LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
LINCOLN 
 THE LEADER 
 
 AND 
 
 LINCOLN S GENIUS 
 FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD WATSON GILDER 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
e j 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY RICHARD WATSON GILDER 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published October ZQOQ 
 
 SECOND IMPRESSION 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 LINCOLN THE LEADER J 
 
 LINCOLN S GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 61 
 
 210110 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
ON THE LIFE-MASK OF ABRAHAM 
 LINCOLN 
 
 This bronze doth keep the very form and mold 
 Of our great martyr s face. Yes, this is he: 
 That brow all wisdom, all benignity ; 
 That human, humorous mouth ; those cheeks that 
 hold 
 
 Like some harsh landscape all the summer s gold; 
 That spirit fit for sorrow, as the sea 
 For storms to beat on ; the lone agony . 
 
 Those silent, patient lips too well foretold. 1^ 
 
 Yes, this is he who ruled a world of men 
 As might some prophet of the elder day 
 Brooding above the tempest and the fray 
 
 With deep-eyed thought and more than mortal ken. 
 A power was his beyond the touch of art 
 Or armed strength his pure and mighty heart. 
 
V 
 
 if OFTHE 
 
 I UNIVERrm- 
 
 LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 IT was not many years after the Civil 
 War that I first came to New York. 
 There I met, with youth s curiosity and 
 admiration for genius and distinction, 
 among other literary lights of the day, 
 Edmund Clarence Stedman, who had 
 struck out that dynamic lyric on Ossa- 
 watomie Brown, prophetic of the war, 
 who had addressed to the President the 
 demand for a captain, "Abraham Lin 
 coln, give us a man ! " a demand which 
 it took Lincoln so long and through so 
 many disappointments to satisfy, and 
 who had written the ringing sonnet on 
 
 1 First read before the Minnesota Commandery 
 of the Loyal Legion, at Minneapolis, February 12, 
 1907; and since revised and somewhat extended. 
 
 [3 ] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 the assassination, in which Lincoln is 
 described as " the whitest soul a nation 
 knew " ; Bayard Taylor, who had been 
 of special service to Lincoln at the im 
 portant court of St. Petersburg ; John 
 Bigelow, who had served the cause of the 
 Union in Paris ; Richard Grant White, 
 who had interpreted the Union cause in 
 his " New Gospel of Peace," and had 
 gathered the war-songs into a unique 
 volume ; Richard Henry Stoddard, who 
 had written an eloquent ode on the death 
 of Lincoln ; Dr. J. G. Holland, who 
 had written a life of the President, the 
 first of any moment to be put forth 
 after his death a still valuable con 
 tribution ; Noah Brooks, who had been 
 close to Lincoln in Washington; Bret 
 Harte, author, among other famous 
 pieces, of certain memorable lyrics of 
 the war ; George William Curtis, who 
 [4] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 had taken part in both the conventions 
 that nominated Lincoln, and officially 
 notified him of his second nomination ; 
 and, a seldom and picturesque revisitor 
 of his beloved Manhattan, Walt Whit 
 man, who had written "Captain, My 
 Captain," and the passionate chant on 
 the death of the President, " When Lilacs 
 Last in the Dooryard Bloomed." A 
 familiar and majestic figure of the time 
 was the poet Bryant, who had presided 
 on the occasion of Lincoln s Cooper 
 Union Speech, when each had been 
 greatly impressed by the other, Lincoln 
 saying, " It was worth the journey to 
 the East merely to meet such a man," 
 and Bryant becoming, soon after, one of 
 Lincoln s chief supporters for the Presi 
 dential nomination. 
 
 A certain young journalist and author 
 in the literary group greatly attracted 
 C 5] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 me. I remember writing to him in those 
 days a boyish, enthusiastic letter enroll 
 ing him in the company of " good 
 fellows " the good-hearted, the art- 
 loving, the genial. There was a special 
 fascination about him. He had a quiet, 
 intense sense of humor ; a wit that was 
 genial, though it could be stinging; and 
 a piquant poise and reticence. He was 
 as self-confident as he was courteous 
 and modest. 
 
 To him I said one day, " Colonel, as 
 you continue your study of Lincoln, and 
 your writing about him, does he seem 
 to you greater or less ? " 
 
 To this, and I remember the seri 
 ousness of his manner, John Hay an 
 swered, "As I go on with the work, to 
 me Lincoln grows greater and greater." 
 
 Since then, as the historical students 
 and the people of his country and of the 
 [6] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 world have studied and better known his 
 life, characteristics, and accomplishments, 
 Abraham Lincoln has grown greater and 
 greater in the estimation of mankind. 
 Very largely, indeed, has the writing of 
 John Hay himself, and of the elder de 
 voted co-biographer, John G. Nicolay, 
 helped in this better understanding. 
 Lincoln s praises are multiplied in all 
 lands by statesmen, historians, orators, 
 poets. Added to the common admiring 
 regard in which he is held, one con 
 stantly comes upon a peculiar interest 
 in him, an absorbing affection for him, 
 on the part of all sorts of people, some 
 of whom were his contemporaries, and 
 some who were children during his life, 
 or born since his living day. A man of 
 light and leading in our Southern States 
 told me lately that to him Lincoln was 
 one of the four most interesting per- 
 [7] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 sonalities in all history, one of the 
 others being no less than " the man of 
 Galilee." 
 
 As the study of Lincoln has continued, 
 it has become more and more evident 
 that he was no mere accident of poli 
 tics. In his nomination and election 
 there was no accident or miracle. But 
 there was, indeed, a miracle, and one 
 which greatens the more it is contem 
 plated the ancient miracle of individ 
 ual genius. Why did the boy who fished 
 little Abe out of Knob Creek remain the 
 simple, worthy, but, save for this one 
 act, unknown person that he was, while 
 the boy that was rescued became a man 
 fit for the companionship of Solomon 
 and of Shakespeare : not a President 
 merely, not a liberator merely, not a 
 martyr merely, but a man of such 
 surpassing character and sagacity as to 
 [8 ] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 dominate, by native right, in one of the 
 most terrific conflicts recorded in human 
 annals. 
 
 ii 
 
 It is natural that a writer should be 
 specially attracted to Lincoln by a study 
 of his recorded utterances ; in other 
 words, by an interest in his literary style. 
 Too young to appreciate what may be 
 called the artistic quality of his speeches 
 and writings at the time of their delivery, 
 it was after the war that I awoke to a 
 full appreciation of Lincoln s power of 
 expression a power which was one of 
 the main elements of his strength as a 
 leader. 
 
 It is not strange that an unusual fac 
 ulty of expression should be found to 
 belong to those who have risen to leader 
 ship among men. This expressiveness 
 may be of various kinds. Lincoln and 
 [9] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 Gladstone having been contemporaries, 
 born in the same year, and each rising 
 to the highest leadership in the two great 
 English-speaking nations, it is natural 
 that they should be compared as to their 
 use of language spoken and written. 
 Gladstone s elaborate and persuasive elo 
 quence, his manifold learning and richly 
 stored memory, the copiousness of his 
 diction, and the dignity, as well as the 
 fire and energy of his forensic appeals 
 these were among the wonders of a good 
 part of the last century. But, on separate 
 occasions, I asked of two of Gladstone s 
 most eminent parliamentary supporters 
 and admirers, without contradiction, and, 
 indeed, with full agreement on the part 
 of both, whether it was not one of the 
 miracles of genius that, notwithstanding 
 Gladstone had enjoyed all that culture 
 could accomplish, by means of uni- 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 versity training, and familiarity with the 
 art and literature of the ancient and 
 modern world, and long training and 
 leadership in public life, he had not 
 left a single masterpiece of English, 
 hardly one great phrase that clings to 
 the memory of men ; while Lincoln, with 
 out any educational advantages whatever, 
 growing up in the backwoods, with 
 scarcely a dozen books of rank and value 
 at his command, and ignorant of the lit 
 erature and art of modern Europe, as of 
 ancient times, had acquired a style of 
 higher distinction than that of Glad 
 stone, and had bequeathed more than one 
 masterpiece to the literature of the Eng 
 lish tongue. 
 
 Lincoln s style in speech and writing 
 is the same sort of miracle that gave us 
 the consummate art of Shakespeare, the 
 uncolleged actor; of Burns, the plow- 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 man ; and of Keats, the apothecary s ap 
 prentice, son of a livery-stableman. It is 
 not easy to analyze a miracle, but in dis 
 cussing the leadership of Lincoln it is 
 interesting to find certain qualities in his 
 literary style that are traits of his char 
 acter, and thus elements of his leader 
 ship. 
 
 Notwithstanding that the country has 
 been ransacked for every record of his 
 public speech, and every scrap of paper 
 to which he put pen, there has been 
 found from him absolutely nothing dis 
 creditable, and little that can be criticized 
 in the way of expression. Without the 
 aid of any teacher, he early learned to 
 be moderate and reasonable in state 
 ment, so that on the part even of the 
 obscure young politician there is a com 
 plete absence of that kind of public 
 speech which is described in a passage 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 he loved to quote, where it is said of the 
 orator that " he mounted the rostrum, 
 threw back his head, shined his eyes, 
 and left the consequences to God." 
 
 in 
 
 Lincoln s relish for a phrase like this 
 recalls his extraordinary sense of humor. 
 Probably no great historical figure in 
 the realm of action ever had Lincoln s 
 intense humorousness, combined with so 
 keen and racy a wit. Emerson notes in 
 his journal "a sort of boyish cheerfulness, 
 or that kind of sincerity and jolly good 
 meaning that our class meetings on Com 
 mencement Days show, in telling our 
 old stories over. When he has made his 
 remark, he looks up at you with great 
 satisfaction, and shows all his white teeth, 
 and laughs." Lincoln s laugh could be 
 something amazing. His face, in repose 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 well-balanced and commanding, with his 
 heartiest laughter is said to have be 
 come a surprising thing. Many anec 
 dotes relate the boisterousness of his 
 appreciation of a humorous situation or 
 story. Hay tells of his cheery laugh, 
 which filled the Blue Room with infec 
 tious good nature. " Homeric laughter " 
 Hay says it sometimes was; adding this 
 genial touch, that it was "dull pleasure" 
 to Lincoln " to laugh alone." In young 
 Hay he had always at hand, to share his 
 enjoyment of an amusing story from 
 life, or from one of the humorous books 
 of the day, a keenly sympathetic audi 
 ence. I like to think of the tired Presi 
 dent stealing into the young secretary s 
 room late at night, sitting on the edge 
 of the bed, and reading aloud some good 
 joke of war-time. 
 
