973.7L63 
 1950 
 
 
 ABRAHAM 
 LINCOLN 
 
 i 
 
 ; 
 
 
 BY SOME MEN 
 
 WHO KNEW HIM 
 

 LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/abrahamlincolnbyOOangl 
 
Abraham Lincoln 
 
 BY SOME MEN WHO KNEW HIM 
 Being Personal Recollections of 
 
 JUDGE OWEN T. REEVES 
 
 HON. JAMES S. EWING 
 
 COL. RICHARD P. MORGAN 
 
 JUDGE FRANKLIN BLADES 
 
 J OHN W . B UNN 
 
 * 
 With Introduction by 
 
 HON. ISAAC N. PHILLIPS 
 
 • 
 
 Edited with Notes and Foreword hy 
 
 PAUL M. ANGLE 
 AMERICANA HOUSE PUBLISHERS 
 
 CHICAGO, I950 
 
Copyright, 1950, by Americana House 
 
$ 2,Ak>80. 
 \H5o 
 
 A 
 
 TO THOSE WHO HAVE READ VOLUMES 
 
 OF LINCOLN BIOGRAPHIES 
 
 IN A VAIN EFFORT 
 
 TO FORM A CORRECT ESTIMATE OF 
 
 LINCOLN, THE MAN, THIS BOOK 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 
 
 
 J 
 
 1 
 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 It is apparent, from the original editor's In- 
 troduction, that this book owes its existence to 
 the Lincoln Centenary. Three of the five rem- 
 iniscences which it contains were speeches de- 
 livered at centennial gatherings. These are its 
 nucleus, and without them, one may fairly sur- 
 mise, it would never have come into being. 
 
 What is more important is that the book also 
 owes its character to the one hundredth anni- 
 versary of Lincoln's birth. The Centenary loosed 
 a veritable flood of printer's ink. For months, 
 in 1909, newspapers and magazines were filled 
 with "Lincoln stories," while on three days out 
 of four throughout the year a separate book or 
 pamphlet came from the presses. Much of the 
 outpouring was unrestrained eulogy} Much was 
 
 1 A typical sample: "Abraham Lincoln was so great, so 
 noble, so grand, and so peerless a man that no man living, 
 no matter how eloquent may be his tongue— no man living, 
 no matter how gifted with the pen— no artist, regardless 
 of his dexterity with the brush— no sculptor, notwithstand- 
 ing the genius of his handicraft— will be able to portray, 
 describe, paint or chisel that life-likeness of Lincoln, 
 which his diverse and varied features and changing 
 countenance evolved." Bernard J. Cigrand at the Chicago 
 Commemoration of the Lincoln Centenary. 
 
also so misinformed, so misconceived, as to be a 
 biographical travesty. Small wonder that men 
 who had known Lincoln feared that the real 
 man was in danger of being lost forever. 
 
 Against this sort of thing Isaac N. Phillips 
 revolted. Having lived at Bloomington, Illinois, 
 since 1872, he was acquainted with many of 
 Lincoln's old friends and associates, and the man 
 about whom he had learned from them was 
 not always recognizable in the effusions of 1909. 
 Given an editorial assignment, he determined 
 to put together a book in which the contributors 
 would write no more than they knew. He had 
 three centennial addresses that met his standard. 
 To supplement these he induced two men of 
 knowledge and good sense— Franklin Blades, 
 once a member of the Illinois legislature, and 
 John W. Bunn, Springfield merchant and 
 banker— to write their recollections. 
 
 These five reminiscences, with Phillips's In- 
 troduction and biographical sketches, are all 
 there is to Abraham Lincoln By Some Men Who 
 Knew Him. Let us admit that the book makes 
 no weighty contribution to the history of the 
 years with which it deals, and that such po- 
 litical analysis as is to be found in it was time- 
 worn even in 19 10. It reveals no facts of sig- 
 nificance, and contains the usual quota of minor 
 
 8 
 
errors. Those who wrote it were worthy men, but 
 not of sufficient refutation to make their writ- 
 ings interesting on the sole ground of authorship. 
 What they had to say they said well, yet without 
 real stylistic distinction. 
 
