt aid him greatly in
drawing the portrait of Lincoln to call up for the purpose two friends
of his, whose testimony is not only vivid and minute, but for certain
reasons unusually appropriate and essential. The two were devoted and
trusted friends of Lincoln; and while neither held office under him,
both were offered and both declined the same. That of itself ought not
to be considered as affecting or strengthening their statements, and
yet we sometimes think that friends who are strong enough to aid us,
and yet, declining our aid, take care of themselves, are brave enough
to tell us the truth. The two friends of Lincoln here referred to are
Joshua F. Speed and Leonard Swett. In quoting them I adhere strictly to
their written statements now in my possession. The former, under date
of December 6, 1866, says: "Mr. Lincoln was so unlike all the men I had
ever known before or seen or known since that there is no one to whom
I can compare him. In all his habits of eating, sleeping, reading,
conversation, and study he was, if I may so express it, regularly
irregular; that is, he had no stated time for eating, no fixed time for
going to bed, none for getting up. No course of reading was chalked out.
He read law, history, philosophy, or poetry; Burns, Byron, Milton, or
Shakespeare and the newspapers, retaining them all about as well as
an ordinary man would any one of them who made only one at a time his
study. I once remarked to him that his mind was a wonder to me; that
impressions were easily made upon it and never effaced. 'No,' said he,
'you are mistaken; I am slow to learn, and slow to forget that which
I have learned. My mind is like a piece of steel--very hard to scratch
anything on it, and almost impossible after you get it there to rub it
out.' I give this as his own illustration of the character of his mental
faculties; it is as good as any I have seen from anyone.
"The beauty of his character was its entire simplicity. He had no
affectation in anything. True to nature, true to himself, he was true
to everybody and everything around him. When he was ignorant on any
subject, no matter how simple it might make him appear, he was always
willing to acknowledge it. His whole aim in life was to be true to
himself, and being true to himself he could be false to no one.
"He had no vices, even as a young man. Intense thought with him was the
rule and not, as with most of us, the exception. He often said that he
could think better after breakfast, and better walking than sitting,
lying, or standing. His world-wide reputation for telling anecdotes and
telling them so well was in my judgment necessary to his very existence.
Most men who have been great students, such as he was, in their hours of
idleness have taken to the bottle, to cards or dice. He had no fondness
for any of these. Hence he sought relaxation in anecdotes. So far as
I now remember of his study for composition, it was to make short
sentences and a compact style. Illustrative of this it might be well
to state that he was a great admirer of the style of John C. Calhoun.
I remember reading to him one of Mr. Calhoun's speeches in reply to Mr.
Clay in the Senate, in which Mr. Clay had quoted precedent. Mr. Calhoun
replied (I quote from memory) that 'to legislate upon precedent is but
to make the error of yesterday the law of today.' Lincoln thought that
was a great truth and grandly uttered.
"Unlike all other men, there was entire harmony between his public and
private life. He must believe he was right, and that he had truth and
justice with him, or he was a weak man; but no man could be stronger if
he thought he was right.
"His familiar conversations were like his speeches and letters in this:
that while no set speech of his (save the Gettysburg address) will be
considered as entirely artistic and complete, yet, when the gems of
American literature come to be selected, as many will be culled from
Lincoln's speeches as from any American orator. So of his conversation,
and so of his private correspondence; all abound in gems.
"My own connection or relation with Mr. Lincoln during the war has so
often been commented on, and its extent so often enlarged upon, I
feel impelled to state that during his whole administration he never
requested me to do anything, except in my own State, and never much in
that except to advise him as to what measures and policy would be most
conducive to the growth of a healthy Union sentiment.
"My own opinion of the history of the Emancipation Proclamation is that
Mr. Lincoln foresaw the necessity for it long before he issued it.