 Some visitors at the White House 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 were filled with wonder at the quick 
 transition from unbridled mirth to pa 
 thetic seriousness. What wonder that 
 " the boisterous laughter became less 
 frequent year by year, the eye grew 
 veiled by constant meditation on mo 
 mentous subjects ; the air of reserve and 
 detachment from his surroundings in- 
 creased,"\and, as Hay says, and his pic 
 tures and the two contrasting life-masks 
 showi he rapidly grew old.) 
 
 Lincoln s sense of humor, which fla 
 vored now and then his speeches and 
 writings, and constantly his conversation, 
 went along with a homely wit which fre 
 quently brought to his argument quaint 
 and convincing illustration. His sense 
 of humor was, indeed, a real assistance 
 in his leadership, having many uses : it 
 relieved the strain of his strenuous labors ; 
 it helped to attach the masses to his per- 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 sonality ; and it assisted him out of many 
 difficulties. We did not fully know till 
 lately that he himself so keenly appre 
 ciated the part that story-telling played 
 in his career. Colonel Burt reports a 
 strange interview with Lincoln at the 
 Soldiers Home at a time of keen anxiety 
 and when a person present had rudely 
 demanded one of his "good stories." 
 " I believe," said Lincoln, turning away 
 from the challenger, " I have the popular 
 reputation of being a story-teller, but I 
 do not deserve the name in its general 
 sense ; for it is not the story itself, but 
 its purpose, or effect, that interests me. 
 yl often avoid a long and useless discus 
 sion by others, or a laborious explanation 
 on my own part, by a short story that 
 illustrates my point of view. So, too, the 
 sharpness of a refusal or the edge of a 
 rebuke may be blunted by an appropri- 
 [ 6] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 ate story, so as to save wounded feeling 
 and yet serve the purpose. No, I am 
 not simply a story-teller, but story-tell 
 ing as an emollient saves me much fric 
 tion and 
 
 IV 
 
 The most striking characteristic of 
 Lincoln s style may be found in the 
 record from the beginning. Candor was 
 a trait of the man, and not less of his 
 verbal manner. His natural honesty of 
 character, his desire to make his mean 
 ing clear, literally to demonstrate what 
 he believed to be the truth, with mathe 
 matical precision, this gave his ex 
 pression both attractiveness and force. 
 The simplicity of his nature, his lack of 
 self-consciousness and vanity, tended to 
 simplicity and directness of diction. An 
 eminent lawyer has said, is it with ex- 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 aggeration ? that without the massive 
 reasoning of Webster, or the resplendent 
 rhetoric of Burke, Lincoln exceeded 
 them both in his faculty of statement. 
 His style was affected, too 3 by the per 
 sonal traits of consideration for those of 
 a contrary mind, by his toleration, and 
 his large human sympathy. 
 
 But Lincoln s style might have had 
 all these qualities, and yet not have car 
 ried as it did. Beyond these traits comes 
 the miracle the cadence of his prose, 
 and its traits of pathos and of imagina 
 tion. Lincoln s prose, at its height, and 
 when his spirit was stirred by aspiration 
 and resolve, affects the soul like noble 
 music. Indeed, there may be found in 
 all his great utterances a strain which is 
 like the leading motive the Leitmotif 
 in musical drama ; a strain of mingled 
 pathos, heroism, and resolution. That is 
 [ 18 ] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 the strain in the two inaugurals, in the 
 " Gettysburg Address," and in his letter 
 of consolation to a bereaved mother, 
 which moves the hearts of generation 
 after generation. 1 
 
 Lincoln s power of expression was evi 
 dently one of the most effective elements 
 of his leadership. The sympathy and 
 toleration which made his writings and 
 speeches so persuasive assisted his leader 
 ship, not only in convincing his listeners, 
 and in endearing him, the leader, to in 
 dividuals and the masses, but helped him 
 as a statesman to take large and humane 
 views, and to adopt measures in keeping 
 with such views. To that sympathy and 
 that toleration a reunited country is under 
 constant obligation ; for Lincoln not only 
 brought the war to a successful issue, 
 
 1 See "Lincoln s Genius for Expression," in 
 this volume. 
 
 [ -9] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 successful in the true interests of both 
 antagonists, but to him we owe the 
 continuing possibility of good feeling 
 between the sections. To think that in 
 the preparatory political struggle and dur 
 ing the four years of the hideous con 
 flict, Abraham Lincoln, though his spirit 
 was strained almost beyond human en 
 durance by the harassments of his posi 
 tion; though misunderstood and foully 
 calumniated by public antagonists, and 
 thwarted and plotted against by some of 
 his own apparent supporters, uttered not 
 one word of violence or rancor not a 
 phrase which, after the cessation of hos 
 tilities, might return to embitter the de 
 feated combatants, or be resented by their 
 descendants ! 
 
 This extraordinary forbearance of the 
 President s has often been spoken of as an 
 amiable trait of the man ; but do we fully 
 [ 20] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 realize the value to the nation of this trait, 
 and the worth of its example in public 
 leadership ? After so tremendous a con 
 flict, the world abroad wonders at the 
 quickness of the return to sympathetic re 
 lations, to closer relations than ever, 
 between the sections so lately at war. But 
 we of the country know that the obstacles 
 to true union after the war were not so 
 much the events of the war, though 
 some of these naturally enough left a 
 trail of bitter resentment, as events 
 succeeding the conflict of years, in that 
 period of experimental reconstruction 
 when things were done in the name of 
 the dominant powers which the South 
 has found it hard to forget, and the North 
 ardently wishes could be blotted from re 
 membrance. Lincoln s attitude toward 
 the South, when fully comprehended, 
 helped to obliterate the acid stains of the 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 reconstruction period. In other words, 
 we are to-day a truly united country, not 
 only because Lincoln conducted the war 
 so as to win military success, but because 
 of his wise and tolerant and sympathetic 
 leadership during that war. 
 
 A striking illustration of his sympathy 
 for the people of the Confederate States 
 was his attempt, earnest and ineffectual, 
 in the last days of hostilities, two months 
 before his death, to convert his own cabi 
 net to his generous and long-cherished 
 scheme of compensated emancipation. 
 That he failed pathetically to carry 
 through this plan, upon which his heart 
 was set, illustrates, also, the fact that 
 uninterrupted success is not necessary to 
 the fame of the great figures of history. 
 Lincoln s failure to win support for this 
 humane policy deeply grieved him, but 
 the misadventure is not held against him 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 in the estimate of his greatness. On the 
 contrary, the fact that he made the at 
 tempt counts in his favor, and to-day 
 especially endears him to multitudes of 
 his countrymen, and is one of the very 
 bonds that hold the country together. 
 
 But Lincoln s sympathy and tolerance, 
 his forgiveness, his distaste for personal 
 contention, his lack of resentment, his 
 great heart, were shown not only in his 
 attitude toward those whom for their 
 own good, as he believed he unrelent 
 ingly opposed with all the forces at his 
 command ; but also toward his political 
 opponents in the North, and toward those 
 among his nominal supporters whose zeal 
 led them into positions of open or con 
 cealed antagonism. The opposition to 
 him in his own party was much more 
 intense than is generally known to the 
 present generation. 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 As to his masterly management of the 
 personalities whose followers he placated 
 and whose peculiarities and adverse abili 
 ties he skilfully utilized for the common 
 cause, this part of his leadership is illus 
 trated by a hundred stories either true 
 in fact or typically true. Here came into 
 play his sense of humor, his insight into 
 motive and character, in a word, his tact, 
 along with that tolerance and that sym 
 pathy of which I have spoken as affect 
 ing his habit of oral and written expres 
 sion. That he could manage to hold so 
 long together four such individualities 
 as his own, Seward s, Stanton s, and 
 Chase s, proves a genius of leadership 
 truly exceptional. It is now known, as it 
 was not till Nicolay and Hay revealed 
 the fact, how Seward learned to respect 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 *** 
 
 and loyally acquiesce in the leadership 
 of one whom he at first not unnaturally 
 expected to lead. Lincoln s leadership 
 of the irascible and useful Stanton was 
 a simpler matter; here the President s 
 inexhaustible patience and his abounding 
 sense of humor were both required to 
 save the situation, though, looking back 
 on the relations of these strong and utterly 
 divergent personalities, one feels that the 
 sense of humor was perhaps the saving 
 grace. As for Chase, and his convinced 
 and enthusiastic following, it was inev 
 itable that some such rallying-ground 
 should exist, in a time of stress, for those 
 who, as in the case of Chase himself, were 
 temperamentally unsympathetic with the 
 personality and methods of Lincoln. But 
 Lincoln s leadership did not fail him 
 here, as the story of the second nomina 
 tion and election abundantly testifies. 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 In Lincoln s history we see the growth 
 of self-confidence in a man who knows 
 his ignorances and limitations, but who, 
 from time to time measuring himself with 
 other men in the struggle of life, gradu 
 ally learns his own abilities and realizes 
 his own strength. With such an experi 
 ence the time comes when one who has 
 missed the learning of the schools, or who 
 is new in some special field into which 
 he has been thrust, confides in his own 
 vision, makes, if slowly, still with assur 
 ance, his own decisions, and is willing to 
 shoulder responsibilities no matter how 
 weighty. A letter remarkable for its an 
 ticipation of the favorable opinion of the 
 people as well as of the verdict of history, 
 was written from the White House by 
 John Hay to John G. Nicolay, in the 
 very midst of the war with two years 
 of fighting behind, and two years to come. 
 [ ^6] 
 
Uf4IVERSfTY j 
 
 OF 
 
 THE LEADER 
 
 It contains a vivid picture of Lincoln, 
 calm and confident at the helm. Not 
 here the sad-eyed, perplexed President, 
 who would "never be glad any more," 
 not the future, aureoled martyr, 
 but the masterful executive : 
 
 The Tycoon is in fine whack. I have rarely 
 seen him more serene and busy. He is manag 
 ing this war, the draft, foreign relations, and 
 planning a reconstruction of the Union, all at 
 once. I never knew with what tyrannous au 
 thority he rules the Cabinet, till now. The 
 most important things he decides and there is 
 no cavil. I am growing more and more firmly 
 convinced that the good of the country abso 
 lutely demands that he should be kept where 
 he is till this thing is over. There is no man 
 in the country so wise, so gentle and so firm. 
 