 Nevertheless, it has appealed to so many read- 
 ers that copies have long been difficult to come 
 by. Why? Partly, I believe, because of its unpre- 
 tentious sincerity. What could be more modest 
 than its title? Only the disclaimer, by several of 
 the contributors, of any closer knowledge of 
 Lincoln than was possessed by hundreds of his 
 contemporaries. They knew him as young men 
 know an older man, already distinguished. They 
 remembered episodes during the last years of his 
 life in Illinois; they had vivid impressions of 
 character and personality. These they recorded 
 without embellishment and without any desire, 
 as far as one can see, to shine in the reflected 
 light of their acquaintanceship. 
 
 But in greater part the attraction of Abraham 
 Lincoln By Some Men Who Knew Him comes 
 from the success of its authors in developing a 
 composite character sketch that carries convic- 
 tion. A necessary part of that development was 
 the clearing away of certain conceptions that still 
 have some currency. Thus they reiterated that 
 Lincoln was not the kind of man whom one 
 
called "Abe," and denied, with heat, that he was 
 "ill-mannered, uncouth, unrefined in sentiment, 
 the indulger of vulgarity of speech, a buffoon 
 and yarn-spinner." On the contrary, they por- 
 trayed him as simple, humorous, friendly, yet 
 reserved, resolute, sagacious, and with great 
 depths of human sympathy— in short, as a char- 
 acter wholly consonant with the greatness that 
 mankind has attributed to him. 
 
 It is good that their testimony should again be 
 available. 
 
 Paul M. Angle 
 
 io 
 
Preface to Original Edition 
 
 In the publication of this unique 
 little volume, we are justified by the fact 
 that so much unreliable information has 
 been published concerning Lincoln. We 
 feel a laudable ambition to set right, so 
 far as possible, erroneous impressions. 
 
 We have neither added to nor taken 
 from, these personal recollections of hon- 
 orable gentlemen who lived the life as 
 Lincoln lived it, and who are, therefore, 
 capable of arriving at a fairly accurate es- 
 timate of his true character. 
 
 The Publishers 
 
 ii 
 
Introduction to Original Edition 
 
 I am asked to write an introduction to this 
 little book. 1 confess 1 feel a very considerable 
 interest in the subject of it and am very glad to 
 see it go forth to the world. The book represents 
 a praiseworthy effort on the part of its publish- 
 ers—The Pantagraph Printing & Stationery Com- 
 pany, of Bloomington, Illinois— to preserve in a 
 permanent form some original evidence upon 
 the question, 'What kind of a man was Lin- 
 coln?" 
 
 1 know very many people have of late been 
 telling the world what kind of a man Lincoln 
 was, and have been relating many incidents, 
 facts and recollections concerning him. On the 
 centenary of Lincoln's birth, the newspapers of 
 the country were flooded with interviews and 
 communications from all sorts of people. There 
 are, in fact, very few men now living who knew 
 Abraham Lincoln at all well, or who saw much 
 of him, and who have at the same time definite 
 personal recollections concerning him. The 
 recollections here given are given by persons 
 who, I know, really did know Lincoln. They are 
 
 13 
 
likewise persons who would not pretend to know 
 things they do not know. 
 
 There were never more than a very jew men 
 who could at any time pretend to have heen on 
 terms at all intimate with Lincoln, because Lin- 
 coln took hut few, if any, into his deeper con- 
 fidences. The men whose recollections are given 
 in this hook do not pretend that they were on 
 deeply confidential terms with Lincoln. Nohody 
 living can now pretend to that, and the man 
 who does pretend to it may he generally set down 
 as mistaken. The men who speak here have 
 some memories and recollections concerning 
 Lincoln and they give us these memories for 
 what they are worth. 
 
 It is useless to assure readers that the writer 
 of this introduction would never have heen ac- 
 tive in helping to cause these recollections to he 
 published, if he had not believed that they set 
 forth the real truth, so far as they go, concerning 
 Lincoln. These men were all quite close friends 
 of my own. 1 know each of them to be a man 
 who would not pervert the truth in order to make 
 a mouthable or amusing story, and I further 
 know that the memory of each of these gentle- 
 men was, when he wrote, very distinct and 
 clear. 
 
