The substance of this chapter I delivered in the form of a
lecture to a Springfield audience in 1866. W. H. H.
SOON after the death of Mr. Lincoln Dr. J. G. Holland came out to
Illinois from his home in Massachusetts to gather up materials for a
life of the dead President. The gentleman spent several days with me,
and I gave him all the assistance that lay in my power. I was much
pleased with him, and awaited with not a little interest the appearance
of his book. I felt sure that even after my long and intimate
acquaintance with Mr. Lincoln I never fully knew and understood him,
and I therefore wondered what sort of a description Dr. Holland, after
interviewing Lincoln's old-time friends, would make of his individual
characteristics. When the book appeared he said this: "The writer
has conversed with multitudes of men who claimed to know Mr. Lincoln
intimately: yet there are not two of the whole number who agree in their
estimate of him. The fact was that he rarely showed more than one aspect
of himself to one man. He opened himself to men in different directions.
To illustrate the effect of the peculiarity of Mr. Lincoln's intercourse
with men it may be said that men who knew him through all his
professional and political life offered opinions as diametrically
opposite to these, viz.: that he was a very ambitious man, and that he
was without a particle of ambition; that he was one of the saddest
men that ever lived, and that he was one of the jolliest men that ever
lived; that he was very religious, but that he was not a Christian; that
he was a Christian, but did not know it; that he was so far from being
a religious man or a Christian that 'the less said upon that subject the
better;' that he was the most cunning man in America, and that he had
not a particle of cunning in him; that he had the strongest personal
attachments, and that he had no personal attachments at all--only a
general good feeling towards everybody; that he was a man of indomitable
will, and that he was a man almost without a will; that he was a tyrant,
and that he was the softest-hearted, most brotherly man that ever lived;
that he was remarkable for his pure-mindedness, and that he was the
foulest in his jests and stories of any man in the country; that he was
a witty man, and that he was only a retailer of the wit of others; that
his apparent candor and fairness were only apparent, and that they were
as real as his head and his hands; that he was a boor, and that he was
in all respects a gentleman; that he was a leader of the people, and
that he was always led by the people; that he was cool and impassive,
and that he was susceptible of the strongest passions. It is only by
tracing these separate streams of impression back to their fountain that
we are able to arrive at anything like a competent comprehension of the
man, or to learn why he came to be held in such various estimation. Men
caught only separate aspects of his character--only the fragments that
were called into exhibition by their own qualities."
Dr. Holland had only found what Lincoln's friends had always experienced
in their relations with him--that he was a man of many moods and many
sides. He never revealed himself entirely to any one man, and therefore
he will always to a certain extent remain enveloped in doubt. Even those
who were with him through long years of hard study and under constantly
varying circumstances can hardly say they knew him through and through.
I always believed I could read him as thoroughly as any man, and yet he
was so different in many respects from any other one I ever met before
or since his time that I cannot say I comprehended him. In this chapter
I give my recollection of his individual characteristics as they occur
to me, and allow the world to form its own opinion. If my recollection
of the man destroys any other person's ideal, I cannot help it. By a
faithful and lifelike description of Lincoln the man, and a study of
his peculiar and personal traits, perhaps some of the apparent
contradictions met with by Dr. Holland will have melted from sight.
Mr. Lincoln was six feet four inches high, and when he left the city of
his home for Washington 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 eighty 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; he
had dark skin, dark hair, and looked woe-struck. The whole man, body and
mind, worked slowly, as if it needed oiling. Physically he was a very
powerful man, lifting with ease four hundred, and in one case six
hundred, pounds. His mind was like his body, and worked slowly but
strongly. Hence there was very little bodily or mental wear and tear in
him. This peculiarity in his construction gave him great advantage
over other men in public life. No man in America--scarcely a man in
the world--could have stood what Lincoln did in Washington and survived
through more than one term of the Presidency.
When he walked he moved cautiously but firmly; his long arms and giant
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. His walk was undulatory--catching and pocketing tire, weariness,
and pain, all up and down his person, and thus preventing them from
locating. The first impression of a stranger, or a man who did not
observe closely, was that his walk implied shrewdness and cunning--that
he was a tricky man; but, in reality, it 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 remainder 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, which was almost
perpendicular. The size of his hat measured at the hatter's block was
seven and one-eighth, his head being, from ear to ear, six and one-half
inches, and from the front to the back of the brain eight 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 jaws were long and up-curved; his nose
was large, long, blunt, and a little awry towards the right eye; his
chin was sharp and upcurved; his eyebrows cropped out like a huge rock
on the brow of a hill; his long, sallow face was wrinkled and dry, with
a hair here and there 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 sympathy
for him--one means of his great success.
* Lincoln's melancholy never failed to impress any man who
ever saw or knew him. The perpetual look of sadness was his
most prominent feature. The cause of this peculiar condition
was a matter of frequent discussion among his friends. John
T. Stuart said it was due to his abnormal digestion. His
liver failed to work properly--did not secrete bile--and his
bowels were equally as inactive. "I used to advise him to
take blue-mass pills," related Stuart, "and he did take them
before he went to Washington, and for five months while he
was President, but when I came on to Congress he told me he
had ceased, using them because they made him cross." The
reader can hardly realize the extent of this peculiar
tendency to gloom. One of Lincoln's colleagues in the
Legislature of Illinois is authority for the statement
coming from Lincoln himself that this "mental depression
became so intense at times he never dared carry a pocket
knife." Two things greatly intensified his characteristic
sadness: one was the endless succession of troubles in his
domestic life, which he had to bear in silence; and the
other was unquestionably the knowledge of his own obscure
and lowly origin. The recollection of these things burned a
deep impress on his sensitive soul.
As to the cause of this morbid condition my idea has always
been that it was occult, and could not be explained by any
course of observation and reasoning. It was ingrained, and,
being ingrained, could not be reduced to rule, or the cause
arrayed. It was necessarily hereditary, but whether it came
down from a long line of ancestors and far back, or was
simply the reproduction of the saddened life of Nancy Hanks,
cannot well be determined. At any rate it was part of his
nature, and could no more be shaken off than he could part
with his brains.
He was gloomy, abstracted, and joyous--rather humorous--by turns; but I
do not think he knew what real joy was for many years.
Mr. Lincoln sometimes walked our streets cheerily, he was not always
gloomy, and then it was that on meeting a friend he greeted him with
plain "Howd'y?" clasping his hand in both of his own, and gave him a
hearty soul-welcome. On a winter's morning he might be seen stalking
towards the market-house, basket on arm, his old gray shawl wrapped
around his neck, his little boy Willie or Tad running along at his
heels asking a thousand boyish questions, which his father, in deep
abstraction, neither heeded nor heard.*
* "I lived next door to the Lincolns for many years, knew
the family well. Mr. Lincoln used to come to our house, his
feet encased in a pair of loose slippers, and with an old,
faded pair of trousers fastened with one suspender. He
frequently came to our house for milk. Our rooms were low,
and he said one day,'Jim, you'll have to lift your loft a
little higher; I can't straighten out under it very well.'