 VI 
 
 Let it not be omitted in the enumera 
 tion of the elements of Lincoln s leader- 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 ship, that he did not disdain to learn from 
 experience. In his First Inaugural, while 
 stating the policy of the Administration 
 with regard to acts of violence against the 
 authority of the United States, he defi 
 nitely announced that the course indicated 
 would be followed "unless current events 
 and experience " should "show a modifi 
 cation or change to be proper," and that in 
 every case and exigency his best discretion 
 would be exercised "according to circum 
 stances actually existing." Lincoln, like 
 other great leaders and administrators, 
 would rather be right than consistent. 
 His was a consistency of principle rather 
 than of program. His aim was justice, 
 and if he could not reach it by one path, 
 he would push on by another. 
 
 Special features of his leadership were 
 the knowledge and skill of the long- 
 practiced lawyer, which helped him im- 
 
 [28 ] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 measurably in his executive decisions, as 
 Frederick Trevor Hill has clearly pointed 
 out ; and his quickly and almost instinc 
 tively acquired skill in military strategy. 
 His letters to generals in the field are those 
 of a master of strategy who should use 
 the symbolism of ^Isop and the irony of 
 Socrates. Says the foremost living mili 
 tary critic of America, General Francis 
 V. Greene : 
 
 Great statesman, astute politician, clear 
 thinker, classic writer, master of men, kindly, 
 lovable man. These are his titles. To them 
 must be added military leader. Had he failed 
 in that quality, the others would have been 
 forgotten. Had peace been made on any terms 
 but those of surrender of the insurgent forces 
 and restoration of the Union, his career would 
 have been a colossal failure and the Eman 
 cipation Proclamation a subject of ridicule. 
 The prime essential was military success. 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 Lincoln gained it. Judged in the retrospect 
 of nearly half a century, with his every written 
 word now in print and with all the facts of the 
 period brought out and placed in proper per 
 spective by the endless studies, discussions, and 
 arguments of the intervening years, it becomes 
 clear that first and last and at all times during 
 his Presidency, in military affairs his was not 
 only the guiding but the controlling hand. 1 
 
 An intensely important feature of Lin 
 coln s leadership would be omitted if 
 nothing were said of the effect upon his 
 thought and conduct of his belief in and 
 conscious communion with an almighty, 
 mysterious, and beneficent Power, con 
 cerning itself not less with human affairs 
 than with the march of seasons and the 
 sweep of constellations. The deity was 
 to him an ever-present, ever-regnant in 
 fluence. There was nothing of theology 
 1 Scribner s Monthly, July, 1900. 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 or dogmatism in his religious opinions ; 
 but he lived in the spirit. The strange 
 silence of the Almighty Sovereign per 
 plexed him ; and he sought with passionate 
 eagerness to read the decrees of Provi 
 dence in the unfoldings of events, some 
 times taking definite action in accordance 
 with his interpretation of divine indica 
 tions. And always the belief in God was 
 to him a challenge to singleness of pur 
 pose : to the All Pure he lifted clean 
 hands and a pure heart. 
 
 Lincoln the Leader possessed sterner 
 and higher traits than those to which I 
 first called attention. He had the lofty 
 qualities of spiritual insight, of moral con 
 viction, of solemn resolution, of undying 
 courage, of complete devotion, and of 
 faith and hope unfailing. He saw deeply, 
 he felt intensely, he spoke at times with 
 the voice of a poet-prophet. 
 
 [3. i 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 Fate or is it some world spirit of 
 comedy ? plays strange pranks with hu 
 man affairs now and then, and nothing 
 more singular ever happened in history, or 
 was invented in romance, than the giving 
 of imperial powers, the destiny of a race, 
 the leadership of a nation, the keys of 
 life and death, to a sad-eyed, laughter- 
 loving, story-telling, shrewd, unlettered, 
 big-hearted frontiersman the one great 
 humorist among all the rulers of earth. 
 
 Leader always he was, from the day 
 when he, a youth, commanded a grotesque 
 company of motleys in an Indian frontier 
 campaign, to the time when at Washing 
 ton he led public opinion in a field as wide 
 as the world ; controlled the movements 
 of fleets and armies ; and held in his strong 
 hands the lives of hundreds of thousands 
 of men. 
 
 That inordinately tall countryman, 
 
 t MI 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 with a shawl thrown over his gaunt fig 
 ure, crossing alone the little park between 
 the White House and the War Depart 
 ment, if appealed to by some distressed 
 private soldier or citizen could order 
 justice done by a written sentence as 
 surely as could any Asiatic autocrat by 
 issued edict. While he often yielded 
 to the dictates of his pitying heart in 
 individual cases, and showed constantly 
 almost abnormal patience, those who 
 mistook his charity for weakness were 
 liable to sudden enlightenment. Col 
 onel Hay once saw the long-suffering 
 Lincoln take an office-seeker by the coat- 
 collar, carry him bodily to the door, and 
 throw him in a helpless heap outside. 
 His, indeed, was a "gentle but firm and 
 certain hand." * 
 
 And here is the wonder ; this merciful 
 
 1 See Lincoln s military program, July 23, 1861. 
 [ 33] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 man, daily saving the lives of deserters 
 so as not to increase a melancholy list of 
 widows and orphans ; this tender-souled, 
 agonizing, consecrated leader, looking 
 out upon confronting armies and a suffer 
 ing people, was as stern as fate in de 
 manding that battle should be made, and 
 war, with all its horrors, resolutely con 
 tinued, till right should be accomplished 
 and eternal justice done. Here is the 
 true leader, as gentle and affectionate as 
 any woman and as averse to violence, 
 yet able to meet with unflinching spirit 
 the inevitable duty of the sword-bearer ! 
 
 VII 
 
 The great test of Lincoln s leadership 
 came in his dealing with the fundamental 
 question of slavery as related to the com 
 pact of the States, the perpetuity of the 
 Union, the very existence of the nation. 
 [34] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 The important part of his political ca 
 reer before the war had to do with this 
 complex question. This double problem 
 made the war itself, and was dominant 
 throughout its course. As he called it, the 
 "perplexing compound, Union and 
 slavery," had become indeed a "question 
 not of two sides merely, but of at least 
 four sides," even among those who were 
 for the Union, saying nothing of those 
 who were against it. 
 
 " There were," he said, cc those who 
 were for the Union with, but not with 
 out slavery, those for it without, but 
 not with ; those for it with or without, 
 but who preferred it with ; and those for 
 it with or without, but who preferred it 
 without." Here was the maze through 
 which he must needs find his way ; these 
 were the conditions from which he was to 
 work out salvation for the nation, with 
 [ 35] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 the profound conviction that whether 
 slavery was or was not immediately ex 
 tinguished, its death-warrant was already 
 signed. Lincoln s view of slavery was, 
 from the first, not unlike Washington s 
 and that of other founders of the Re 
 public. His attitude was unyielding as 
 to principle. He looked upon the insti 
 tution as intrinsically evil : inimical to 
 the interests of free labor ; anomalous, 
 and impossible of perpetuity, in a politi 
 cally free community ; something to be 
 thwarted, diminished, and ultimately 
 made to cease, by just, constitutional, 
 and reasonable means. He satisfied the 
 extremists on neither side of the great 
 debate ; for while he would never 
 compromise as to principle, he was too 
 profoundly the statesman to refuse to 
 compromise as to details of time and 
 method. 
 
 [36] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 Lincoln the Leader, in dealing with 
 the chief perplexity of the situation, 
 this complex question of slavery and the 
 Union, was helped by his own in 
 tensely human make-up. The traits com 
 mon to all mankind were in him strongly 
 developed. He was in close touch with 
 his kind ; he sympathized with men on 
 the plane of humanity, and regarded them 
 in the spirit of philosophy. He was called 
 a great joker; but Lincoln s "seeing" 
 of " the joke " meant more than with 
 ordinary minds ; it meant, frequently 
 enough, that he saw through pretension 
 and falsity ; while the jokes that he told 
 often had the wisdom of the ancient 
 parables. 
 
 Lincoln s democracy was a matter as 
 much of instinct as of reason. He compre 
 hended human motives, human preju 
 dices, littleness, and nobilities. It was he 
 [37] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 who once described honest statesmanship 
 as the employment of individual mean 
 nesses for the public good. Acquainted 
 with humanity, he knew how to bear 
 with its infirmities, and he moved toward 
 his inflexible purpose, over what to others 
 would have been heart-breaking obsta 
 cles, with a long-suffering patience that 
 had in it something of the divine. 
 
 As memoir after memoir of the war 
 time has come to light, his countrymen 
 year by year have been better able to 
 obtain a knowledge of the workings of 
 Lincoln s mind, and the marvelous skill 
 and wisdom of his leadership at the time 
 of the opening debates; pending the 
 Presidential campaign; and during the 
 Presidency itself. That which his chief 
 biographers long ago declared of him, we 
 now more certainly know to be the truth ; 
 namely, that, "with the fire of a reformer 
 [38] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 and a martyr in his heart, he yet pro 
 ceeded by the ways of cautious and prac 
 tical statecraft." 
 