 I am exceedingly gratified to get this testimony 
 
 M 
 
on record, where the future historian may find 
 it, for we may he sure the real life of Lincoln 
 has not yet heen written, and, unless the con- 
 fusion surrounding the subject shall clear up 
 more rapidly than it bids fair to do, the real life 
 of Lincoln will not be written for at least another 
 fifty years. It will quite surely not be written be- 
 fore the generation of men who knew Lincoln 
 in life are all dead and gone. It was so with 
 Washington, and it is going to be so with Lin- 
 coln. Washington was so far perverted by would- 
 be story tellers and biographers, that only the 
 man who now studies Washington very care- 
 fully really knows what manner of man he was, 
 and, sad to say, the men who study his life with 
 care are now very few. In the early period, he 
 was much belittled by busy-bodies who pretend- 
 ed to know all about him. 
 
 When preparations were in progress in Bloom- 
 ington for the celebration of the centenary of 
 Lincoln's birthday, being on a committee of the 
 Grand Army Post of Bloomington which had 
 in charge the selection of speakers, 1 insisted that 
 men should be selected to speak who had a per- 
 sonal knowledge of Lincoln. We already had 
 plenty of eulogies; what we needed was facts. I 
 knew that the men who really had valuable in- 
 formation were apt to be modest men, who would 
 
 l 5 
 
not rush forward to be interviewed or to make 
 speeches. Two notable speeches that were made 
 at the celebration on the afternoon of the 12th 
 of February, 1909, namely, that of Hon. Adlai 
 E. Stevenson and that of Judge Reuben M. Ben- 
 jamin, both of Bloominglon, have already been 
 published in MacChesney's book, "The Tribute 
 of A Century," and there appear under copy- 
 right. Another speech from the same platform 
 and on the same occasion was made by Judge 
 Owen T. Reeves, likewise of Bloomington and 
 is included in this book. Another address setting 
 forth some recollections of Lincoln was made on 
 the evening of that day at Bloomington by Hon. 
 James S. Ewing, before the Illinois Schoolmas- 
 ters Club, and that speech likewise is given in 
 this book. At Pontiac, Illinois, where a like cele- 
 bration was held on the same day, Colonel Rich- 
 ard Price Morgan, of Dwight, 111., delivered an 
 address, giving some recollections of Lincoln, 
 and Col. Morgans address is also printed here. 
 At my special solicitation Judge Franklin Blades, 
 of Pomona, California, wrote out his recollec- 
 tions of Lincoln, which will be found very in- 
 teresting and are included here. 
 
 I venture to call special attention to the set of 
 resolutions, written by Lincoln, and passed by 
 the Illinois legislature in January, 1861, as re- 
 
 16 
 
lated by judge Blades. These have hitherto es- 
 caped attention. Judge Blades, I am proud to 
 say, has long been my personal friend. His testi- 
 mony on the question of the authorship of 
 these resolutions is absolutely conclusive. I know 
 him to be as conscientious a man as ever lived, 
 exceedingly careful not to state more than he 
 knows. 
 
 John W. Bunn, of Springfield, Illinois, is well 
 known to be about the last survivor in Spring- 
 field who knew Lincoln well before the war, 
 and, at my special solicitation, he has written 
 out some of his recollections of Lincoln, and it 
 is a great pleasure to me to present them in this 
 book. 1 regard Mr. Bunn as really the best au- 
 thority upon Lincoln in the period before the 
 Civil War. 
 
 Much has been said about Lincoln's supposed 
 propensity to spin yarns and tell doubtful anec- 
 dotes. That Lincoln was a sort of fabulist and 
 illustrated his points by incidents and remem- 
 bered happenings, is true, but biographers, and 
 particularly would-be "old familiar friends" have 
 so greatly over-stated Lincoln's story telling pro- 
 pensity that it is well that men who really knew 
 him well and can be relied upon to state facts, 
 should be heard on the subject. 
 
 Another class of writers have seemed exceed- 
 
 17 
 
ingly anxious to make it appear that Lincoln 
 came literally from nothing. The Bible tells us 
 that men do not gather figs from thistles, hut 
 some of the biographers would have us believe 
 that this saying of the Holy Writ does not ap- 
 ply to Lincoln. Many of them make a special 
 point of belittling and discrediting his parents 
 and ancestors in order to produce a striking 
 contrast for the purpose of eulogy. Such persons 
 are, in nearly every instance, animated more 
 by a desire to attract attention to themselves than 
 by a desire to really depict the great man who 
 lived, worked and aspired, out here in Illinois, 
 and who at last attained to the hard but glorious 
 privilege of martyrdom for his cause. 
 