To my wife, who was short of stature, he used to say that
little people had some advantages: they required less 'wood
and wool to make them comfortable.' In his yard Lincoln had
but little shrubbery. He once planted some rose bushes, to
which he called my attention, but soon neglected them
altogether. He never planted any vines or fruit trees,
seemed to have no fondness for such things. At one time,
yielding to my suggestion, he undertook to keep a garden in
the rear part of his yard, but one season's experience
sufficed to cure him of all desire for another. He kept his
own horse, fed and curried it when at home; he also fed and
milked his own cow, and sawed his own wood. Mr. Lincoln and
his wife agreed moderately well. Frequently Mrs. Lincoln's
temper would get the better of her. If she became furious,
as she often did, her husband tried to pay no attention to
her. He would sometimes laugh at her, but generally he would
pick up one of the children and walk off. I have heard her
say that if Mr. Lincoln had remained at home more she could
have loved him better. One day while Mr. Lincoln was absent--
he had gone to Chicago to try a suit in the United States
Court--his wife and I formed a conspiracy to take off the
roof and raise his house. It was originally a frame
structure one story and a half high. When Lincoln returned
he met a gentleman on the sidewalk and, looking at his own
house and manifesting great surprise, inquired: 'Stranger,
can you tell me where Lincoln lives?' The gentleman gave him
the necessary information, and Lincoln gravely entered his
own premises."--Statement, James Gourly, February 9, 1866.
If a friend met or passed him, and he awoke from his reverie, something
would remind him of a story he had heard in Indiana, and tell it he
would, and there was no alternative but to listen.
Thus, I repeat, stood and walked and talked this singular man. He was
odd, but when that gray eye and that face and those features were lit
up by the inward soul in fires of emotion, then it was that all those
apparently ugly features sprang into organs of beauty or disappeared
in the sea of inspiration that often flooded his face. Sometimes it
appeared as if Lincoln's soul was fresh from its Creator.
I have asked the friends and foes of Mr. Lincoln alike what they thought
of his perceptions. One gentleman of unquestioned ability and free from
all partiality or prejudice said, "Mr. Lincoln's perceptions were 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, clear,
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 which 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, and precise. He
threw his whole mental light around the object, and, after a 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. He crushed the unreal, the inexact, the hollow, and the sham. He
saw things in rigidity rather than in vital action. 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 that did not manifest itself to him.
His mind was his standard. His mental action was deliberate, and he
was pitiless and persistent in pursuit of the truth. No error went
undetected, no falsehood unexposed, if he once was aroused in search of
the truth. 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 importance which it deserves. Newton beheld the law of the universe
in the fall of an apple from a tree to the ground; Owen saw the
animal in its claw; Spencer saw evolution in the growth of a seed;
and Shakespeare saw human nature in the laugh of a man. Nature was
suggestive to all these men. Mr. Lincoln no less saw philosophy in
a story and an object lesson in a joke. His was a new and original
position, one which was always suggesting something to him. The world
and man, principles and facts, all were full of suggestions to his
susceptible soul. They continually put him in mind of something. His
ideas were odd and original for the reason that he was a peculiar and
original creation himself.
His power in the association of ideas was as great as his memory was
tenacious and strong. His language indicated oddity and originality
of vision as well as expression. Words and language are but the
counterparts of the idea--the other half of the idea; they are but the
stinging, hot, leaden bullets that drop from the mould; in a rifle, with
powder stuffed behind them and fire applied, they are an embodied force
resistlessly pursuing their object. In the search for words Mr. Lincoln
was often at a loss. He was often perplexed to give proper expression to
his ideas; first, because he was not master of the English language; and
secondly, because there were, in the vast store of words, so few that
contained the exact coloring, power, and shape of his ideas. This will
account for the frequent resort by him to the use of stories, maxims,
and jokes in which to clothe his ideas, that they 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 standpoint could give him no advantage over other
men's labor. Hence he tore down to their deepest foundations all
arrangements of facts, and constructed new ones to govern himself. He
was compelled from his peculiar mental organization to do this. His
labor was great and continuous.
The truth about Mr. Lincoln is that he 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 thoroughly.
When young he read the Bible, and when of age he read Shakespeare; but,
though he often quoted from both, he never read either one through. He
is acknowledged now 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. Besides his well
established reputation for caution, he was concentrated in his thoughts
and had great continuity of reflection. In everything he was patient and
enduring. These are some of the grounds of his wonderful success.
Not only were nature, man, and principle suggestive to Mr. Lincoln, not
only had he accurate and exact perceptions, but he was causative; his
mind, apparently with an automatic movement, ran back behind facts,
principles, and all things to their origin and first cause--to that
point where forces act at once as effect and cause. He would stop in the
street and analyze a machine. He would whittle a thing 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, language, paddle-wheels, and idioms
never escaped his observation and analysis. Before he could form an idea
of anything, before he would express his opinion on a subject, he must
know its origin and history in substance and quality, in magnitude and
gravity. He must know it inside and outside, upside and downside. He
searched and comprehended his own mind and nature thoroughly, as I have
often heard him say. He must analyze a sensation, an idea, and run back
in its history to its origin, and purpose. He was remorseless in his
analysis of facts and principles. When all these exhaustive processes
had been gone through with he could form an idea and express it; but no
sooner. He had no faith, and no respect for "say so's," come though they
might from tradition or authority. Thus everything had to run through
the crucible, and be tested by the fires of his analytic mind; and when
at last he did speak, his utterances rang out with the clear and
keen ring of gold upon the counters of the understanding. He reasoned
logically through analogy and comparison. All opponents dreaded
his originality of idea, his condensation, definition, and force of
expression; and woe be to the man who hugged to his bosom a secret error
if Lincoln got on the chase of it. I repeat, 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 gifted with accurate and acute perception, though a profound
thinker as well as analyzer, still Lincoln's judgment on many and minor
matters was oftentimes childish. By the word judgment I do not mean
what mental philosophers would call the exercise of reason,
will--understanding; but I use the term in its popular sense. I refer to
that capacity or power which decides on the fitness, the harmony, or,
if you will, the beauty and appropriateness of things. I have always
thought, and sometimes said, Lincoln lacked this quality in his mental
structure. He was on the alert if a principle was involved or a man's
rights at stake in a transaction; but he never could see the harm in
wearing a sack-coat instead of a swallowtail to an evening party, nor
could he realize the offense of telling a vulgar yarn if a preacher
happened to be present.*
* Sometime in 1857 a lady reader or elocutionist came to
Springfield and gave a public reading in a hall immediately
north of the State House. As lady lecturers were then rare
birds, a very large crowd greeted her. Among other things
she recited "Nothing to Wear," a piece in which is described
the perplexities that beset "Miss Flora McFlimsey" in her
efforts to appear fashionable. In the midst of one stanza,
in which no effort is made to say anything particularly
amusing, and during the reading of which the audience
manifested the most respectful silence and attention, some
one in the rear seats burst out into a loud, coarse laugh--a
sudden and explosive guffaw. It startled the speaker and
audience, and kindled a storm of unsuppressed laughter and
applause. Everyone looked back to ascertain the cause of the
demonstration, and was greatly surprised to find that it was
Mr. Lincoln. He blushed and squirmed with the awkward
diffidence of a schoolboy. What prompted him to laugh no one
was able to explain. He was doubtless wrapped up in a brown
study, and, recalling some amusing episode, indulged in
laughter without realizing his surroundings. The experience
mortified him greatly.