 Descended upon him from the North 
 delegations of abolitionists to tell him 
 that unless he at once freed the slaves 
 his administration would be shorn of 
 moral support, and the war would end 
 in failure and disgrace. Hastened to the 
 White House from the Border States 
 their governors and congressional repre 
 sentatives to warn him that, if he touched 
 slavery, they could not keep their con 
 stituencies on the side of the Union; and 
 the Border States, he knew, held the 
 balance of power. Hurried back from 
 Spain Carl Schurz, that gallant figure, 
 a contribution of the best of the Old 
 World to the service of the New in its 
 hour of need, hurried Carl Schurz 
 from his post at the Spanish court to in- 
 [39] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 form the President that, according to his 
 belief, there would be great danger of the 
 recognition of the Confederacy unless 
 there were prompt military success, or 
 some proof that the war would destroy 
 slavery; while other warnings from over 
 the sea were to the effect that if the 
 President should stir up the slaves against 
 their masters, the sympathy of European 
 friends of the North would be justly 
 forfeited. 
 
 Through all this divergence of counsel 
 Lincoln watched, waited, prayed, and in 
 cessantly worked toward the end which his 
 own judgment, his own heart approved. 
 It was, as I have said, a highly important 
 element of his leadership that he had had 
 the training of a lawyer, by a practice of 
 many years and many kinds. His know 
 ledge of men had thus been greatly in 
 creased ; while his grasp of legal princi- 
 [40] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 pies was of vast help when his talents 
 and experience were called upon in a 
 mighty conflict. It was no petty con 
 struction of legal obligation that made 
 him strenuous as to the literal fulfilment 
 of his oath to execute faithfully the office 
 of President, and preserve, protect, and 
 defend the Constitution of the United 
 States. He found no constitutional au 
 thority to emancipate the slaves except 
 as a military necessity, and he stedfastly 
 refused to free the slaves till with an 
 honest mind he could declare that the 
 necessity had arisen, knowing, then, also, 
 that the time had at last arrived when 
 public opinion would sustain his action. 
 In his famous letter to Greeley,in 1 862, 
 he stated his position and explained his 
 policy with absolute lucidity. " If I could 
 save the Union without freeing any slave, 
 I would do it ; and if I could save it by 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 freeing all the slaves, I would do it ; and 
 if I could save it by freeing some and 
 leaving others alone, I would also do 
 that/ Like statements were made to 
 others in formal and informal utterances, 
 and he explained to impatient critics and 
 counselors that the condition of public 
 opinion would not justify the course they 
 demanded. 
 
 But the deep lesson of his leadership 
 lies in the fact that while year after year 
 he carefully studied public opinion, that 
 supreme element in all matters of govern 
 ment and all the affairs of men, he 
 studied it not to yield to it as his master, 
 but in order so to act in respect to it as 
 to accomplish his own well-considered 
 purpose ; to act upon it ; to bring it power 
 fully to the help of his cherished plans ; 
 in a word to lead it, and to lead it right. 
 
 What is true leadership of the people? 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 Is it to be carried away by a popular 
 wave ; to avoid opposing it, not in order 
 to circumvent it, to save one s strength 
 for its later direction, but solely and 
 selfishly to avoid being submerged by it? 
 Is it to change when it changes, in order 
 to retain place and the semblance of 
 power ? Is he truly a leader who listens 
 to " the sacred voice of the people," in 
 order to learn which way to leap ? Not 
 thus Lincoln. His was not the leadership 
 that, in order to be popular, changes its 
 mind, but a leadership that changes the 
 minds of others. He kept "near the peo 
 ple," he kept his "ear to the ground," 
 through his sympathy with human be 
 ings and his interest in them, in order 
 to learn the moods of many minds, and 
 gradually to lead thought and action in 
 the line of his own profound convictions. 
 Lincoln respected public opinion, he 
 [43 ] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 declared that "public opinion in this 
 country is everything," but he was 
 not opinion s trembling slave. He under 
 stood human prejudices, limitations, the 
 effects of heredity and environment ; but 
 he never considered a wrong public 
 opinion final. Not unknown to mankind 
 is the statesmanship that resists public 
 opinion when it disapproves of it resists 
 till the waves beat threateningly, and 
 then turns with the tide. This is the 
 statesmanship of Pontius Pilate that 
 hesitant and tragic figure who stands be 
 fore the eyes of all mankind, washing 
 ineffectually his guilty hands, while he 
 releases Barabbas and sends the Christ 
 to Calvary. 
 
 No book praising Lincoln has lately 
 
 been issued which has brought to me a 
 
 clearer idea of his method with public 
 
 1 In his Columbus speech, September 16, 1859. 
 
 [44] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 opinion, as well as his wisdom and his 
 self-sacrificing devotion, than one by a 
 man whose life was a romance of devo 
 tion to ideals, a Southern-born aboli 
 tionist, who did not hesitate to dis 
 praise the President. He was opposed to 
 war, and held that "no drop of blood 
 would have been shed if the President," 
 at the beginning, "had proclaimed free 
 dom for every slave." Yet even he would 
 have protected the centers to which the 
 slaves would flee as if that itself would 
 not have been an open invitation to war! 
 In 1862, he, the Rev. Moncure D. Con- 
 way, went to the White House with the 
 Rev. W. H. Channing, to urge person 
 ally upon the President the emancipation 
 of the slaves. Pathetic was the sweet rea 
 sonableness of the President in explain 
 ing to these good and insistent men, as 
 he had so often done to men of like 
 [45] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 scruples and beliefs, not only his own 
 great desire for emancipation, preferably 
 with compensation, but the fact that per 
 haps they did not know so well as he the 
 temper of the entire public. He showed 
 them that those who were working in 
 the antislavery movement would natu 
 rally come in contact with men of like 
 mind, and might easily overestimate the 
 number of those who held similar views. 
 He gave it as his observation that the 
 great masses of the people at that time 
 cared comparatively little about the 
 Negro. And at the end of the interview 
 he said, can we not hear him say it ? 
 "We shall need all the antislavery feel 
 ing in the country, and more; you can 
 go home and try to bring the people to 
 your views ; and you may say anything 
 you like about me, if that will help. 
 Don t spare me." 
 
 [46] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 "Don t spare me!" In the pathetic 
 humorousness of that cry comes sharply 
 to mind one of the most effective equip 
 ments of Lincoln for the performance of 
 difficult duties, an equipment which 
 he shared with Washington, and which 
 each possessed in a conspicuous degree, 
 the tremendously powerful quality of 
 disinterestedness. It was tact, that is, in 
 telligence added to kindliness, which 
 helped make Washington a successful 
 leader; it was tact which helped Lincoln 
 to steer his Administration between the 
 rocks of selfishness and faction but 
 without purity of purpose, without abso 
 lute disinterestedness, neither could have 
 carried so well the part assigned. 
 
 Do we grasp all the bearings of his 
 
 strange situation ? He who is known now 
 
 as the Great Emancipator set before him 
 
 as the one indispensable aim, not the im- 
 
 [47] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 mediate freedom of the slave, but the im 
 mediate salvation of the Union, the 
 integrity of the nation, though when 
 the time came for emancipation to assist 
 Union, how joyfully and confidently he 
 seized upon emancipation! With what 
 courage, and in the face of what heavy 
 risks ! In many thoughtful minds the fact 
 that Lincoln s policy was the Union first, 
 and abolition next, remains his highest 
 title to world-wide fame his saving 
 of the nation the gigantic feat that lifts 
 him to the companionship of the most 
 momentous characters of universal his 
 tory. "This Union," says John Coleman 
 Adams, " is the consummation of all the 
 struggles of all men toward a state of 
 universal peace. It is the life and aspi 
 ration of the world organized into a na 
 tion/ The threat to undo the Union was 
 a "peril to mankind." That Lincoln in- 
 
 [48] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 stinctively felt this, and strained every 
 nerve to the supreme task of preserving 
 the nation, and this with success, gives 
 him rank among the greatest. That he 
 did this, and destroyed slavery also, 
 proves his genius and doubly crowns his 
 stupendous accomplishment. 
 
 He did all this, so far as we may at 
 tribute to any single person the shaping 
 of affairs so tremendous, though in 
 this case the personal preponderance is 
 exceptionally evident, he did all this, 
 and he assumed no virtue for having done 
 it; not a thought of vanity or undue 
 exultation ever crossed his candid mind. 
 To a lesser nature such temptation 
 would have been great as, at the last, 
 success followed success, remembering 
 the reproaches he had so long silently 
 borne, and, most trying of all, the sus 
 picion and spiritual scorn the look 
 [49] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 from above downward of those who, 
 working for the same ends, regarded 
 him as less sensitive morally and less 
 faithful to that cause to which he had 
 dedicated every energy of his soul. 
 
 Read again the thrilling chapters of the 
 Nicolay and Hay life which deal with 
 emancipation. I say thrilling, because 
 I believe that no intelligent student of 
 history especially no patriotic Ameri 
 can of any party or locality can read 
 these pages without emotion. Has the 
 mental history of a single sublime and 
 world-approved act ever before been so 
 minutely and authoritatively described ? 
 Here no quality fails of illustration that 
 helped to make Lincoln one of the 
 ablest as well as one of the noblest 
 of men. 
 
 It was the task of Lincoln, in issuing 
 his preliminary and his final " edicts of 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 freedom," to perform an executive act 
 which, while warranted by military ne 
 cessity, should be based upon enduring 
 principle, and so be effective upon the 
 present and the ultimate public opinion 
 of America and mankind. He must thus 
 effect immediate results ; he must thus do 
 what might be done to insure in perma 
 nence the fruits of success in the contro 
 versy of arms. Say his historians: "Grand 
 as was the historical act of signing his de 
 cree of liberation, it was but an incident 
 in the grander contest he was commis 
 sioned and resolved to maintain." 
 
 It is pleasant to know that this kindly, 
 much-burdened, and harassed ruler had 
 at least for a few days before his taking- 
 off the satisfactions of full success. He 
 who knew more than any other the aw 
 ful dangers, as Godkin said while Lin 
 coln still was living, was perhaps the 
 [5 ] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 only man in the North who had " never 
 wavered, or doubted, or abated one jot 
 of heart or hope." He had " been always 
 calm, confident, determined ; the very 
 type and embodiment of the national will, 
 the true and fit representative of the 
 people in its noblest mood " ; the ideal 
 " leader of a democracy." Said lately one 
 who knew him, and who confesses that 
 it has taken years of reflection and retro 
 spective consideration to become con 
 vinced that, in the matter of the procla 
 mation as a war measure, Lincoln was 
 right and he was wrong : " Through the 
 ages to come, the history of the Union 
 and freedom under the Union will hold 
 up to the admiration of mankind, as the 
 greatest saving influence in our great 
 est danger, the character, the firmness, 
 the homely sayings, the freedom from 
 passion, the singular common -sense, 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 the almost divine chanty, of Abraham 
 Lincoln." 
 