 Isaac N. Phillips 
 
 18 
 
Biographical Sketch of 
 
 JUDGE OWEN T. REEVES 
 
 Judge Owen T. Reeves was born December 18, 
 1829, in Ross County, Ohio. He was graduated 
 from the Ohio Wesley an University in 1850, 
 and three years later received from that Univer- 
 sity the degree of Master of Arts. In 1888 he 
 received the degree of LL.D. from Monmouth 
 College, in Illinois. From 1850 to 1854 he was 
 engaged in teaching. He came to Bloomington, 
 Illinois, in October, 1854, which 'place has since 
 been his home, judge Reeves was admitted to 
 the bar before leaving Ohio and commenced the 
 practice of law when he settled at Bloomington. 
 In 186 1 he was appointed city clerk and city 
 attorney of Bloomington. He was elected a cir- 
 cuit judge March 1 , 1 8yy, and remained on the 
 bench until June, 1 89 z . The last three years of 
 his judicial service he was, by assignment of the 
 Illinois Supreme Court, a judge of the Illinois 
 Appellate Court for the Fourth District. Since 
 1891 he has been Dean of the Bloomington Law 
 School. In the Civil War he was Colonel of the 
 yoth Illinois Infantry. Judge Reeves was one of 
 the most impartial and most clear-headed judges 
 that ever held a nisi prius court, as the lawyers 
 who practiced before him will universally testify. 
 
 19 
 
Personal Recollections 
 and Estimates of Lincoln 
 
 OWEN T. REEVES 
 
 S 
 
 1^1 y recall with marked distinctness my 
 impressions on my first meeting Mr. Lincoln in 
 March, 1855. I had heard much of him before 
 I met him. His candidacy for the United States 
 Senate before the General Assembly in January, 
 1855, had focused my attention upon him. The 
 unusual complimentary comments by those who 
 had known him many years— some of whom 
 were directly opposed to him politically— riveted 
 my attention to this unusual man. No wonder, 
 then, that when I met him I was specially at- 
 tracted to a careful analysis of how he impressed 
 me, and that this analysis is still distinct in 
 memory. 
 
 20 
 
Speaking generally, I may say that I now 
 recall clearly that I was deeply impressed with 
 the fact that I had met a man widely different 
 from the ordinary man of distinction. There was 
 something, just what not clearly defined, in him, 
 that stamped him in my conception as a man of 
 marked superiority intellectually. 
 
 Lincoln's personality was to me a revelation, 
 different from any other personality I had ever 
 tried to measure and comprehend, although it 
 had been my good fortune in prior years to have 
 had personal relations with a goodly number 
 of men of wide and well-merited distinction. 
 He had an individuality that was singularly 
 impressive. Altogether, the problem of his true 
 measure as a man was complex and not easy of 
 solution. To me Mr. Lincoln was a continuous 
 study, and the farther the study was carried, the 
 higher the estimate of him arose until, to me, he 
 stood out as a veritable marvel among men. 
 
 From March, 1855, t0 tne Spring of i860, I 
 met Mr. Lincoln often and became quite inti- 
 mately acquainted with him. He attended all the 
 sessions of the McLean County Circuit Court 
 during that period. I heard him try many cases- 
 some of large importance, and many ordinary 
 cases. I recall his assisting the State's Attorney 
 in the prosecution of one Wyatt for murder, a 
 
 21 
 
hard-fought case in which Leonard Swett suc- 
 ceeded in acquitting Wyatt of murder, on the 
 ground of insanity. He appeared for plain- 
 tiff, Meshach Pike, in a suit to set aside the sale 
 of the Pike Hotel at Bloomington, on the ground 
 of fraud on the part of the purchaser. Judge 
 T. L. Dickey, of Ottawa, and local attorneys ap- 
 peared for the defense, and Lincoln won out. 
 He defended a chancery suit in which I ap- 
 peared for complainant, by which it was sought 
 to set aside a sale of school lands, which resulted 
 in favor of the defendant. He represented the 
 Illinois Central Railroad Company in its suit, 
 contesting the validity of an assessment by the 
 county of McLean of county taxes against the 
 railroad company, in which he was successful in 
 defeating the tax. This suit settled the non- 
 liability of the Illinois Central Railroad Com- 
 pany for local taxes for the full period of its 
 charter. 
 