He was anxious to avoid it, and came to it only when he saw that the
measure would subtract from its labor, and add to our army quite a
number of good fighting men. I have heard of the charge of duplicity
against him by certain Western members of Congress. I never believed
the charge, because he has told me from his own lips that the charge
was false. I, who knew him so well, could never after that credit the
report. At first I was opposed to the Proclamation, and so told him. I
remember well our conversation on the subject. He seemed to treat it as
certain that I would recognize the wisdom of the act when I should
see the harvest of good which we would ere long glean from it. In that
conversation he alluded to an incident in his life, long passed, when he
was so much depressed that he almost contemplated suicide. At the time
of his deep depression he said to me that he had 'done nothing to make
any human being remember that he had lived,' and that to connect his
name with the events transpiring in his day and generation, and so
impress himself upon them as to link his name with something that would
redound to the interest of his fellow man, was what he desired to
live for. He reminded me of that conversation, and said with earnest
emphasis, 'I believe that in this measure [meaning his Proclamation] my
fondest hope will be realized.' Over twenty years had passed between the
two conversations.
"The last interview but one I had with him was about ten days prior to
his last inauguration. Congress was drawing to a close; it had been an
important session; much attention had to be given to the important bills
he was signing; a great war was upon him and the country; visitors were
coming and going to the President with their varying complaints and
grievances from morning till night with almost as much regularity as the
ebb and flow of the tide; and he was worn down in health and spirits.
On this occasion I was sent for, to come and see him. Instructions were
given that when I came I should be admitted. When I entered his office
it was quite full, and many more--among them not a few Senators and
members of Congress--still waiting. As soon as I was fairly inside, the
President remarked that he desired to see me as soon as he was through
giving audiences, and that if I had nothing to do I could take the
papers and amuse myself in that or any other way I saw fit till he
was ready. In the room, when I entered, I observed sitting near the
fireplace, dressed in humble attire, two ladies modestly waiting their
turn. One after another of the visitors came and went, each bent on his
own particular errand, some satisfied and others evidently displeased
at the result of their mission. The hour had arrived to close the door
against all further callers. No one was left in the room now except the
President, the two ladies, and me. With a rather peevish and fretful air
he turned to them and said, 'Well, ladies, what can I do for you?' They
both commenced to speak at once. From what they said he soon learned
that one was the wife and the other the mother of two men imprisoned for
resisting the draft in western Pennsylvania. 'Stop,' said he, 'don't say
any more. Give me your petition.' The old lady responded, 'Mr. Lincoln,
we've got no petition; we couldn't write one and had no money to pay for
writing one, and I thought best to come and see you.' 'Oh,' said he,
'I understand your cases.' He rang his bell and ordered one of the
messengers to tell General Dana to bring him the names of all the men in
prison for resisting the draft in western Pennsylvania. The General
soon came with the list. He enquired if there was any difference in the
charges or degrees of guilt. The General replied that he knew of none.
'Well, then,' said he, 'these fellows have suffered long enough, and I
have thought so for some time, and now that my mind is on the subject I
believe I will turn out the whole flock. So, draw up the order, General,
and I will sign it.' It was done and the General left the room. Turning
to the women he said, 'Now, ladies, you can go.' The younger of the two
ran forward and was in the act of kneeling in thankfulness. 'Get up,' he
said; 'don't kneel to me, but thank God and go.' The old lady now came
forward with tears in her eyes to express her gratitude. 'Good-bye, Mr.
Lincoln,' said she; 'I shall probably never see you again till we meet
in heaven.' These were her exact words. She had the President's hand in
hers, and he was deeply moved. He instantly took her right hand in both
of his and, following her to the door, said, 'I am afraid with all my
troubles I shall never get to the resting-place you speak of; but if
I do I am sure I shall find you. That you wish me to get there is, I
believe, the best wish you could make for me. Good-bye.'
"We were now alone. I said to him, 'Lincoln, with my knowledge of your
nervous sensibility, it is a wonder that such scenes as this don't kill
you.' He thought for a moment and then answered in a languid voice,
'Yes, you are to a certain degree right. I ought not to undergo what I
so often do. I am very unwell now; my feet and hands of late seem to be
always cold, and I ought perhaps to be in bed; but things of the sort
you have just seen don't hurt me, for, to tell you the truth, that scene
is the only thing to-day that has made me forget my condition or given
me any pleasure. I have, in that order, made two people happy and
alleviated the distress of many a poor soul whom I never expect to see.