 VIII 
 
 In these times of new conditions, new 
 advantages, and new dangers, in every 
 community of our country, and in the 
 national field, the cry to-day is for 
 leaders. Nor are we without them : some 
 long-known and well-beloved; some just 
 emerging into prominence, and being 
 tried by the first tests of responsibility. 
 Some are leaders in the best sense, and 
 to some we may be inclined to apply 
 the name not of leaders, but of mislead- 
 ers. It would be absurd to be looking 
 now here, now there for " another Lin 
 coln," for a reincarnation of that rich 
 and most individual personality one 
 of the most fascinating the world has 
 1 George H. Yeaman. 
 [53] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 ever known. We shall not see again 
 that extraordinary combination of sym 
 pathetic qualities with the sterner vir 
 tues; such rare gifts and abilities ; that 
 balance of ambition with self-effacement, 
 of confidence with modesty, of firmness 
 with tenderness, of decision with defer 
 ence ; such sense of humor ; such mix 
 ture of buoyancy of spirit with moods 
 of gloom ; such tendency toward con 
 templation, and such power of action, 
 all united in one character. It would be 
 unfortunate, moreover, to judge present- 
 day executives and leaders by comparing 
 their opinions and acts in detail with 
 those which were characteristic of entirely 
 different men and conditions. We are 
 living in a very different world from that 
 of the middle of the nineteenth century. 
 For one thing, the relation of public men 
 to the merit system in public office is not 
 [ 54] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 that of the days of the Civil War ; and 
 many questions are now pressing which 
 were only faintly foreshadowed half a cen 
 tury ago. 
 
 But the fundamental principles of 
 Lincoln s leadership are not outgrown. 
 We have the right to demand in our 
 leaders equal sincerity, disinterestedness, 
 and devotion. We have a right to point, 
 as a perpetual standard, to his modera 
 tion ; to his conscientious consideration 
 of all interests and views; to his wise and 
 patient tolerance and open-mindedness ; 
 to his freedom from rancor, and avoid 
 ance of personal contention; to his moral 
 courage ; to his sense of justice ; to his 
 essential democracy. We may well ask 
 of our leaders that they should imitate 
 his manly attitude toward public opinion ; 
 that they should disdain to injure its 
 sources by violent and unproved asser- 
 [ 55 ] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 tions, and by the forced uses of our mod 
 ern enginery of publicity. We may well 
 insist that they should not meanly follow, 
 nor falsely and selfishly mold, the senti 
 ment of voters; but shape aright and direct 
 to no ignoble ends the opinions and the 
 suffrages of the people. We have a right 
 to resent leadership based either upon con 
 scienceless advocacy of supposedly popu 
 lar programs, or, still more shameless, 
 upon the wholesale use of money. It is 
 our duty to warn against the spurious 
 leadership that deals in indiscriminate 
 denunciation, awakens a feeling of class 
 and of class hatred, forgets the bonds of 
 a common citizenship, spreads distrust 
 and despisal of government, and sows the 
 very seeds of anarchy and assassination. 
 We have a right to scout the demagogues 
 who take the name of Lincoln upon their 
 lips, yet in their lives, and in their parody 
 [ 56] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 of leadership, set at naught every princi 
 ple of his nature. Despicable, too, is the 
 leadership quick to serve moneyed in 
 terests while it ignores the interests and 
 welfare of the masses of the people. 
 
 Our needs, our conditions, are different, 
 but the principles of justice and of human 
 liberty are the same, now and forever. 
 In the recurring and necessary readjust 
 ment of laws and methods in the related 
 realms of industry, of economics, and of 
 government, let us demand the respect 
 for rights, the acknowledgment of mutual 
 duties, the striving for justice, the under 
 standing of humanity, and the love of 
 fellow men which make Lincoln s leader 
 ship, like the leadership of Washington, 
 the standard of a patriotism broader than 
 the confines of commonwealths, and fit 
 for emulation and guidance throughout 
 all the centuries of earth. 
 [57] 
 
 OFTHE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 IX 
 
 Let me close with the memory of a 
 night of the spring of the year 1865, * n 
 the time of the blooming of lilacs, as says 
 the wonderful poem. I was waiting in 
 Philadelphia for Lincoln s funeral train 
 to start, as it was my duty to accompany 
 it to Newark. I had and have little de 
 sire to look upon faces from which the 
 light of life is departed ; but suddenly it 
 came upon me that I had never seen the 
 great President, and must not let go by 
 this last opportunity to behold at least 
 the deserted temple of a lofty soul. To 
 my grief I found it was too late ; the 
 police had drawn their line across the 
 path in front of Independence Hall. But 
 my earnest desire prevailed, and I was 
 the last to pass in by the window and 
 behold, in a sudden dazzle of lights and 
 
 [58] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 flowers, the still features of that face we 
 all now know so well. There lay the 
 martyred Lincoln, dead on that very 
 spot where, four years before, he had con 
 secrated himself to assassination, rather 
 than that he should be unfaithful to the 
 principles of liberty which, from that 
 sacred chamber, now doubly sacred, 
 were given to the world. Soon I went 
 my way into the night and walked alone 
 northward to the distant station, hearing 
 behind me the wailing music of the funeral 
 dirge. The procession approached ; the 
 funeral train moved out beneath the stars. 
 Never shall I forget the groups of weep 
 ing men and women at the little towns 
 through which we slowly passed, and the 
 stricken faces of the thousands who, in the 
 cities, stood like mourners at the funeral 
 of a beloved father. Thus, as came the 
 dawn and the full day, through grieving 
 [59] 
 
LINCOLN THE LEADER 
 
 States was borne the body of the beloved 
 chieftain, while the luminous spirit and 
 example of Lincoln, the Leader of the 
 People, went forth into all the earth along 
 the pathway of eternal fame. 
 
LINCOLN S GENIUS FOR 
 EXPRESSION 
 
The supreme soul of an immortal day. 
 
LINCOLN S GENIUS FOR 
 EXPRESSION 
 
 i 
 
 OF style, in^the ordinary_usg_ of the 
 word, Lincoln may be said to have been 
 innocent. He certainly did not strive for 
 an artistic method of expression through 
 such imitation of the masters, for in 
 stance, as Robert Louis Stevenson s. 
 There was nothing ambitiously elabo 
 rate or self-consciously simple in Lin 
 coln s way of writing. Iie__hadjnot_^he 
 scholar! s range of_words. Hwasjnot al- 
 wayjs..gmuniatically; accurate. He would 
 doubtless have been very much surprised 
 if any one had told him that he had a 
 "style" at all. And yet, because he was 
 determined to be understood, because 
 
 [63] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 he was honest, because he had a warm 
 and true heart, because he had read good 
 books eagerly and not coldly, and be 
 cause there was in him a native taste, 
 
 r as well as a strain of imagination, and 
 an inborn sense of the beautiful in 
 
 n English prose, its proper flow and 
 rhythm, he achieved a smgularly 
 clear, -and forcible_style, which took 
 color from his own noble character, and 
 became a thing individual and distin 
 guished. 
 
 He was, indeed, extremely modest 
 about his accomplishments. His great 
 desire was to convince those whom he 
 addressed, and if he could do this, if 
 he could make his views clear to them, 
 still more if he could make them appear 
 reasonable, he was satisfied. In one of 
 his speeches in the great debate with 
 Douglas he said : " Gentlemen, Judge 
 
 [64] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 Douglas informed you that this speech 
 of mine was probably carefully prepared. 
 I admit that it was. I am not a master 
 of language; I have not a fine educa 
 tion; I am not capable of entering into 
 a disquisition upon dialectics, as I be 
 lieve you call it ; but I do not believe 
 the language I employed bears any such 
 construction as Judge Douglas puts upon 
 it. But I don t care about a quibble 
 in regard to words. I know what I 
 meant, and I will not leave this crowd 
 in doubt, if I can explain it to them, 
 what I really meant in the use of that 
 paragraph." 
 
 Who are, to Americans at least, the 
 two most interesting men of action of the 
 nineteenth century ? Why not Napoleon 
 and Lincoln? No two men could have 
 been more radically different in many 
 ways ; but they were both great rulers, 
 
 [65] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 one according to the "good old plan" 
 of might, the other by the good new plan 
 of right: autocrat democrat. They 
 were alike in this that both were in 
 tensely interesting personalities; both 
 were moved by imagination ; jand_both 
 
 One used this power to carry out his own 
 sometimes wise, sometimes purely self- 
 ish, purposes to deceive and to domi 
 nate; the other for the expression of 
 truth and the persuasion of his fellow 
 men. 
 
 Napoleon s literary art was the mak 
 ing of phrases which pierced like a Cor- 
 sican knife or tingled the blood like the 
 call of a trumpet. His words go to the 
 mark like a stroke of lightning. When 
 he speaks, it is as if an earthquake had 
 passed under one s feet. 
 
 Lincoln s style is, in general, very dif- 
 [66 ] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 ferent ; heroic, appealing, gracious or hu 
 morous, it does__not so much startle as 
 melt_tl)e heart though his honest in 
 dignation sometimes gave birth to a 
 phrase of stern and prophetic menace. 
 These men were alike in this that they 
 learned to express themselves by dint of 
 long practice, and both in youth wrote 
 much nonsense. Napoleon in his younj 
 days wrote romance and history; Lii 
 coin wrote verse and composed speech< 
 Napoleon failed as a literary man ; Lin 
 coln certainly did not make any great 
 success as a lyceum lecturer; in fact, his 
 style was at its best only when his whole 
 heart was enlisted. 
 
 ii 
 
 Lincoln s style, at its best, is charac 
 terized by great simplicity ami jdirect- 
 ness, which in themselves are artistic 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 qualities. In addition there is an agree 
 able cadence, not overdone except in one 
 curious instance, a passage of the Sec 
 ond Inaugural, where it deflects into 
 poetic measure and rhyme : " Fondly 
 do we hope fervently do we pray 
 that this mighty scourge of war may 
 speedily pass away/ This does not spoil, 
 but it somewhat injures, one of the most 
 memorable of his writings. 
 