As already expressed, Mr. Lincoln had no faith. 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 or even belief. Such a mind
manifestly must have its time. His forte and power lay in digging out
for himself and securing for his mind its own food, to be assimilated
unto itself. Thus, in time he would form opinions and conclusions that
no human power could overthrow. They were as irresistible as the rush
of a flood; as convincing as logic embodied in mathematics. And yet the
question arises: "Had Mr. Lincoln great, good common-sense?" A variety
of opinions suggest themselves in answer to this. If the true test
is that a man shall judge the rush and whirl of human actions and
transactions as wisely and accurately as though indefinite time and
proper conditions were at his disposal, then I am compelled to
follow the logic of things and admit that he had no great stock of
common-sense; but if, on the other hand, the time and conditions were
ripe, his common-sense was in every case equal to the emergency. He
knew himself, and never trusted his dollar or his fame in casual
opinions--never acted hastily or prematurely on great matters.
Mr. Lincoln believed that the great leading law of human nature is
motive. He reasoned all ideas of a disinterested action out of my mind.
I used to hold that an action could be pure, disinterested, and wholly
free from 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 these motives was self. He defied me to act without motive and
unselfishly; and when I did the act and told him of it, he analyzed and
sifted it to the last grain. After he had concluded, I could not avoid
the admission that he had demonstrated the absolute selfishness of the
entire act. Although a profound analyzer of the laws of human nature
he could form no just construction of the motives of the particular
individual. 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. In determining what each play
of the features indicated he was pitiably weak.
The great predominating elements of Mr. Lincoln's peculiar character
were: first, his great capacity and power of reason; second, his
conscience and his excellent understanding; third, an exalted idea of
the sense of right and equity; fourth, his intense veneration of the
true and the good. His conscience, his heart and all the faculties and
qualities of his mind bowed submissively to the despotism of his reason.
He lived and acted from the standard of reason--that throne of logic,
home of principle--the realm of Deity in man. It is from this point Mr.
Lincoln must be viewed. Not only was he cautious, patient, and enduring;
not only had he concentration and great continuity of thought; but
he had profound analytical power. His vision was clear, and he was
emphatically the master of statement. His pursuit of the truth, as
before mentioned, was indefatigable. He reasoned from well-chosen
principles with such clearness, force, and directness that the tallest
intellects in the land bowed to him. He was the strongest man I ever
saw, looking at him from the elevated standpoint of reason and logic.
He came down from that height with irresistible and crashing force. His
Cooper Institute and other printed speeches will prove this; but his
speeches before the courts--especially the Supreme Court of Illinois--if
they had been preserved, would demonstrate it still more plainly.
Here he demanded time to think and prepare. The office of reason is to
determine the truth. Truth is the power of reason, and Lincoln loved
truth for its own sake. It was to him reason's food.
Conscience, the second great quality of Mr. Lincoln's character, is
that faculty which induces in us love of the just. Its real office is
justice; right and equity are its correlatives. As a court, it is in
session continuously; it decides all acts at all times. Mr. Lincoln
had a deep, broad, living conscience. His reason, however, was the real
judge; it told him what was true or false, and therefore good or bad,
right or wrong, just or unjust, and his conscience echoed back the
decision. His conscience ruled his heart; he was always just before
he was generous. It cannot be said of any mortal that he was always
absolutely just. Neither was Lincoln always just; but his general
life was. It follows that if Mr. Lincoln had great reason and great
conscience he must have been an honest man; and so he was. He was
rightfully entitled to the appellation "Honest Abe." Honesty was his
polar star.
Mr. Lincoln also had a good understanding; that is, the faculty that
comprehends the exact state of things and determines their relations,
near or remote. The understanding does not necessarily enquire for the
reason of things. While Lincoln was odd and original, while he lived
out of himself and by himself, and while he could absorb but little from
others, yet a reading of his speeches, messages, and letters satisfies
us that he had good understanding. But the strongest point in his
make-up was the knowledge he had of himself; he comprehended and
understood his own capacity--what he did and why he did it--better
perhaps than any man of his day. He had a wider and deeper comprehension
of his environments, of the political conditions especially, than
men who were more learned or had had the benefits of a more thorough
training.
He was a very sensitive man,--modest to the point of diffidence,--and
often hid himself in the masses to prevent the discovery of his
identity. He was not indifferent, however, to approbation and public
opinion. He had no disgusting egotism and no pompous pride, no
aristocracy, no haughtiness, no vanity. Merging together the qualities
of his nature he was a meek, quiet, unobtrusive gentleman.
As many contradictory opinions prevail in reference to Mr. Lincoln's
heart and humanity as on the question of his judgment. As many persons
perhaps contend that he was cold and obdurate as that he was warm and
affectionate. The first thing the world met in contact with him was
his head and conscience; after that he exposed the tender side of his
nature--his heart, subject at all times to his exalted sense of
right and equity, namely his conscience. In proportion as he held his
conscience subject to his head, he held his heart subject to his head
and conscience. His humanity had to defer to his sense of justice and,
the eternal right. His heart was the lowest of these organs, if we may
call them such--the weakest of the three. Some men have reversed this
order and characterized his heart as his ruling organ. This estimate
of Mr. Lincoln endows him with love regardless of truth, justice, and
right. The question still is, was Lincoln cold and heartless, or warm
and affectionate? Can a man be all heart, all head, and all conscience?
Some of these are masters over the others, some will be dominant, ruling
with imperial sway, and thus giving character to the man. 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, seeking to correct some
abuse to mankind because of a deep love for humanity, apart from equity
and truth, and who does what he does for love's sake? If so, Mr. Lincoln
was a cold man. If a man, woman, or child approached him, and the prayer
of such an one was granted, that itself was not evidence of his love.
The African was enslaved and deprived of his rights; a principle was
violated in doing so. 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, the constitutional
obligations imposed upon him by the oath of office, to strike the blow
against slavery. But did he do it for love? He has himself answered
the question "I would not free the slaves if I could preserve the Union
without it." When he freed the slaves there was no heart in the act.
This argument can be used against his too enthusiastic friends.
In general terms his life was cold--at least characterized by what many
persons would deem great indifference. He had, however, a strong latent
capacity to love: but the object must first come in the guise of a
principle, next it must be right and true--then it was lovely in his
sight. He loved humanity when it was oppressed--an abstract
love--as against the concrete love centered in an individual. He rarely
used terms of endearment, and yet he was proverbially tender and gentle.
He gave the key-note to his own character when he said: "With malice
towards none, with charity for all." In proportion to his want of deep,
intense love he had 110 hate and bore no malice. His charity for an
imperfect man was as broad as his devotion to principle was enduring.
"But was not Mr. Lincoln a man of great humanity?" asks a friend at my
elbow; to which I reply, "Has not that question been answered already?"
Let us suppose it has not. We must understand each other. What is meant
by his humanity? Is it meant that he had much of human nature in him? If
so, I grant that he was a man of humanity. If, in the event of the
above definition being unsatisfactory or untrue, it is meant that he
was tender and kind, then I again agree. But if the inference is that he
would sacrifice truth or right in the slightest degree for the love of
a friend, then he was neither tender nor kind; nor did he have any
humanity. The law of human nature is such that it cannot be all head,
all conscience, and all heart in one person at the same time. Our Maker
so constituted things that, where God through reason blazed the way, we
might boldly walk therein. The glory of Mr. Lincoln's power lay in the
just and magnificent equipoise of head, conscience, and heart; and here
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
the good--the eternal right; not only was he tender and sympathetic and
kind;--but, in due proportion and in legitimate subordination, he had
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,
quick sympathy, his heart; he approximated as nearly as human nature
and the imperfections of man would permit to an embodiment of the great
moral principle, "Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you."