 Lincoln was engaged during this period in 
 the trial of a great variety of cases, his employ- 
 ment being sufficient to maintain his presence in 
 court practically during the entire sessions of 
 the court. 
 
 It is not my purpose, in the brief time allotted 
 me, to speak further of Lincoln as a lawyer. Re- 
 ferring to Lincoln's personal characteristics, I will 
 
 22 
 
say that to portray Lincoln as ill-mannered, un- 
 couth, unrefined in sentiment, the indulger of 
 vulgarity of speech, a buffoon and yarn-spinner, 
 is a complete and outrageous caricature, as I 
 knew him. His mind, in all its serious moods, 
 which was its prevailing condition, was occupied 
 by lofty thoughts upon subjects of the highest 
 concern, developing a philosophy of life in all 
 its myriad phases, based upon sound reason and 
 exalted conceptions. 
 
 I heard Lincoln tell hundreds of anecdotes 
 and stories, but never one that was not told to 
 illustrate or give point to some subject or ques- 
 tion that had been the theme of conversation, or 
 that was not suggested by an anecdote or story 
 told by someone else. This fact found an apt il- 
 lustration, when Lincoln was asked what he 
 thought of Hood's army after its sweeping defeat 
 at the battle of Nashville, Tenn., by General 
 Thomas. Lincoln said the question reminded 
 him of the story of an Illinois farmer who had 
 been sorely annoyed by a marauding dog. The 
 farmer procured a piece of meat into which there 
 was put a powerful explosive, and placed the 
 meat in the path that the dog would take to 
 reach the place where his usual depredations 
 were committed. He tied a string, saturated with 
 gasoline, to the piece of meat and took a position 
 
 23 
 
behind a tree from which he could see the dog 
 as he approached. He fired the string in time 
 to reach the meat at the same time as the dog. 
 The result was the dog gulped the meat and in- 
 stantly there was an explosion. When the farm- 
 er was asked what was the effect on the dog, he 
 replied, "That dog, as a dog, will not ever again 
 amount to much." So Lincoln's answer to the 
 question asked him was, "I don't think Hood's 
 army, as an army, will hereafter amount to 
 much." 
 
 A short time ago, I came across a statement 
 said to have been made by Lincoln, during the 
 war, when challenged to tell a story. He said: 
 "I believe I have the popular reputation of being 
 a story-teller, but I do not deserve the name in 
 any general sense; for it is not the story itself, 
 but its purpose or effect, that interests me. I 
 often avoid a long and useless discussion 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 appro- 
 priate story so as to save wounded feeling and 
 yet serve the purpose. No, I am not simply a 
 story-teller, but story- telling as an emollient 
 saves me much friction and distress." 
 
 Lincoln was the apostle of the common people. 
 
 24 
 
Their rights, their conditions, their hardships, 
 their opportunities, their aspirations, their hopes, 
 their joys, their sorrows— all these were subjects 
 upon which his mind brooded and sought to 
 work out plans for their betterment and happi- 
 ness. No man I ever met knew the common peo- 
 ple better than he, or was in closer sympathy 
 with them. Having sprung from the innum- 
 erable common throng, his heart never ceased 
 to beat in sympathy with them. Besides, he was 
 endowed with that best sense— common sense. 
 This, with his broad, clear grasp of every sub- 
 ject that touched the interests of the masses, 
 made him pre-eminently the advocate of the 
 rights of the common people. 
 
 Up to the time of the repeal of the Missouri 
 Compromise in 1854, Lincoln had not become 
 recognized as a great leader in matters of state. 
 He had been active as a Whig on the stump, 
 and had served one term in Congress, besides 
 a number of terms in the legislature, but, prac- 
 tically, after the close of his term in Congress, 
 he returned to the practice of law, and devoted 
 himself almost exclusively to his profession. The 
 repeal of the Missouri Compromise made quite 
 an upheaval in political parties and started a 
 new movement. 
 
 Lincoln at an early date became settled in 
 
 25 
 
the conviction that human slavery was both in 
 the abstract and concrete, morally wrong. While 
 this conviction grew with the years, he recog- 
 nized that slavery, as it existed in the Southern 
 States, was protected by the Constitution, and 
 any interference with slavery as it existed in the 
 South was unwarranted and could not be sup- 
 ported simply by a belief that it was wrong. 
 Hence, he refused to co-operate with what was 
 known as the Abolition party, and had no sym- 
 pathy with its doctrines. However, while this 
 was true, he was always unalterably opposed to 
 the extension of slavery into the territories. He 
 had clearly worked out, in his consideration of 
 the subject of slavery as it existed in the South- 
 ern States, that, so far as its continued existence 
 there was involved, there was no power out- 
 side of those States to interfere with it, but while 
 this was true and to be conscientiously observed, 
 there was no reason why opposition might not 
 be made to its extension into the territories of the 
 United States. 
 