That old lady,' he continued, 'was no counterfeit. The mother spoke out
in all the features of her face. It is more than one can often say that
in doing right one has made two people happy in one day. Speed, die when
I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best, that I always
plucked a thistle and planted a flower when I thought a flower would
grow.' What a fitting sentiment! What a glorious recollection!"
The recollections of Lincoln by Mr. Swett are in the form of a letter
dated January 17, 1866. There is so much of what I know to be true
in it, and it is so graphically told, that although there maybe some
repetition of what has already been touched upon in the preceding
chapters, still I believe that the portrait of Lincoln will be made all
the more lifelike by inserting the letter without abridgment.
"Chicago, Ill., Jan. 17, 1866.
"Wm. H. Herndon, Esq.
"Springfield, Ill.
"Dear Sir: I received your letter to day, asking me to write you Friday.
Fearing if I delay, you will not get it in time, I will give you such
hasty thoughts as may occur to me to-night. I have mislaid your second
lecture, so that I have not read it at all, and have not read your first
one since about the time it was published. What I shall say, therefore,
will be based upon my own ideas rather than a review of the lecture.
"Lincoln's whole life was a calculation of the law of forces and
ultimate results. The whole world to him was a question of cause and
effect. He believed the results to which certain causes tended; he did
not believe that those results could be materially hastened or impeded.
His whole political history, especially since the agitation of the
slavery question, has been based upon this theory. He believed from
the first, I think, that the agitation of slavery would produce its
overthrow, and he acted upon the result as though it was present from
the beginning. His tactics were to get himself in the right place and
remain there still, until events would find him in that place. This
course of action led him to say and do things which could not be
understood when considered in reference to the immediate surroundings in
which they were done or said. You will remember, in his campaign
against Douglas in 1858, the first ten lines of the first speech he made
defeated him. The sentiment of the 'house divided against itself' seemed
wholly inappropriate. It was a speech made at the commencement of a
campaign, and apparently made for the campaign. Viewing it in this light
alone, nothing could have been more unfortunate or inappropriate. It was
saying just the wrong thing; yet he saw it was an abstract truth, and
standing by the speech would ultimately find him in the right place.
I was inclined at the time to believe these words were hastily and
inconsiderately uttered, but subsequent facts have convinced me they
were deliberate and had been matured. Judge T. L. Dickey says, that at
Bloomington, at the first Republican Convention in 1856, he uttered the
same sentences in a speech delivered there, and that after the meeting
was over, he (Dickey) called his attention to these remarks.
"Lincoln justified himself in making them by stating they were true; but
finally, at Dickey's urgent request, he promised that for his sake, or
upon his advice, he would not repeat them. In the summer of 1859, when
he was dining with a party of his intimate friends at Bloomington, the
subject of his Springfield speech was discussed. We all insisted it
was a great mistake, but he justified himself, and finally said, 'Well,
gentlemen, you may think that speech was a mistake, but I never have
believed it was, and you will see the day when you will consider it was
the wisest thing I ever said.'
"He never believed in political combinations, and consequently, whether
an individual man or class of men supported or opposed him, never made
any difference in his feelings, or his opinions of his own success. If
he was elected, he seemed to believe that no person or class of persons
could ever have defeated him, and if defeated, he believed nothing could
ever have elected him. Hence, when he was a candidate, he never
wanted anything done for him in the line of political combination or
management. He seemed to want to let the whole subject alone, and for
everybody else to do the same. I remember, after the Chicago Convention,
when a great portion of the East were known to be dissatisfied at
his nomination, when fierce conflicts were going on in New York and
Pennsylvania, and when great exertions seemed requisite to harmonize
and mould in concert the action of our friends, Lincoln always seemed
to oppose all efforts made in the direction of uniting the party. I
arranged with Mr. Thurlow Weed after the Chicago Convention to meet
him at Springfield. I was present at the interview, but Lincoln said
nothing. It was proposed that Judge Davis should go to New York and
Pennsylvania to survey the field and see what was necessary to be
done. Lincoln consented, but it was always my opinion that he consented
reluctantly.