Of Mr. Lincoln's will-power there are two opinions also: one that
he lacked any will; the other that he was all will. Both these
contradictory views have their vehement and honest champions. For the
great underlying principles of mind in man he had great respect. He
loved the true first, the right second, and the good last. His mind
struggled for truth, and his soul reached out for substances. He cared
not for forms, ways, methods--the non-substantial things of this world.
He could not, by reason of his structure and mental organization, care
anything about them. He did not have an intense care for any particular
or individual man--the dollar, property, rank, orders, manners, or
similar things; neither did he have any avarice or other like vice in
his nature. He detested somewhat all technical rules in law, philosophy,
and other sciences--mere forms everywhere--because they were, as a
general thing, founded on arbitrary thoughts and ideas, and not on
reason, truth, and the right. These things seemed to him lacking in
substance, and he disregarded them because they cramped the originality
of his genius. What suited a little narrow, critical mind did not suit
Mr. Lincoln any more than a child's clothes would fit his father's body.
Generally he took no interest in town affairs or local elections; he
attended no meetings that pertained to local interests. He did not
care--because by reason of his nature he could not--who succeeded to the
presidency of this or that society or railroad company; who made the
most money; who was going to Philadelphia, and what were the costs of
such a trip; who was going to be married; who among his friends got this
office or that--who was elected street commissioner Or health inspector.
No principle of truth, right, or justice being involved in any of these
things he could not be moved by them.*
* A bitter, malignant fool who always had opposed Lincoln
and his friends, and had lost no opportunity to abuse them,
induced Lincoln to go to the Governor of Illinois and
recommend him for an important office in the State Militia.
There being no principle at stake Lincoln could not refuse
the request. When his friends heard of it they were furious
in their denunciation of his action. It mortified him
greatly to learn that he had displeased them. "And yet," he
said, a few days later, dwelling on the matter to me in the
office, "I couldn't well refuse the little the fellow asked
of me."
He could not understand why men struggled so desperately for the little
glory or lesser salary the small offices afforded. He made this
remark to me one day in Washington: "If ever this free people--this
Government--is utterly demoralized, it will come from this human
struggle for office--a way to live without work." It puzzled him a good
deal, he said, to get at the root of this dreaded disease, which spread
like contagion during the nation's death struggle.
Because he could not feel a deep interest in the things referred to,
nor manifest the same interest in those who were engaged in the popular
scramble, he was called indifferent--nay, ungrateful--to his friends.
This estimate of the man was a very unjust as well as unfair one. Mr.
Lincoln loved his friends with commendable loyalty: in many cases he
clung to them tenaciously, like iron to iron welded; and yet, because
he could not be actively aroused, nor enter into the spirit of their
anxiety for office, he was called ungrateful. But he was not so. He may
have seemed passive and lacking in interest; he may not have measured
his friendly duties by the applicant's hot desire; but yet he was never
ungrateful. Neither was he a selfish man. He would never have performed
an act, even to promote himself to the Presidency, if by that act any
human being was wronged. If it is said that he preferred Abraham Lincoln
to anyone else in the pursuit of his ambition, and that because of this
he was a selfish man, then I can see no impropriety in the charge. Under
the same conditions we should all be equally guilty.
[Illustration: Statue 354]
Remembering that Mr. Lincoln's mind moved logically, slowly, and
cautiously, the question of his will and its power is easily solved.
Although he cared but little for simple facts, rules, and methods, he
did care for the truth and right of principle. In debate he courteously
granted all the forms and non-essential things to his opponent.
Sometimes he yielded nine points out of ten. The nine he brushed aside
as husks or rubbish; but the tenth, being a question of substance, he
clung to with all his might. On the underlying principles of truth and
justice his will was as firm as steel and as tenacious as iron. It was
as solid, real, and vital as an idea on which the world turns. He
scorned to support or adopt an untrue position, in proportion as his
conscience prevented him from doing an unjust thing. Ask him to
sacrifice in the slightest degree his convictions of truth*--as he was
asked to do when he made his "house-divided-against-itself speech"--and
his soul would have exclaimed with indignant scorn, "The world perish
first!"
Such was Lincoln's will. Because on one line of questions--the
non-essential--he was pliable, and on the other he was as immovable as
the rocks, have arisen the contradictory notions prevalent regarding
him.
* "Mr. Lincoln seems to me too true and honest a man to have
his eulogy written, and I have no taste for writing
eulogies. I am sure that, if he were alive, he would feel
that the exact truth regarding himself was far more worthy
of himself and of his biographer than any flattering
picture. I loved the man as he was, with his rugged
features, his coarse, rebellious hair, his sad, dreamy eyes;
and I love to see him, and I hope to describe him, as he
was, and not otherwise."--Robert Dale Owen, January 22,
1867, MS.
It only remains to say that he was inflexible and unbending in human
transactions when it was necessary to be so, and not otherwise. At
one moment he was pliable and expansive as gentle air; at the next as
tenacious and unyielding as gravity itself.
Thus I have traced Mr. Lincoln through his perceptions, his
suggestiveness, his judgment, and his four predominant qualities: powers
of reason, understanding, conscience, and heart. In the grand review of
his peculiar characteristics, nothing creates such an impressive effect
as his love of the truth. It looms up over everything else. His life
is proof of the assertion that he never yielded in his fundamental
conception of truth to any man for any end.
All the follies and wrong Mr. Lincoln ever fell into or committed sprang
out of these weak points: the want of intuitive judgment; the lack of
quick, sagacious knowledge of the play and meaning of men's features as
written on the face; the want of the sense of propriety of things; his
tenderness and mercy; and lastly, his unsuspecting nature. He was deeply
and sincerely honest himself, and assumed that others were so. He never
suspected men; and hence in dealing with them he was easily imposed
upon.
All the wise and good things Mr. Lincoln ever did sprang out of his
great reason, his conscience, his understanding, his heart, his love of
the truth, the right, and the good. I am speaking now of his particular
and individual faculties and qualities, not of their combination or
the result of any combinations. Run out these qualities and faculties
abstractly, and see what they produce. For instance, a tender heart, a
strong reason, a broad under standing, an exalted conscience, a love
of the true and the good must, proportioned reasonably and applied
practically, produce a man of great power and great humanity.
As illustrative of a combination in Mr. Lincoln's organization, it may
be said that his eloquence lay in the strength of his logical faculty,
his supreme power of reasoning, his great understanding, and his love
of principle; in his clear and accurate vision; in his cool and masterly
statement of principles around which the issues gather; and in the
statement of those issues and the grouping of the facts that are to
carry conviction to the minds of men of every grade of intelligence. He
was so clear that he could not be misunderstood or long misrepresented.
He stood square and bolt upright to his convictions, and anyone who
listened to him would be convinced that he formed his thoughts
and utterances by them. His mind was not exactly a wide, broad,
generalizing, and comprehensive mind, nor yet a versatile, quick, and
subtle one, bounding here and there as emergencies demanded; but it was
deep, enduring, strong, like a majestic machine running in deep iron
grooves with heavy flanges on its wheels.