 Lincoln went a step farther in his speech at 
 Springfield in June, 1858, in which he declared: 
 "A house divided against itself cannot stand. 
 I believe that this Government cannot endure 
 permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not 
 expect the Union to be dissolved— I do not ex- 
 
 26 
 
pect the house to fall— but I do expect it will 
 cease to be divided. It will become all one thing 
 or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery 
 will arrest the further spread of it and place it 
 where the public mind shall rest in the belief 
 that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or 
 its advocates will push it forward till it shall be- 
 come alike lawful in all the States, old as well as 
 new, North as well as South." 
 
 This prediction of his was predicated upon 
 his belief that the conviction of the great wrong 
 of slavery would in time work out, in some way, 
 its extinction; either that or the opinions of men 
 would change as to the moral character of slav- 
 ery, so that it would come into use the country 
 over— plainly his belief was that the sentiment 
 against slavery would not cease, but continue 
 to grow, and, eventually, would work out the 
 ultimate extinction of slavery. 
 
 Most naturally, with his deep-seated convic- 
 tion on the subject of slavery, Lincoln at once 
 became absorbed in the questions which sprung 
 out of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, 
 and he at once became a leader of the forces 
 that opposed this repeal. October third, 1854, 
 Douglas, at the State Fair in Springfield, made 
 his great speech in defense of the Kansas and 
 Nebraska bill which repealed the Missouri Com- 
 
 27 
 
promise, and by which Judge Douglas intro- 
 duced his doctrine of popular sovereignty, under 
 which the people in the territories were left to 
 decide whether they would have slavery or not. 
 October fourth, 1854, Lincoln, at the same fair, 
 replied to Judge Douglas, contending that by the 
 Missouri Compromise, which covered the ter- 
 ritory of Kansas and Nebraska, they had been 
 solemnly dedicated to freedom, and slavery pro- 
 hibited therein. 
 
 On October third, 1854, what was called an 
 Anti-Nebraska Convention was held at Spring- 
 field, at which twenty-six delegates were pres- 
 ent, mostly well known Abolitionists. Lincoln 
 declined to attend this convention, as he was 
 not in sympathy with the doctrines of the Aboli- 
 tionists. Moses, in his history of Illinois, says that 
 Lincoln met Douglas in joint debate in October, 
 1854, but does not state where, and that he 
 followed Douglas at Peoria and other places. 2 
 
 Lincoln was elected to the Legislature from 
 Sangamon County in the fall of 1854. When 
 the returns of the election were made, and it was 
 shown that the opponents of the repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise were in the ascendancy 
 
 2 Lincoln and Douglas both spoke at Peoria on October 
 16. Lincoln made anti-Nebraska speeches at Urbana on 
 October 24, at Chicago on October 27, and at Quincy on 
 November i. p.m.a. 
 
 28 
 
in the General Assembly, as Lincoln was recog- 
 nized as the leader in the Anti-Nebraska move- 
 ment and the probable candidate for United 
 States Senator to succeed Judge Breese, 3 he de- 
 clined to accept his credentials as a member of 
 the Legislature, and a special election was held 
 to fill the vacancy. 
 
 When the General Assembly proceeded to 
 the election of a United States senator, it was 
 found that five of the Anti-Nebraska forces were 
 old-time Democrats, and they refused to vote 
 for Lincoln, who had always been a Whig. 
 The result was that, in order to elect a senator 
 who was opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska bill, 
 Lincoln's friends, at his special instance, voted 
 for Trumbull, who had always been a Demo- 
 crat. The election of Trumbull to the Senate 
 still left Lincoln the leader of the party in 
 Illinois. 
 