"He saw that the pressure of a campaign was the external force coercing
the party into unity. If it failed to produce that result, he believed
any individual effort would also fail. If the desired result followed,
he considered it attributable to the great cause, and not aided by the
lesser ones. He sat down in his chair in Springfield and made himself
the Mecca to which all politicians made pilgrimages. He told them all a
story, said nothing, and sent them away. All his efforts to procure a
second nomination were in the same direction. I believe he earnestly
desired that nomination. He was much more eager for it than he was for
the first, and yet from the beginning he discouraged all efforts on the
part of his friends to obtain it. From the middle of his first term all
his adversaries were busily at work for themselves. Chase had three or
four secret societies and an immense patronage extending all over the
country. Fremont was constantly at work, yet Lincoln would never do
anything either to hinder them or to help himself.
"He was considered too conservative, and his adversaries were trying
to outstrip him in satisfying the radical element. I had a conversation
with him upon this subject in October, 1863, and tried to induce him to
recommend in his annual message a constitutional amendment abolishing
slavery. I told him I was not very radical, but I believed the result of
the war would be the extermination of slavery; that Congress would pass
the amendment making the slave free, and that it was proper at that time
to be done. I told him also, if he took that stand, it was an outside
position, and no one could maintain himself upon any measure more
radical, and if he failed to take the position, his rivals would.
Turning to me suddenly he said, 'Is not the question of emancipation
doing well enough now?' I replied it was. 'Well,'said he, 'I have
never done an official act with a view to promote my own personal
aggrandizement, and I don't like to begin now. I can see that
emancipation is coming; whoever can wait for it will see it; whoever
stands in its way will be run over by it.'
"His rivals were using money profusely; journals and influences were
being subsidized against him. I accidentally learned that a Washington
newspaper, through a purchase of the establishment, was to be turned
against him, and consulted him about taking steps to prevent it. The
only thing I could get him to say was that he would regret to see the
paper turned against him. Whatever was done had to be done without his
knowledge. Mr. Bennett of the _Herald_, with his paper, you know, is a
power. The old gentleman wanted to be noticed by Lincoln, and he wanted
to support him. A friend of his, who was certainly in his secrets, came
to Washington and intimated if Lincoln would invite Bennett to come over
and chat with him, his paper would be all right. Mr. Bennett wanted
nothing, he simply wanted to be noticed. Lincoln in talking about it
said, 'I understand it; Bennett has made a great deal of money, some say
not very properly, now he wants me to make him respectable. I have never
invited Mr. Bryant or Mr. Greeley here; I shall not, therefore,
especially invite Mr. Bennett.' All Lincoln would say was, that he was
receiving everybody, and he should receive Mr. Bennett if he came.
"Notwithstanding his entire inaction, he never for a moment doubted his
second nomination. One time in his room discussing with him who his real
friends were, he told me, if I would not show it, he would make a list
of how the Senate stood. When he got through, I pointed out some five or
six, and I told him I knew he was mistaken about them. Said he, 'You
may think so, but you keep that until the convention and tell me then
whether I was right.' He was right to a man. He kept a kind of account
book of how things were progressing, for three or four months, and
whenever I would get nervous and think things were going wrong, he would
get out his estimates and show how everything on the great scale of
action, such as the resolutions of legislatures, the instructions
of delegates, and things of that character, were going exactly as
he expected. These facts, with many others of a kindred nature, have
convinced me that he managed his politics upon a plan entirely different
from any other man the country has ever produced.
"He managed his campaigns by ignoring men and by ignoring all small
causes, but by closely calculating the tendencies of events and the
great forces which were producing logical results.