Mr. Lincoln himself was a very sensitive man, and hence, in dealing
with others, he avoided wounding their hearts or puncturing their
sensibility. He was unusually considerate of the feelings of other
men, regardless of their rank, condition, or station. At first sight he
struck one with his plainness, simplicity of manner, sincerity, candor,
and truthfulness. He had no double interests and no overwhelming dignity
with which to chill the air around his visitor. He was always easy of
approach and thoroughly democratic. He seemed to throw a charm around
every man who ever met him. To be in his presence was a pleasure, and
no man ever left his company with injured feelings unless most richly
deserved.
The universal testimony, "He is an honest man," gave him a firm hold on
the masses, and they trusted him with a blind religious faith. His sad,
melancholy face excited their sympathy, and when the dark days came it
was their heart-strings that entwined and sustained him. Sympathy,
we are told, is one of the strongest and noblest incentives to human
action. With the sympathy and love of the people to sustain him, Lincoln
had unlimited power over them; he threw an invisible and weightless
harness over them, and drove them through disaster and desperation to
final victory. The trust and worship by the people of Lincoln were
the result of his simple character. He held himself not aloof from the
masses. He became one of them. They feared together, they struggled
together, they hoped together; thus melted and moulded into one, they
became one in thought, one in will, one in action. If Lincoln cautiously
awaited the full development of the last fact in the great drama before
he acted, when longer waiting would be a crime, he knew that the people
were determinedly at his back. Thus, when a blow was struck, it came
with the unerring aim and power of a bolt from heaven. A natural
king--not ruling men, but leading them along the drifts and trends of
their own tendencies, always keeping in mind the consent of the
governed, he developed what the future historian will call the sublimest
order of conservative statesmanship.
[Illustration: Lincoln Monument, Springfield 361]
Whatever of life, vigor, force, and power of eloquence his peculiar
qualities gave him; whatever there was in a fair, manly, honest, and
impartial administration of justice under law to all men at all times;
whatever there was in a strong will in the right governed by tenderness
and mercy; whatever there was in toil and sublime patience; whatever
there was in these things or a wise combination of them, Lincoln is
justly entitled to in making up the impartial verdict of history. These
limit and define him as a statesman, as an orator, as an executive of
the nation, and as a man. They developed in all the walks of his life;
they were his law; they were his nature, they were Abraham Lincoln.
This long, bony, sad man floated down the Sangamon river in a frail
canoe in the spring of 1831. Like a piece of driftwood he lodged at
last, without a history, strange, penniless, and alone. In sight of the
capital of Illinois, in the fatigue of daily toil he struggled for the
necessaries of life. Thirty years later this same peculiar man left the
Sangamon river, backed by friends, by power, by the patriotic prayers of
millions of people, to be the ruler of the greatest nation in the world.
As the leader of a brave people in their desperate struggle for national
existence, Abraham Lincoln will always be an interesting historical
character.
His strong, honest, sagacious, and noble life will always possess a
peculiar charm. Had it not been for his conservative statesmanship,
his supreme confidence in the wisdom of the people, his extreme care
in groping his way among facts and before ideas, this nation might
have been two governments to-day. The low and feeble circulation of
his blood; his healthful irritability, which responded so slowly to the
effects of stimuli; the strength of his herculean frame; his peculiar
organism, conserving its force; his sublime patience; his wonderful
endurance; his great hand and heart, saved this country from division,
when division meant its irreparable ruin.
The central figure of our national history, the sublime type of our
civilization, posterity, with the record of his career and actions
before it, will decree that, whether Providence so ordained it or not,
Abraham Lincoln was the man for the hour.
APPENDIX.
UNPUBLISHED FAMILY LETTERS.
The following letters by Mr. Lincoln to his relatives were at one time
placed in my hands. As they have never before been published entire I
have thought proper to append them here. They are only interesting as
showing Mr. Lincoln's affection for his father and step-mother, and
as specimens of the good, sound sense with which he approached every
undertaking. The list opens with a letter to his father written from
Washington while a member of Congress:
"Washington, Dec. 24, 1848.
"My Dear Father:
"Your letter of the 7th was received night before last. I very
cheerfully send you the twenty dollars, which sum you say is necessary
to save your land from sale. It is singular that you should have
forgotten a judgment against you--and it is more singular that the
plaintiff should have let you forget it so long, particularly as I
suppose you have always had property enough to satisfy a judgment of
that amount. Before you pay it, it would be well to be sure you have not
paid, or at least that you cannot prove you have paid it.
"Give my love to Mother and all the Connections.
"Affectionately, your son,
"A. Lincoln."
His step-brother, John D. Johnston, for whom Mr. Lincoln always
exhibited the affection of a real brother, was the recipient of many
letters. Some of them were commonplace, but between the lines of each
much good, homely philosophy may be read. Johnston, whom I knew, was
exactly what his distinguished step-brother charged--an idler. In every
emergency he seemed to fall back on Lincoln for assistance. The aid
generally came, but with it always some plain but sensible suggestion.
The series opens as follows:
"Springfield, Feb. 23,1850.
"Dear Brother:
"Your letter about a mail contract was received yesterday. I have made
out a bid for you at $120, guaranteed it myself, got our P. M. here to
certify it, and send it on. Your former letter, concerning some man's
claim for a pension, was also received. I had the claim examined by
those who are practised in such matters, and they decide he cannot get a
pension.
"As you make no mention of it, I suppose you had not learned that we
lost our little boy. He was sick fifteen days, and died in the morning
of the first day of this month. It was not our first, but our second
child. We miss him very much.
"Your Brother, in haste,
"A. Lincoln."
"To John D. Johnston."
Following is another, which, however, bears no date:
"Dear Johnston:
"Your request for eighty dollars I do not think it best to comply with
now. At the various times when I have helped you a little you have said
to me, 'We can get along very well now,' but in a very short time I
find you in the same difficulty again. Now this can only happen by some
defect in your conduct. What that defect is, I think I know. You are not
_lazy_, and still you are an _idler_. I doubt whether, since I saw you,
you have done a good whole day's work in any one day. You do not very
much dislike to work, and still you do not work much, merely because
it does not seem to you that you could get much for it. This habit
of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; and it is vastly
important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should
break the habit. It is more important to them because they have longer
to live, and can keep out of an idle habit, before they are in it,
easier than they can get out after they are in.
"You are in need of some ready money, and what I propose is that you
shall go to work 'tooth and nail' for somebody who will give you money
for it. Let father and your boys take charge of things at home, prepare
for a crop, and make the crop, and you go to work for the best money
wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get,--and to
secure you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you that for
every dollar you will, between this and the first of next May, get for
your own labor, either in money or as your own indebtedness, I will then
give you one other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars
a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month
for your work. In this I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or
the lead mines, or the gold mines in California, but I mean for you to
go at it for the best wages you can get close to home in Coles County.
Now if you will do this, you will be soon out of debt, and, what is
better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt
again. But if I should now clear you out, next year you would be just as
deep in as ever. You say you would give your place in heaven for $70 or
$80. Then you value your place in heaven very cheap, for I am sure you
can, with the offer I make, get the seventy or eighty dollars for four
or five months' work.
"You say, if I will furnish you the money, you will deed me the land,
and if you don't pay the money back you will deliver possession.
Nonsense! If you can't now live with the land, how will you then live
without it? You have always been kind to me, and I do not mean to be
unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you
will find it worth more than eight times eighty dollars to you.
"Affectionately,
"Your brother,
"A. Lincoln."
The following, written when the limit of Thomas Lincoln's life seemed
rapidly approaching, shows in what esteem his son held the relation that
existed between them:
"Springfield, Jan y 12, 1851.