 Then there is in Lincoln, at times, a 
 quaintness, a_homeliness and humor of 
 illustration, along with a most engaging 
 frankness and intellectual honesty. The 
 reader has both an intellectual and moral 
 satisfaction in the clearness and fairness 
 of the statement. .All this affects agree 
 ably the literary form, and helps to give 
 Lincoln s style at times the charm of 
 imaginative utterance ; for imagination 
 in literature is, essentially, the faculty of 
 [68] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 seeing clearly and the art of stating clearly 
 the actual reality. There was nothing of 
 fancy or invention in Lincoln s imagina 
 tion ; his was the imagination that is 
 implied in a strong realization of the 
 truth of things in the mind of the writer 
 or speaker; the actual imaged in the 
 mind. 
 
 When these letters and speeches of 
 Lincoln were appearing in the papers as 
 part of the news of the day, I wonder 
 how many of us who were then living 
 appreciated them from the literary point 
 of view. I remember that at a certain 
 period, some time after the war, I seemed 
 for the first time to awake fully to the 
 attraction of Lincoln s style. Beginning 
 with the speech at Gettysburg, I reread 
 many of his writings, and felt every 
 where his genius for expression. 
 
 Where and how did Lincoln gain this 
 [69] , 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 mastery of expression ? He said of him 
 self: "The aggregate of all his schooling 
 did not amount to one year. He was 
 never in a college or academy as a student. 
 . . . What he has in the way of education 
 he has picked up. After he was twenty- 
 three and had separated from his father, 
 he studied English grammar imper 
 fectly, of course, but so as to speak and 
 write as well as he now does. He studied 
 and nearly mastered the six books of 
 Euclid since he was a member of Con 
 gress. He regrets his want of education 
 and does what he can to supply the 
 want." 
 
 As a boy at home we are told that he 
 would write, and do sums in arithmetic, 
 on the wooden shovel by the fireside, 
 shaving off the used surface and begin 
 ning again. At nineteen it is recorded 
 that he " had read every book he could 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 find, and could spell down the whole coun 
 try." He read early the Bible, "jEsop s 
 Fables," "Robinson Crusoe," "Pil 
 grim s Progress," a history of the United 
 States, Weems s"Life of Washington," 
 Franklin s "Autobiography"; later, the 
 life of Clay and the works of Burns and 
 Shakespeare. Not a bad list of books, 
 if taken seriously and not mixed with 
 trash ; for, of course, culture has to do 
 not so much with the extent of the-in 
 formation as with the depth ofjhe im 
 pression. 
 
 The youthful Lincoln pondered also 
 over the Revised Statutes of Indiana; 
 and " he would sit in the twilight and 
 read a dictionary as long as he could 
 see." John Hanks said: "When Abe 
 and I returned to the house from work, 
 he would go to the cupboard, snatch a 
 piece of corn-bread, take down a book, 
 [71 ] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 sit down, cock his legs up as high as his 
 head, and read." 
 
 At twenty-four, when he was supposed 
 to be keeping a shop, Nicolay and Hay 
 speak of the " grotesque youth habited 
 in homespun tow, lying on his back, 
 with his feet on the trunk of the tree, 
 and poring over his books by the hour, 
 grinding around with the shade as it 
 shifted from north to east." 
 
 We know that Lincoln did not read 
 Plutarch s Lives till during the Presiden 
 tial campaign of 1860, then in order 
 to make true, before it was issued, a 
 statement in a campaign biography pre 
 pared with his assistance. How early he 
 had read anything of Emerson s we may 
 infer from the fact that when the two 
 greatest Americans of iheir time met in 
 Washington, during the war, Lincoln 
 * quoted to Emerson a remark about Ken- 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 tuckians which occurred in a lecture of 
 Emerson s given in New York in the year 
 1843, an d reported in the "Weekly 
 Tribune." 
 
 The youth not only read and thought, 
 but wrote, among other things, nonsensi-? 
 cal or sentimental verses ; and he com 
 posed speeches. He went early into poli 
 tics, and soon became a thoughtful and 
 effective speaker and debater. Of the 
 language that Lincoln heard and used 
 in boyhood, says Nicolay, in an essay 
 on " Lincoln s Literary Experiments," 
 printed since the " Life " was issued, 
 " though the vocabulary was scanty, the 
 words were short and forcible." He 
 learned among men and women poor 
 and inured to hardship how the plain 
 people think and feel, and he addressed 
 himself to their understanding. 
 
 In his young manhood at Springfield 
 [ 73 ] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 he measured wits with other bright young 
 lawyers, in plain and direct language be 
 fore plain and simple-minded auditors, 
 either in political discussion or in the 
 court-room ; either in the capital or in 
 the country towns of Illinois. His mathe 
 matical and legal studies were an aid to 
 precise statement, and his native honesty 
 made him frank and convincing in argu 
 ment. 
 
 Lincoln feltvhimself to be a poor de 
 fender of a guilty client, and sometimes 
 avoided the job. If for a brief period in 
 his youth he indulged in anything re 
 sembling the spread-eagle style of oratory, 
 he was quick, as Nicolay declares, to 
 realize the danger and overcome the 
 temptation. 
 
 [74] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 in 
 
 By practice in extemporary speaking 
 Lincoln learned to do a most difficult 
 thing namely, to produce literature on 
 his legs. It is difficult thus to produce 
 literature, because the words must flow 
 with immediate precision. It is unusual 
 for a politician to go through life always 
 addressing audiences, and yet always 
 avoiding the orator s temptation to please 
 and captivate by extravagant and false 
 sentiment and statement. The writer 
 and particularly the political writer is 
 tempted to this sort of immorality, but 
 still more the speaker, for with the latter 
 the reward of applause is prompt and 
 seductive. It is amazing to look over 
 Lincoln s record and find how seldom 
 he went beyond bounds, how fair and 
 just he was, how responsible and con- 
 [75] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 scientious his utterances long before these 
 utterances became of national importance. 
 Yet it was largely because of this very 
 quality that they assumed national im 
 portance. And, then, both his imagina 
 tion and his sympathy helped him here, 
 for while he keenly saw and felt his own 
 side of the argument, he could see as 
 clearly, and he could sympathetically 
 understand, the side of his opponent. 
 
 Lincoln was barely twenty-three when, 
 as a candidate for the legislature, he is 
 sued a formal address to the people of 
 Sangamon County. It is the first paper 
 preserved by Nicolay and Hay in their 
 collection of his addresses and letters. 
 Nicolay well says that " as a literary pro 
 duction no ordinary college graduate 
 would need to be ashamed of it." 
 
 In this address we already find that 
 honest purpose, that " sweet reasonable- 
 
 [76] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 ness " and persuasiveness of speech, 
 which is characteristic of his later and 
 more celebrated utterances. In his gath 
 ered writings and addresses we find, in 
 deed, touches of the true Lincoln genius 
 here and there from the age of twenty- 
 three on. In the literary record of about 
 his thirty-third year occur some of the 
 most surprising proofs of the delicacy of 
 his nature of that culture of the soul 
 which had taken place in him in the 
 midst of such harsh and unpromising 
 environment. I refer to the letters writ 
 ten to his young friend Joshua F. Speed, 
 a member of the Kentucky family asso 
 ciated by marriage with the family of the 
 poet Keats. 
 
 In Lincoln s early serious verse the 
 feeling is right, though the art is lack 
 ing ; but the verses are interesting in that 
 they show a good ear. Note has been 
 [77] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 made of a pleasing cadence in Lincoln s 
 prose; and it is not strange that he 
 should show a rhythmical sense in his 
 verse. We learn from those who knew 
 him best in later life that he was an ar 
 dent lover and frequent reader of poetry 
 especially of Shakespeare. In the home 
 circle he would recite favorite poems, like 
 those of Hood. 
 
 IV 
 
 By the time he was thirty-nine years 
 of age Lincoln was an accomplished ora 
 tor. His speech in Congress on the 28th 
 of January, 1848, on the Mexican War, 
 strikes the note of solejn_venty and of 
 noble indignation which a little later rang 
 through the country, and, with other 
 voices, aroused it to a sense of impending 
 danger. 
 
 It was in 1851 that he wrote some 
 [ 78 ] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 family letters that not only show him in 
 a charming light as the true and wise 
 friend of his shiftless step-brother, but as 
 the affectionate guardian of his step 
 mother, who had been such a good 
 mother to him. There is something 
 Greek in the clear phrase and pure rea 
 son of these epistles : 
 
 " 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 Mis 
 souri. 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 
 any 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 ? 
 [ 79] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 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." 
 
 We find in his Peoria speech of 1854 
 a statement of his long contention against 
 the extension of slavery, and a proof of 
 his ability to cope intellectually with the 
 ablest debaters of the West. His Peoria 
 speech was in answer to Judge Douglas, 
 with whom four years afterward he held 
 the far-resounding debate. Lincoln was 
 now forty-five years old, and his oratory 
 [ 80 ] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 contains that moral impetus which was 
 to give it greater and greater power. 
 
 In 1856 occurred the Fremont and 
 Dayton campaign, which came not very 
 far from being the Fremont and Lincoln 
 campaign. In a speech in this campaign 
 he used a memorable phrase : " All this 
 talk about the dissolution of the Union 
 is humbug, nothing but folly. We do 
 not want to dissolve the Union ; you shall 
 not." In the speech delivered at Spring 
 field, Illinois, at the close of the Repub 
 lican State Convention of 1858, in 
 which he had been named as candidate 
 for United States Senator, the skilful 
 and serious orator rises not merely to the 
 broad level of nationality, but to the 
 high plane of universal humanity. As 
 events thicken and threaten, his style be 
 comes more solemn. So telling at last his 
 power of phrase, that it would hardly 
 [8, ] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 seem to be an exaggeration to declare 
 that the war itself was partly induced by 
 the fact that Abraham Lincoln was able 
 to express his pregnant thoughts with the 
 art of a master. How familiar now these 
 words of prophecy: 
 
 " c A house divided against itself cannot 
 stand/ I believe this government can 
 not endure permanently half slave and 
 half free. I do not expect the Union to 
 be dissolved I do not expect the house 
 to fall but I do expect it will cease to 
 be divided." 
 