"In his conduct of the war he acted upon the theory that but one
thing was necessary, and that was a united North. He had all shades of
sentiments and opinions to deal with, and the consideration was
always presented to his mind, how can I hold these discordant elements
together?
"It was here that he located his own greatness as a President. One time,
about the middle of the war, I left his house about eleven o'clock at
night, at the Soldiers' Home. We had been discussing the discords in
the country, and particularly the States of Missouri and Kentucky. As we
separated at the door he said, 'I may not have made as great a President
as some other men, but I believe I have kept these discordant elements
together as well as anyone could.' Hence, in dealing with men he was a
trimmer, and such a trimmer the world has never seen. Halifax, who was
great in his day as a trimmer, would blush by the side of Lincoln; yet
Lincoln never trimmed in principles, it was only in his conduct with
men. He used the patronage of his office to feed the hunger of
these various factions. Weed always declared that he kept a regular
account-book of his appointments in New York, dividing his various
favors so as to give each faction more than it could get from any other
source, yet never enough to satisfy its appetite.
"They all had access to him, they all received favors from him, and they
all complained of ill treatment; but while unsatisfied, they all had
'large expectations,' and saw in him the chance of obtaining more than
from anyone else whom they could be sure of getting in his place.
He used every force to the best possible advantage. He never wasted
anything, and would always give more to his enemies than he would to his
friends; and the reason was, because he never had anything to spare, and
in the close calculation of attaching the factions to him, he counted
upon the abstract affection of his friends as an element to be offset
against some gift with which he must appease his enemies. Hence, there
was always some truth in the charge of his friends that he failed to
reciprocate their devotion with his favors. The reason was, that he had
only just so much to give away--'He always had more horses than oats.'
"An adhesion of all forces was indispensable to his success and the
success of the country; hence he husbanded his means with the greatest
nicety of calculation. Adhesion was what he wanted; if he got it
gratuitously he never wasted his substance paying for it.
"His love of the ludicrous was not the least peculiar of his
characteristics. His love of fun made him overlook everything else but
the point of the joke sought after. If he told a good story that was
refined and had a sharp point, he did not like it any the better because
it was refined. If it was outrageously vulgar, he never seemed to see
that part of it, if it had the sharp ring of wit; nothing ever reached
him but the wit. Almost any man that will tell a very vulgar story, has,
in a degree, a vulgar mind; but it was not so with him; with all his
purity of character and exalted morality and sensibility, which no
man can doubt, when hunting for wit he had no ability to discriminate
between the vulgar and the refined substances from which he extracted
it. It was the wit he was after, the pure jewel, and he would pick it
up out of the mud or dirt just as readily as he would from a parlor
table.
"He had great kindness of heart. His mind was full of tender
sensibilities, and he was extremely humane, yet while these attributes
were fully developed in his character, and, unless intercepted by his
judgment, controlled him, they never did control him contrary to his
judgment. He would strain a point to be kind, but he never strained
it to breaking. Most men of much kindly feeling are controlled by this
sentiment against their judgment, or rather that sentiment beclouds
their judgment. It was never so with him; he would be just as kind and
generous as his judgment would let him be--no more. If he ever deviated
from this rule, it was to save life. He would sometimes, I think, do
things he knew to be impolitic and wrong to save some poor fellow's
neck. I remember one day being in his room when he was sitting at his
table with a large pile of papers before him, and after a pleasant talk
he turned quite abruptly and said, 'Get out of the way, Swett; to-morrow
is butcher-day, and I must go through these papers and see if I cannot
find some excuse to let these poor fellows off.' The pile of papers he
had were the records of courts martial of men who on the following day
were to be shot. He was not examining the records to see whether the
evidence sustained the findings; he was purposely in search of occasions
to evade the law, in favor of life.
"Some of Lincoln's friends have insisted that he lacked the strong
attributes of personal affection which he ought to have exhibited; but
I think this is a mistake. Lincoln had too much justice to run a great
government for a few favors; and the complaints against him in this
regard, when properly digested, seem to amount to this and no more, that
he would not abuse the privileges of his situation.