"Dear Brother:
"On the day before yesterday I received a letter from Harriett, written
at Greenup. She says she has just returned from your house; and that
Father is very low, and will hardly recover. She also says that you have
written me two letters; and that although you do not expect me to come
now, you wonder that I do not write. I received both your letters, and
although I have not answered them, it is not because I have forgotten
them, or [not] been interested about them, but because it appeared to me
I could write nothing which could do any good. You already know I desire
that neither Father or Mother shall be in want of any comfort either in
health or sickness while they live; and I feel sure you have not failed
to use my name, if necessary, to procure a doctor, or anything else for
Father in his present sickness. My business is such that I could hardly
leave home now, if it were not, as it is, that my own wife is sick
a-bed (it is a case of baby-sickness, and I suppose is not dangerous). I
sincerely hope Father may yet recover his health; but at all events tell
him to remember to call upon and confide in our great, and good, and
merciful Maker, who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He
notes the fall of a sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our heads; and He
will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in Him. Say to him that
if we could meet now it is doubtful whether it would not be more painful
than pleasant; but that if it be his lot to go now he will soon have a
joyous meeting with many loved ones gone before, and where the rest of
us, through the help of God, hope ere long to join them.
"Write me again when you receive this.
"Affectionately,
"A. Lincoln."
Lincoln's mentor-like interest in his step-mother and his shiftless and
almost unfortunate step-brother was in no wise diminished by the death
of his father. He writes:
"Springfield, Aug. 31,1851.
"Dear Brother:
"Inclosed is the deed for the land. We are all well, and have nothing in
the way of news. We have had no cholera here for about two weeks.
"Give my love to all, and especially to Mother.
"Yours as ever,
"A. Lincoln."
No more practical or kindly-earnest advice could have been given than
this:
"Shelbyville, Nov. 4, 1851.
"Dear Brother:
"When I came into Charleston day before yesterday I learned that you are
anxious to sell the land where you live, and move to Missouri. I have
been thinking of this ever since, and cannot but think such a notion is
utterly foolish. What can you do in Missouri better than here? Is the
land richer? Can you there, any more than here, raise corn and wheat and
oats without work? Will anybody there, any more than here, do your work
for you? If you intend to go to work, there is no better place than
right where you are; if you do not intend to go to work you cannot get
along anywhere. Squirming and crawling about from place to place can do
no good. You have raised no crop this year, and what you really want
is to sell the land, get the money and spend it. Part with the land you
have, and, my life upon it, you will never after own a spot big enough
to bury you in. Half you will get for the land you spend in moving to
Missouri, and the other half you will eat and drink and wear out, and no
foot of land will be bought. Now I feel it is my duty to have no hand in
such a piece of foolery. I feel that it is so even on your own account,
and particularly on Mother's account. The eastern forty acres I intend
to keep for Mother while she lives; if you will not cultivate it,
it will rent for enough to support her; at least it will rent for
something. Her dower in the other two forties she can let you have, and
no thanks to me.
"Now do not misunderstand this letter. I do not write it in any
unkindness. I write it in order, if possible, to get you to face the
truth, which truth is, you are destitute because you have idled away all
your time. Your thousand pretences for not getting along better are all
nonsense; they deceive nobody but yourself. Go to work is the only cure
for your case.
"A word for Mother: Chapman tells me he wants you to go and live with
him. If I were you I would try it awhile. If you get tired of it (as I
think you will not) you can return to your own home. Chapman feels very
kindly to you; and I have no doubt he will make your situation very
pleasant.
"Sincerely your son,
"A. Lincoln."
The list closes with this one written by Lincoln while on the circuit:
"Shelbyville, Nov. 9, 1851.
"Dear Brother:
''When I wrote you before, I had not received your letter. I still
think as I did; but if the land can be sold so that I get three hundred
dollars to put to interest for Mother, I will not object if she does
not. But before I will make a deed, the money must be had, or secured
beyond all doubt at ten per cent.
"As to Abraham, I do not want him on my own account; but I understand he
wants to live with me so that he can go to school and get a fair start
in the world, which I very much wish him to have. When I reach home, if
I can make it convenient to take, I will take him, provided there is no
mistake between us as to the object and terms of my taking him.
"In haste, as ever,
"A. Lincoln."
AN INCIDENT ON THE CIRCUIT.
"In the spring term of the Tazewell County Court in 1847, which at that
time was held in the village of Tremont, I was detained as a witness an
entire week. Lincoln was employed in several suits, and among them was
one of Case _vs._ Snow Bros. The Snow Bros., as appeared in evidence
(who were both minors), had purchased from an old Mr. Case what was then
called a "prairie team," consisting of two or three yoke of oxen and
prairie plow, giving therefor their joint note for some two hundred
dollars; but when pay-day came refused to pay, pleading the minor act.
The note was placed in Lincoln's hands for collection. The suit was
called and a jury impanelled. The Snow Bros, did not deny the note, but
pleaded through their counsel that they were minors, and that Mr. Case
knew they were at the time of the contract and conveyance. All this was
admitted by Mr. Lincoln, with his peculiar phrase, 'Yes, gentlemen, I
reckon that's so.' The minor act was read and its validity admitted in
the same manner. The counsel of the defendants were permitted without
question to state all these things to the jury, and to show by the
statute that these minors could not be held responsible for their
contract. By this time you may well suppose that I began to be uneasy.
'What!' thought I, 'this good old man, who confided in these boys, to
be wronged in this way, and even his counsel, Mr. Lincoln, to submit in
silence!' I looked at the court, Judge Treat, but could read nothing in
his calm and dignified demeanor. Just then, Mr. Lincoln slowly got up,
and in his strange, half-erect attitude and clear, quiet accent began:
'_Gentlemen of the Jury_, are you willing to allow these boys to begin
life with this shame and disgrace attached to their character? If you
are, I am not. The best judge of human character that ever wrote has
left these immortal words for all of us to ponder:
"Good name in man or woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash;'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine,'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed."'
"Then rising to his full height, and looking upon the defendants with
the compassion of a brother, his long right arm extended toward the
opposing counsel, he continued: 'Gentlemen of the jury, these poor
innocent boys would never have attempted this low villany had it not
been for the advice of these lawyers.' Then for a few minutes he showed
how even the noble science of law may be prostituted. With a scathing
rebuke to those who thus belittle their profession, he concluded: 'And
now, gentlemen, you have it in _your_ power to set these boys right
before the world.' He plead for the young men only; I think he did
not mention his client's name. The jury, without leaving their seats,
decided that the defendants must pay the debt; and the latter, after
hearing Lincoln, were as willing to pay it as the jury were determined
they should. I think the entire argument lasted not above five
minutes."--_George W. Minier_, statement, Apr. 10, 1882.
LINCOLN'S FELLOW LAWYERS.
Among Lincoln's colleagues at the Springfield bar, after his re-entry
into politics in 1854, and until his elevation to the Presidency,
were, John T. Stuart, Stephen T. Logan, John A. McClernand, Benjamin S.
Edwards, David Logan, E. B. Herndon, W. I. Ferguson, James H. Matheney,
C. C. Brown, N. M. Broadwell, Charles W. Keyes, John E. Rosette, C.
S. Zane, J. C. Conkling, Shelby M. Cullom, and G. W. Shutt. There were
others, notably John M. Palmer and Richard J. Oglesby, who came in
occasionally from other counties and tried suits with and against us,
but they never became members of our bar, strictly speaking, till after
the war had closed.--W. H. H.