 The cadence of Lincoln s prose with 
 its burden of high hope, touched with 
 that heroism which is so near to pathos, 
 reminds one of the Leitmotif , the " lead 
 ing motive," in symphony and music- 
 drama of which musicians make use, and 
 [82] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 which is especially characteristic of the 
 manner of Wagner. Listen : 
 
 " Two years ago the Republicans of 
 the nation mustered over thirteen hun 
 dred thousand strong. We did this 
 under the single impulse of resistance 
 to a common danger, with every external 
 circumstance against us. Of strange, dis 
 cordant, and even hostile elements, we 
 gathered from the four winds, and formed 
 and fought the battle through, under the 
 constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, 
 and pampered enemy. Did we brave all 
 then to falter now now, when that same 
 enemy is wavering, dissevered, and bel 
 ligerent? The result is not doubtful. 
 We shall not fail if we stand firm, we 
 shall not fail. Wise counsels may acceler 
 ate or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or 
 later, the victory is sure to come" 
 
 We have arrived now at the period of 
 [83 ] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 the joint debate between Lincoln and 
 Douglas. In Lincoln we have the able 
 and practiced attorney, with one side of 
 his nature open to the eternal ; in Doug 
 las the skilful lawyer, adroit and ambi 
 tious, not so easily moved by the moral 
 appeals which quickly took hold upon 
 Lincoln, but a man capable of right and 
 patriotic action when the depths of his 
 nature were stirred. 
 
 Among the most characteristic quali 
 ties of Lincoln s expression are its mo 
 rality, its insight, and its prophecy ; and 
 in the now famous debate he reached 
 well-nigh the fullness of his power to put 
 great thoughts into fitting language. 
 His words went straight into the minds 
 and hearts of eagerly listening crowds. 
 The question, he contended, was as to 
 the right or the wrong of slavery : 
 
 " That [he said] is the real issue. 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 That is the issue that will continue in 
 this country when these poor tongues 
 of Judge Douglas and myself shall be 
 silent. It is the eternal struggle between 
 these two principles right and wrong 
 throughout the world. They are the 
 two principles that have stood face to 
 face from the beginning of time, and will 
 ever continue to struggle. The one is 
 the common right of humanity, and the 
 other the divine right of kings." 
 
 VI 
 
 It is interesting to recall the fact that, 
 in the pause of his affairs after the debate 
 with Douglas, Lincoln took up the then 
 popular custom of lyceum-lecturing. In 
 the very year before his election to the 
 presidency the great orator and statesman 
 was engaged in delivering a totally un 
 inspired lecture on " Discoveries, Inven- 
 
 [85] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 dons, and Improvements/* in towns 
 near Springfield, and in Springfield it 
 self on Washington s Birthday in the 
 fateful year of 1860. There was little in 
 this lecture to attract the slightest atten 
 tion ; and while it may have given satis 
 faction among neighbors, it could never 
 have added to his fame. Yet, when he 
 had the opportunity of an engagement 
 to lecture on political subjects in this 
 same month of February, he made what 
 is now known as the "great address " at 
 Cooper Union. 
 
 In opening his remarks Lincoln spoke 
 modestly of what he proposed to do in 
 this address. But his argument was, 
 really, not only new but remarkable. It 
 concerned the attitude of the fathers as 
 to the control of slavery in the Territo 
 ries, and took the ground that the federal 
 government was not forbidden there to 
 [ 86 ] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 control the" institution." Senator Doug 
 las had brought the matter up in a speech 
 in the preceding autumn, but, while tak 
 ing the opposite ground, he had presented 
 no array of facts in support of his con 
 tention. 
 
 It is told in New York, now nearly 
 half a century after the event, by those 
 who heard Lincoln on that memorable 
 night, that this was a performance very 
 different from what many in the audience 
 anticipated more sober and weighty 
 than might have been expected from the 
 Western lawyer and successful political 
 debater, who yet was a graduate of no 
 school. The not too well-fitting clothes 
 and the long and lank appearance of the 
 orator were not a surprise, nor were some 
 of his quaint and unconventional ges 
 tures ; but the intellectual quality of the 
 discourse tallied only with the thoughts 
 [ 87] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 and hopes of the little group of men who 
 had heard of his accomplishments in 
 Illinois and had invited him to a metro 
 politan platform. 
 
 There is a story that Abram Hewitt 
 than whom no keener-witted man then 
 went his ways in New York was in the 
 building that night on business for his 
 father-in-law, Peter Cooper. It is said 
 that he paused at a doorway leading into 
 the hall, and catching a sentence remark 
 able for its clarity and force, remained 
 till the last word was uttered, and, like 
 Bryant, became from that occasion a 
 firm admirer, at first hand, of the rising 
 statesman. It is known that, whatever 
 the circumstances that brought young 
 Hewitt to the hall, he did hear the ad 
 dress, and from that hour cherished no 
 doubt as to the character and abilities 
 of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 [88] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 Forty years after the event, so distin 
 guished an expert as Ambassador Choate 
 told, in an address in Edinburgh, the 
 effect of Lincoln s argument upon him 
 self and upon the entire audience in 
 Cooper Union, which included " all 
 the learned and cultured of his party in 
 New York." As he talked to young 
 Choate before the meeting he seemed ill 
 at ease and in dread of strange and critical 
 hearers. But, says the later orator : " He \ 
 was equal to the occasion." For an hour 
 and a half he held his audience in the 
 hollow of his hand. The " Tribune " 
 said the next morning : " No man ever 
 before made such an impression on his 
 first appeal to a New York audience." 
 
 Nearly fifty years after this address, 
 
 Mr. George Haven Putnam, whose father 
 
 was on the list of inviters, has told of his 
 
 youthful impressions. He does not claim 
 
 [89] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 that he had any adequate appreciation of 
 the speaker s reasoning; but he remem 
 bers that he was at once impressed with 
 the feeling that here was a political 
 leader whose methods differed from those 
 of any politician to whom he had hitherto 
 listened. He adds that if it had not been 
 for "the impression made upon New 
 York by Lincoln s speech and by the 
 man himself/ the vote of New York 
 could not have been secured, in the com 
 ing May, for his nomination. 
 
 Two members of" The Young Men s 
 Republican Union," Mr. Charles C. 
 Nott and Mr. Cephas Brainerd, who 
 have had the satisfaction of seeing Lin 
 coln s centennial fitly celebrated, -as 
 sumed the task of annotating the address 
 for pamphlet reproduction. It took them 
 months to collect the material for their 
 illustrative citations, for they had to do 
 [90] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 the work without assistance from the 
 orator himself, who, in those days of few 
 libraries, few indices, and few tables of 
 contents, was unable to refer them spe 
 cifically to his authorities. 
 
 It has taken some persons of supposed 
 perception many years to arrive at con 
 clusions concerning Lincoln s genius for 
 expression which these young editors 
 had the opportunity of reaching, through 
 these interesting labors in the year before 
 the war. In a prophetic preface to the 
 pamphlet edition of the address they 
 said : 
 
 From the first line to the last from his 
 premises to his conclusion, he travels with a 
 swift, unerring directness which no logician 
 ever excelled an argument complete and 
 full, without the affectation of learning, and 
 without the stiffness which usually accompa 
 nies dates and details. A single, easy, simple 
 [9 ] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 sentence of plain Anglo-Saxon words contains 
 a chapter of history, that, in some instances, 
 has taken days of labor to verify, and which 
 must have cost the author months of in 
 vestigation to acquire. And, though the public 
 should justly estimate the labor bestowed on 
 the facts which are stated, they cannot estimate 
 the greater labor involved on those which are 
 omitted how many pages have been read 
 how many works examined what numer 
 ous statutes, resolutions, speeches, letters, and 
 biographies have been looked through. Com 
 mencing with this address as a political pam 
 phlet, the reader will leave it as an historical 
 work brief, complete, profound, impartial, 
 truthful which will survive the time and 
 the occasion that called it forth, and be es 
 teemed hereafter, no less for its intrinsic worth 
 than its unpretending modesty. 
 
 The address closed with one of Lin 
 coln s most famous and characteristic say 
 ings : " Let us have faith that right makes 
 [ 9* ] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 might, and in that faith, let us, to the 
 end, dare to do our duty as we under 
 stand it." 
 
 This address of Lincoln, and the other 
 addresses which he made during his east 
 ern visit, proved momentous. He him 
 self, at the time, had not the slightest 
 idea of the importance of the tour. In 
 fact he intended no tour; he simply 
 expected to fulfill his engagement at 
 Cooper Union, and then to visit his old 
 est son, who was at school at Exeter, 
 New Hampshire. The other invitations 
 to make addresses were unexpected. 
 They were eleven in number, confined 
 to Rhode Island, New Hampshire (in 
 the company of his son), and Connecti 
 cut. From Exeter on March 4, 1860, 
 he wrote as follows to Mrs. Lincoln : 
 
 " I have been unable to escape this 
 
 toil. If I had foreseen it, I think I would 
 
 [93 ] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 not have come East at all. The speech at 
 New York, being within my calculation 
 before I started, went off passably well 
 and gave me no trouble whatever. The 
 difficulty was to make nine others [two 
 were added subsequently to the list], be 
 fore reading audiences who have already 
 seen all my ideas in print." l 
 
 Already he was the West s man. He 
 had now, without knowing it, captured 
 the East. In a little more than two 
 months he was nominated, in Novem 
 ber he was elected, and on the very an 
 niversary of the date of his letter to 
 Mrs. Lincoln, he was inaugurated Presi 
 dent of the United States. 
 
 With this Eastern tour, and with his 
 election to the Presidency, he may be 
 said to have resumed his true literary 
 
 1 From unpublished manuscript by courtesy of the 
 Hon. Robert T. Lincoln. 
 
 [94] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 career, for (as I have said) his style was at 
 its best only when he was dealing with 
 a cause which enlisted his whole heart. 
 