"He was certainly a very poor hater. He never judged men by his like
or dislike for them. If any given act was to be performed, he could
understand that his enemy could do it just as well as anyone. If a man
had maligned him or been guilty of personal ill-treatment, and was the
fittest man for the place, he would give him that place just as soon as
he would give it to a friend.
"I do not think he ever removed a man because he was his enemy or
because he disliked him.
"The great secret of his power as an orator, in my judgment, lay in the
clearness and perspicuity of his statements. When Mr. Lincoln had stated
a case it was always more than half argued and the point more than half
won. It is said that some one of the crowned heads of Europe proposed
to marry when he had a wife living. A gentleman, hearing of this
proposition, replied, how could he? 'Oh,' replied his friend, 'he could
marry and then he could get Mr. Gladstone to make an explanation about
it.' This was said to illustrate the convincing power of Mr. Gladstone's
statement.
"Mr. Lincoln had this power greater than any man I have ever known. The
first impression he generally conveyed was, that he had stated the case
of his adversary better and more forcibly than his opponent could state
it himself. He then answered that statement of facts fairly and fully,
never passing by or skipping over a bad point.
"When this was done he presented his own case. There was a feeling,
when he argued a case, in the mind of any man who listened to it, that
nothing had been passed over; yet if he could not answer the objections
he argued, in his own mind, and himself arrive at the conclusion to
which he was leading others, he had very little power of argumentation.
The force of his logic was in conveying to the minds of others the
same clear and thorough analysis he had in his own, and if his own mind
failed to be satisfied, he had little power to satisfy anybody else. He
never made a sophistical argument in his life, and never could make one.
I think he was of less real aid in trying a thoroughly bad case than any
man I was ever associated with. If he could not grasp the whole case and
believe in it, he was never inclined to touch it.
"From the commencement of his life to its close, I have sometimes
doubted whether he ever asked anybody's advice about anything. He would
listen to everybody; he would hear everybody; but he rarely, if ever,
asked for opinions. I never knew him in trying a case to ask the advice
of any lawyer he was associated with.
"As a politician and as President, he arrived at all his conclusions
from his own reflections, and when his opinion was once formed, he never
doubted but what it was right.
"One great public mistake of his character, as generally received and
acquiesced in, is that he is considered by the people of this country as
a frank, guileless, and unsophisticated man. There never was a greater
mistake. Beneath a smooth surface of candor and apparent declaration of
all his thoughts and feelings, he exercised the most exalted tact and
the wisest discrimination. He handled and moved men remotely as we do
pieces upon a chess-board. He retained through life all the friends he
ever had, and he made the wrath of his enemies to praise him. This was
not by cunning or intrigue, in the low acceptation of the term, but by
far-seeing reason and discernment. He always told enough only of his
plans and purposes to induce the belief that he had communicated all,
yet he reserved enough to have communicated nothing. He told all that
was unimportant with a gushing frankness, yet no man ever kept his real
purposes closer, or penetrated the future further with his deep designs.
"You ask me whether he changed his religious opinions towards the
close of his life. I think not. As he became involved in matters of the
greatest importance, full of great responsibility and great doubt, a
feeling of religious reverence, a belief in God and his justice and
overruling power increased with him. He was always full of natural
religion; he believed in God as much as the most approved Church member,
yet he judged of Him by the same system of generalization as he judged
everything else. He had very little faith in ceremonials or forms. In
fact he cared nothing for the form of anything. But his heart was full
of natural and cultivated religion. He believed in the great laws of
truth, and the rigid discharge of duty, his accountability to God,
the ultimate triumph of the right and the overthrow of wrong. If his
religion were to be judged by the lines and rules of Church creeds
he would fall far short of the standard; but if by the higher rule of
purity of conduct, of honesty of motive, of unyielding fidelity to the
right, and acknowledging God as the supreme ruler, then he filled all
the requirements of true devotion, and his whole life was a life of love
to God, and love of his neighbor as of himself.
"Yours truly,
"Leonard Swett."