THE TRUCE WITH DOUGLAS.--TESTIMONY OF IRWIN.
"The conversation took place in the office of Lincoln & Herndon, in the
presence of P. L. Harrison, William H. Herndon, Pascal Enos, and myself.
It originated in this way: After the debate at Springfield on the 4th
and 5th of October, 1854, William Jayne, John Cassiday, Pascal Enos,
the writer, and others whose names I do not now remember, filled out and
signed a written request to Lincoln to follow Douglas until he 'ran him
into his hole' or made him halloo 'Enough,' and that day Lincoln was
giving in his report. He said that the next morning after the Peoria
debate Douglas came to him and flattered him that he knew more on the
question of Territorial organization in this government than all the
Senate of the United States, and called his mind to the trouble the
latter had given him. He added that Lincoln had already given him more
trouble than all the opposition in the Senate, and then proposed to
Lincoln that if he (Lincoln) would go home and not follow him, he
(Douglas) would go to no more of his appointments, would make no more
speeches, and would go home and remain silent during the rest of
the campaign. Lincoln did not make another speech till after the
election."--B. F, Irwin's statement, Feb. 8, 1866, unpublished MS.
See ante pp. 368-369.
THE BLOOMINGTON CONVENTION.
Following is a copy of the call to select delegates to the Bloomington
Convention held May 29, 1856, when the Republican party in Illinois came
into existence. It will be remembered that I signed Lincoln's name under
instructions from him by telegraph. The original document I gave several
years ago to a friend in Boston, Mass.:
"We, the undersigned, citizens of Sangamon County, who are opposed to
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the present administration,
and who are in favor of restoring to the general government the policy
of Washington and Jefferson, would suggest the propriety of a County
Convention, to be held in the city of Springfield on Saturday, the 24th
day of May, at 2 o'clock, p. M., to appoint delegates to the Bloomington
Convention.
"A. Lincoln,
"W. H. Herndon and others."
The decided stand Lincoln took in this instance, and his speech in
the Convention, undoubtedly paved the way for his leadership in the
Republican party.--W. H. H.
AN OFFICE DISCUSSION--LINCOLN'S IDEA OF WAR.
One morning in 1859, Lincoln and I, impressed with the probability of
war between the two sections of the country, were discussing the
subject in the office. "The position taken by the advocates of State
Sovereignty," remarked Lincoln, "always reminds me of the fellow who
contended that the proper place for the big kettle was inside of the
little one." To me, war seemed inevitable, but when I came to view
the matter squarely, I feared a difficulty the North would have in
controlling the various classes of people and shades of sentiment, so
as to make them an effective force in case of war: I feared the lack
of some great head and heart to lead us onward. Lincoln had great
confidence in the masses, believing that, when they were brought face to
face with the reality of the conflict, all differences would disappear,
and that they would be merged into one. To illustrate his idea he made
use of this figure: "Go to the river bank with a coarse sieve and fill
it with gravel. After a vigorous shaking you will observe that the small
pebbles and sand have sunk from view and fallen to the ground. The next
larger in size, unable to slip between the wires, will still be found
within the sieve. By thorough and repeated shakings you will find that,
of the pebbles still left in the sieve, the largest ones will have risen
to the top. Now," he continued, "if, as you say, war is inevitable and
will shake the country from centre to circumference, you will find that
the little men will fall out of view in the shaking. The masses will
rest on some solid foundation, and the big men will have climbed to
the top. Of these latter, one greater than all the rest will leap forth
armed and equipped--the people's leader in the conflict." Little did I
realize the strength of the masses when united and fighting for a common
purpose; and much less did I dream that the great leader soon to be
tried was at that very moment touching my elbow!--W. H. H.
LINCOLN AND THE KNOW-NOTHINGS.
Among other things used against Lincoln in the campaign of 1860 was
the charge that he had been a member of a Know-Nothing lodge. When the
charge was laid at his door he wrote the following letter to one of his
confidential political friends. I copy from the original MS.:
[Confidential.]
"Springfield, Ills., July 21, 1860.
"Hon. A. Jonas.
"My Dear Sir:
"Yours of the 20th is received. I suppose as good, or even
better, men than I may have been in American or Know-Nothing lodges;
but, in point of fact, I never was in one, at Quincy or elsewhere. I
was never in Quincy but one day and two nights while Know-Nothing lodges
were in existence, and you were with me that day and both those nights.
I had never been there before in my life; and never afterwards, till the
joint debate with Douglas in 1858. It was in 1854, when I spoke in
some hall there, and after the speaking you, with others, took me to
an oyster saloon, passed an hour there, and you walked with me to, and
parted with me at, the Quincy House quite late at night. I left by stage
for Naples before daylight in the morning, having come in by the same
route after dark the evening previous to the speaking, when I found you
waiting at the Quincy House to meet me. A few days after I was there,
Richardson, as I understood, started the same story about my having
been in a Know-Nothing lodge. When I heard of the charge, as I did
soon after, I taxed my recollection for some incident which could have
suggested it; and I remembered that, on parting with you the last night,
I went to the office of the Hotel to take my stage passage for the
morning, was told that no stage office for that line was kept there, and
that I must see the driver before retiring, to insure his calling for me
in the morning; and a servant was sent with me to find the driver, who,
after taking me a square or two, stopped me, and stepped perhaps a dozen
steps farther, and in my hearing called to some one, who answered him,
apparently from the upper part of a building, and promised to call with
the stage for me at the Quincy House. I returned and went to bed, and
before day the stage called and took me. This is all.
"That I never was in a Know-Nothing lodge in Quincy I should expect
could be easily proved by respectable men who were always in the lodges,
and never saw me there. An affidavit of one or two such would put the
matter at rest.
"And now, a word of caution. Our adversaries think they can gain a point
if they could force me to openly deny the charge, by which some degree
of offence would be given to the Americans. For this reason it must not
publicly appear that I am paying any attention to the charge,
"Yours truly,
"A. Lincoln."
LINCOLN'S VIEWS ON THE RIGHTS OF SUFFRAGE.
At one time, while holding the office of attorney for the city of
Springfield, I had a case in the Supreme Court, which involved the
validity or constitutionality of a law regulating the matter of voting.
Although a city case, it really abridged the right of suffrage. Being
Lincoln's partner I wanted him to assist me in arguing the questions
involved. He declined to do so, saying: "I am opposed to the limitation
or lessening of the right of suffrage; if anything, I am in favor of its
extension or enlargement. I want to lift men up--to broaden rather than
contract their privileges."--W. H. H.
THE BURIAL OF THE ASSASSIN BOOTH.
"Upon reaching Washington with the body of Booth--having come up the
Potomac--it was at once removed from the tug-boat to a gun-boat that lay
at the dock at the Navy Yard, where it remained about thirty-six
hours. It was there examined by the Surgeon-General and staff and other
officers, and identified by half a score of persons who had known him
well. Toward evening of the second day Gen. L. C. Baker, then chief
of the 'Detective Bureau of the War Department,' received orders from
Secretary of War Stanton to dispose of the body. Stanton said, 'Put it
where it will not be disturbed until Gabriel blows his last trumpet.'