 VII 
 
 By way of contrast to what has passed 
 and is to come, let us cull some of the 
 passages in which shone Lincoln s wit 
 and humor. How pleasing it is to know 
 that his melancholy nature, his burdened 
 spirit, were refreshed with glimpses 
 often storms of mirth ! 
 
 It is thought by some that the nature 
 of certain of the stories attributed to 
 Lincoln detract from his greatness at 
 tributed,. I say, for we all know how, so 
 soon as a man is given a name for wit, 
 an apocrypha at once begins. Now it 
 must be understood that Lincoln had a 
 mind of such breadth as to suggest a 
 quality Shakesperean. He was interested 
 [ 95 ] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 in human phenomena of every kind. The 
 human animal interested and amused 
 him. So, in private conversation, he often 
 drew his illustrations from the rough 
 jokes characteristic of frontier life told 
 by him with a boyish sense of humor. 
 Some men tell stories that make the 
 hearers loathe the teller ; but we have 
 it on the authority of living witnesses 
 who knew him well that no such stories 
 issued from Lincoln s lips. 
 
 His forensic wit came out sharply in 
 one ofTiis ^well-known congressional 
 speeches, in which he referred with grim 
 sarcasm to General Cass s military record 
 as used for political ammunition. Here 
 are some later touches of his wit : " The 
 plainest print cannot be read through a 
 gold eagle." " If you think you can 
 slander a woman into loving you, or a 
 man into voting for you, try it till you 
 [96] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 are satisfied." "Has Douglas the exclu 
 sive right in this country to be on all 
 sides of all questions ?" Again: " In his 
 numerous speeches now being made in 
 Illinois, Senator Douglas regularly argues 
 against the doctrine of the equality of 
 men ; and while he does not draw the 
 conclusion that the superiors ought to 
 enslave the inferiors, he evidently wishes 
 his hearers to draw that conclusion. He 
 shirks the responsibility of pulling the 
 house down, but he digs under it that 
 it may fall of its own weight." 
 
 cc The enemy would fight," said the 
 President in a letter to General Hooker, 
 " in intrenchments, and have you at a 
 disadvantage, and so, man for man, worst 
 you at that point, while his main force 
 would in some way be getting an advan 
 tage of you northward. In one word, I 
 would not take any risk of being en- 
 [97] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 tangled upon the river like an ox jumped 
 half over a fence and liable to be torn by 
 dogs front and rear without a fair chance 
 to gore one way and kick the other." It 
 was also to Hooker that he wrote: 
 " Only those generals who gain successes 
 can set up dictators. What I now ask of 
 you is military success, and I will risk 
 the dictatorship." 
 
 In a letter written in 1859 to a Boston 
 committee he said, in describing a change 
 in party standards : " I remember being 
 once much amused at seeing two partially 
 intoxicated men engaged in a fight with 
 their greatcoats on, which fight, after a 
 long and rather harmless contest, ended 
 in each having fought himself out of his 
 own coat and into that of the other. If 
 the two leading parties of this day are 
 really identical with the two in the days 
 of Jefferson and Adams, they have per- 
 [98] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 formed the same feat as the two drunken 
 men." And this is from his very last 
 public address : " Concede that the new 
 government of Louisiana is only to what 
 it should be as the egg is to the fowl, we 
 shall sooner have the fowl by hatching 
 the egg than by smashing it." 
 
 A specimen of his spoken wit is the 
 story told of his reply to the country 
 man who at a reception said, in the 
 prepared speech that patriots so often 
 shoot at the President as they plunge 
 past him in the processions through the 
 White House, "I believe in God 
 Almighty and Abraham Lincoln." 
 "You re more than half right," quickly 
 answered the President. When, at a con 
 ference with Confederate leaders, he was 
 reminded by the Southern commissioner, 
 Mr. Hunter, that Charles I entered into 
 an agreement with "parties in arms 
 [99] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 against the government," Lincoln said : 
 " I do not profess to be posted in his 
 tory. In all such matters I will turn you 
 over to Seward. All I distinctly recollect 
 about the case of Charles I is that he 
 lost his head." 
 
 VIII 
 
 Lincoln was elected to the Presidency 
 of a country on the verge of civil war. 
 In his farewell to his fellow townsmen 
 sounds again that musical "motive" of 
 which I have spoken, recurring like the 
 refrain of a sad, heroic poem. Re 
 member the passage quoted before. It 
 occurred in his speech of 1858: "The 
 result is not doubtful. We shall not fail 
 if we stand firm, we shall not fail. 
 Wise counsels may accelerate or mis 
 takes delay it, but, sooner or later, the 
 victory is sure to come." 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 In parting from his old neighbors he 
 said : 
 
 " Here my children have been born, 
 and one is buried. I now leave, not 
 knowing when or whether ever I may re 
 turn, with a task before me greater than 
 that which rested upon Washington. 
 Without the assistance of that Divine 
 Being who ever attended him I cannot 
 succeed. With that assistance I cannot 
 fail. Trusting in Him who can go with 
 me and remain with you, and be every 
 where for good, let us confidently hope 
 that all will yet be well." 
 
 The First Inaugural concluded with 
 a passage of great tenderness. We learn 
 from Nicolay and Hay that the fortu 
 nate suggestion of that passage, its first 
 draft indeed, came from Seward. But 
 compare this first draft with the passage 
 as amended and adopted by Lincoln ! 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 This is Seward s : 
 
 " I close. We are not, we must not be, 
 aliens or enemies, but fellow-country 
 men and brethren. Although passion 
 has strained our bonds of affection too 
 hardly, they must not, I am sure they 
 will not, be broken. The mystic chords 
 which, proceeding from so many battle 
 fields and so many patriot graves, pass 
 through all the hearts and all hearths in 
 this broad continent of ours, will yet 
 again harmonize in their ancient music 
 when breathed upon by the guardian 
 angel of the nation." 
 
 And this is Lincoln s: 
 
 " I am loth to close. We are not ene 
 mies, but friends. We must not be ene 
 mies. Though passion may have strained, 
 it must not break our bonds of affection. 
 The mystic chords of memory, stretch 
 ing from every battlefield and patriot 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 grave to every living heart and hearth 
 stone all over this broad land, will yet 
 swell the chorus of the Union when 
 again touched, as surely they will be, by 
 the better angels of our nature." 
 
 There is in this last something that 
 suggests music ; again we hear the strain 
 of the Leitmotif. Strangely enough, in 
 i 58 Lincoln himself had used a figure 
 not the same as, but suggestive of, this 
 very one now given by Seward. He was 
 speaking of the moral sentiment, the sen 
 timent of equality, in the Declaration of 
 Independence. "That" he said, " is the 
 electric chord in that Declaration, that 
 links the hearts of patriotic and liberty- 
 loving men together, that will link those 
 patriotic hearts as long as the love of 
 freedom exists in the minds of men 
 throughout the world." 
 
 In the final paragraph of the Second 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 Inaugural we find again the haunting 
 music with which the First Inaugural 
 closed. On the heart of what American, 
 North or South, are not the words 
 imprinted? 
 
 "With malice toward none, with char 
 ity for all, with firmness in the right, as 
 God gives us to see the right, let us 
 strive on to finish the work we are in; 
 to bind up the nation s wounds ; to care 
 for him who shall have borne the battle, 
 and for his widow, and his orphan to 
 do all which may achieve and cherish a 
 just and lasting peace among ourselves, 
 and with all nations." 
 
 As the great musician brings some 
 where to its highest expression the mo 
 tive which has been entwined from first 
 to last in his music-drama, so did the 
 expression of Lincoln s passion for his 
 country reach its culmination in the ten- 
 [ 104] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 der and majestic phrases of the Gettys 
 burg Address : 
 
 "In a larger sense, we cannot dedi 
 cate we cannot consecrate we can 
 not hallow this ground. The brave 
 men, living and dead, who struggled here, 
 have consecrated it far above our poor 
 power to add or detract. The world will 
 little note nor long remember what we 
 say here, but it can never forget what 
 they did here. It is for us, the living, 
 rather, to be dedicated here to the unfin 
 ished work which they who fought here 
 have thus far so nobly advanced. It is 
 rather for us to be here dedicated to the 
 great task remaining before us that 
 from these honored dead we take in 
 creased devotion to the cause for which 
 they gave the last full measure of devo 
 tion ; that we here highly resolve that 
 these dead shall not have died in vain ; 
 [ 105 ] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 that this nation, under God, shall have 
 a new birth of freedom ; and that gov 
 ernment of the people, by the people, 
 for the people, shall not perish from the 
 earth." 
 
 But there is a letter of Lincoln s which 
 may well be associated with the Gettys 
 burg Address. It was written, just one 
 year after the delivery of the Address, 
 to a mother who, the President had been 
 told, had lost five sons in the army. I 
 believe the number was not so large, 
 though that does not matter : 
 
 " EXECUTIVE MANSION, 
 "WASHINGTON, November 21, 1864. 
 
 "MRS. BIXBY, 
 
 " Boston, Massachusetts. 
 
 " DEAR MADAM : I have been shown 
 
 in the files of the War Department a 
 
 statement of the Adjutant-General of 
 
 Massachusetts that you are the mother 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 of five sons who have died gloriously on 
 the field of battle. I feel how weak and 
 fruitless must be any words of mine 
 which should attempt to beguile you 
 from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. 
 But I cannot refrain from tendering to 
 you the consolation that may be found 
 in the thanks of the Republic they died 
 to save. I pray that our heavenly Father 
 may assuage the anguish of your be 
 reavement, and leave you only the cher 
 ished memory of the loved and lost, and 
 the solemn pride that must be yours to 
 have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the 
 altar of freedom. Yours very sincerely 
 and respectfully, 
 
 "ABRAHAM LINCOLN." 
 
 This letter of consolation in its sim 
 plicity and fitness again recalls the Greek 
 spirit. The letter, and the Gettysburg 
 [ 107] 
 
GENIUS FOR EXPRESSION 
 
 address, are like those calm and well- 
 wrought monuments of grief which the 
 traveler may still behold in that small 
 cemetery, under the deep Athenian sky, 
 where those who have been for ages dead 
 are kept alive in the memories of men 
 by an immortal art. 
 
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