I was ordered to assist him. The body was placed in a row-boat, and,
taking with us one trusty man to manage the boat, we quietly floated
down the river. Crowds of people all along the shore were watching us.
For a blind we took with us a heavy ball and chain, and it was soon
going from lip to lip that we were about to sink the body in the
Potomac. Darkness soon came on, completely concealing our movements,
and under its cover we pulled slowly back to the old Penitentiary, which
during the war was used as an arsenal. The body was then lifted from the
boat and carried through a door opening on the river front. Under the
stone floor of what had been a prison cell a shallow grave was dug,
and the body, with the United States blanket for a 'winding-sheet,' was
there interred. There also it remained till Booth's accomplices were
hanged. It was then taken up and buried with his companions in crime. I
have since learned that the remains were again disinterred and given
to his friends, and that they now rest in the family burial-place in
Baltimore, Md."--From MS. of L. B. Baker, late Lieut. and A. Q. M. 1st
D. C. Cav.
A TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN BY A COLLEAGUE AT THE BAR.
"The weird and melancholy association of eloquence and poetry had a
strong fascination for Mr. Lincoln's mind. Tasteful composition,
either of prose or poetry, which faithfully contrasted the realities of
eternity with the unstable and fickle fortunes of time, made a strong
impression on his mind. In the indulgence of this melancholy taste it
is related of him that the poem, 'Immortality,' he knew by rote and
appreciated very highly. He had a strange liking for the verses, and
they bear a just resemblance to his fortune. Mr. Lincoln, at the time of
his assassination, was encircled by a halo of immortal glory such as had
never before graced the brow of mortal man. He had driven treason from
its capital city, had slept in the palace of its once proud and defiant,
but now vanquished leader, and had saved his country and its accrued
glories of three-quarters of a century from destruction. He rode, not
with the haughty and imperious brow of an ancient conqueror, but with
the placid complacency of a pure patriot, through the streets of the
political Babylon of modern times. He had ridden over battlefields
immortal in history, when, in power at least, he was the leader. Having
assured the misguided citizens of the South that he meant them no harm
beyond a determination to maintain the government, he returned buoyant
with hope to the Executive Mansion where for four long years he had been
held, as it were, a prisoner.
"Weary with the stories of state, he goes to seek the relaxation of
amusement at the theatre; sees the gay crowd as he passes in; is cheered
and graciously smiled upon by fair women and brave men; beholds the
gorgeous paraphernalia of the stage, the brilliantly lighted scene, the
arched ceiling, with its grotesque and inimitable figuring to heighten
the effect and make the occasion one of unalloyed pleasure. The hearts
of the people beat in unison with his over a redeemed and ransomed land.
A pause in the play--a faint pistol shot is heard. No one knows its
significance save the hellish few who are in the plot. A wild shriek,
such as murder wrings from the heart of woman, follows: the proud
form of Mr. Lincoln has sunk in death. The scene is changed to a wild
confusion such as no poet can describe, no painter delineate. Well might
the murdered have said and oft repeated:
"Tis the wink of an eye,'tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,--
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?"
[From a speech by Hon. Lawrence Weldon, at a bar-meeting held in the
United States Court at Springfield, Ills., in June, 1865.]
LINCOLN AT FORT MONROE.
An interesting recollection of Lincoln comes from the pen of Colonel
LeGrand B. Cannon, of New York. One cannot fail to be impressed with the
strength of the side-light thrown by these reminiscences on a life as
peculiar, in some respects, as it was grand and unique in others:
"It was my great good fortune," relates Colonel Cannon, "to know
something of Mr. Lincoln distinct from his official life. Intensely in
earnest I entered the service at the opening of the Rebellion as a
staff officer in the regular army and was assigned to the Department of
Virginia, with headquarters at Fort Monroe. Major-General Wool was
in command of the Department, and I was honored by him as his chief
of-staff, and enjoyed his entire confidence. It was the only gate open
for communication with the rebel government, and General Wool was the
agent for such intercourse.
"In the early stages of the war there was a want of harmony between the
army and navy about us which seriously embarrassed military operations,
resulting in the President and Secretaries Chase and Stanton coming
to Fort Monroe to adjust matters. Domestic comforts were limited at
headquarters, and the President occupied my room. I was (in accordance
with military etiquette) assigned to him as 'Aide-in-Waiting' and
Secretary. Although I had frequently met the President as 'Bearer of
Dispatches,' I was not a little prejudiced, and a good deal irritated,
at the levity which he was charged with indulging in. In grave matters,
jesting and frolicking seemed to me shocking, with such vital matters at
stake, and I confess to thinking of Nero.
"But all this changed when I came to know him; and I very soon discerned
that he had a sad nature; but that, although a terrible burden, his
sadness did not originate in his great official responsibilities. I had
heard that his home was not pleasant, but did not know that there was
more beyond it.
"The day after Mr. Lincoln came to us he said to me: 'I suppose you have
neither a Bible nor a copy of Shakespeare here?' I replied that I had a
Bible, and the General had Shakespeare, and that the latter never missed
a night without reading it. 'Won't he lend it to me?' inquired the
President. I answered, 'Yes,' and, of course, obtained it for him.
"The day following he read by himself in one of my offices, two hours or
more, entirely alone, I being engaged in a connecting room on duty. He
finally interrupted me, inviting me to rest while he would read to me.
He read from _Macbeth, Lear_, and finally. _King John_. In reading the
passage where Constance bewails to the King the loss of her child, I
noticed that his voice trembled and he was deeply moved. Laying the book
on the table he said:
"'Did you ever dream of a lost friend and feel that you were having a
sweet communion with that friend, and yet a consciousness that it was
not a reality?'
"'Yes,' I replied, 'I think almost any one may have had such an
experience.'
"'So do I,' he mused; 'I dream of my dead boy, Willie, again and again.'
"I shall never forget the sigh nor the look of sorrow that accompanied
this expression. He was utterly overcome; his great frame shook, and,
bowing down on the table, he wept as only such a man in the breaking
down of a great sorrow could weep. It is needless to say that I wept
in sympathy, and quietly left the room that he might recover without
restraint.
"Lincoln never again referred to his boy, but he made me feel that he
had given me a sacred confidence, and he ever after treated me with a
tenderness and regard that won my love.
"Again, some days later, I had been absent on a reconnoissance, and
returned late in the afternoon. I was in my room dressing for dinner
(which was a very formal affair, as, besides the Administration, we had,
almost daily, distinguished foreigners to dine) when the President came
in. Seeing me in full uniform he said:
"'Why, Colonel, you're fixing up mighty fine. Suppose you lend me your
comb and brush, and I'll put on a few touches, too.'
"I handed the desired articles to him and he toyed with the comb awhile
and then laid it down, exclaiming:
"'This thing will never get through my hair. Now, if you have such a
thing as they comb a horse's tail with, I believe I can use it.' After
a merry laugh, he continued: 'By the way, I can tell you a good story
about my hair. When I was nominated, at Chicago, an enterprising fellow
thought that a great many people would like to see how Abe Lincoln
looked, and, as I had not long before sat for a photograph, this fellow
having seen it, rushed over and bought the negative. He at once got out
no end of wood-cuts, and, so active was their circulation, they were
selling in all parts of the country. Soon after they reached Springfield
I heard a boy crying them for sale on the streets. 'Here's your likeness
of Abe Lincoln!' he shouted.
"'Buy one; price only two shillings! Will look a good deal better when he
gets his hair combed!'"