 His correspondence with Judge Trumbull, 
 lately published in a leading magazine, demon- 
 strates that Lincoln kept his finger on the pulse 
 of public sentiment and suggested the course 
 to be pursued by the party in Illinois. In May, 
 1856, the first Illinois Republican State Conven- 
 tion was held in Bloomington. Lincoln was the 
 
 3 James Shields, not Sidney Breese, was the Senator 
 whom Lincoln sought to supplant, p.m.a. 
 
 29 
 
central figure in that convention and made, what 
 all who heard it pronounced, the greatest speech 
 of his life. Most unfortunately, the speech was 
 not reported and is now known as the "Lost 
 Speech." I heard the speech and have read what 
 purports to be the speech, as reproduced by Mr. 
 Whitney, and must say that the reproduction 
 does not strike me as being in any sense the 
 speech which Lincoln made and which I heard. 
 
 I must hasten to speak briefly of the campaign 
 of 1858. The Republican State Convention was 
 held at Springfield, June 16, 1858, which nomi- 
 nated Lincoln for United States senator. It was 
 at this convention that he made the speech con- 
 taining the words above quoted: "A house di- 
 vided against itself cannot stand," etc. 
 
 Moses, in history, says that when this speech 
 was prepared it was submitted by Lincoln to 
 his friends, and they all opposed that part of the 
 speech. Lincoln said to them: "The time has 
 come when these sentiments should be uttered, 
 and if it is decreed that I should go down be- 
 cause of this speech, then let me go down linked 
 to the truth— let me die in the advocacy of what is 
 just and right." 
 
 In July, 1858, Douglas made his first speech 
 in the campaign of 1858, at Chicago, from the 
 balcony of the Tremont House, in which he 
 
 3o 
 
vigorously attacked Lincoln's speech before the 
 Republican Convention at Springfield in June. 
 The next night Lincoln replied to Judge Doug- 
 las from the same place. July 16, 1858, Judge 
 Douglas left Chicago for Springfield, and is re- 
 ported to have spoken at Bloomington en route; 
 and on July 17, 1858, he delivered a set speech 
 at Springfield, to which Lincoln replied the next 
 day. July 24, Lincoln challenged Douglas to 
 joint debate, which a week later was accepted 
 by Douglas and arrangements for the joint de- 
 bates concluded. 
 
 The first debate occurred at Ottawa, August 
 21, 1858. At this time, Judge Douglas pro- 
 pounded seven questions to be answered by Lin- 
 coln at the next debate, to be held at Freeport. 
 Before the Freeport meeting, Lincoln held a 
 conference in Bloomington with his friends, at 
 which he submitted his answers to Judge Doug- 
 las' questions. As to these there was no contro- 
 versy. Then Lincoln announced to his friends 
 that he proposed, at the Freeport meeting, to sub- 
 mit to Judge Douglas four questions, the prin- 
 cipal one as follows: "Can the people in any 
 territory, by any lawful means, against the 
 wishes of any citizen of the United States, ex- 
 clude Slavery from the territory, prior to its 
 admission as a State?" Lincoln's friends, except 
 
 31 
 
Jesse W. Fell, insisted that Judge Douglas would 
 answer the question in a way that would cer- 
 tainly result in his election to the Senate and 
 defeat Lincoln, to which Lincoln only replied 
 that if he did so answer, he could never be presi- 
 dent, and he, Lincoln, regarded the battle of 
 i860 for the presidency as infinitely more im- 
 portant than the senatorship. 4 
 
 It should be remembered that before this time 
 the Dred Scott decision had been rendered by 
 the United States Supreme Court, which held 
 that slave-holders had the right to take with them 
 into any territory of the United States, their 
 slaves, and hold them there so long as the ter- 
 ritory remained a territory. Judge Douglas did 
 reply as Lincoln's friends anticipated, that the 
 Legislature of a Territory, by unfriendly legisla- 
 tion, might practically exclude slavery— that this 
 was but carrying out his doctrine of popular 
 sovereignty. Of course, this was in direct conflict 
 with the Dred Scott decision, and this answer of 
 Judge Douglas was spread broadcast over the 
 South. The result was the secession of the South 
 from the Democratic National Convention of 
 
 4 Apparently Lincoln submitted his Freeport questions 
 to many of his friends. Conferences like the one described 
 by Judge Reeves have been reported from several towns 
 and cities in northern Illinois, usually by someone who 
 considered himself Lincoln's only confidant, p.m.a. 
 
 32 
 
1 860, and, in the end, the defeat of Judge Doug- 
 las for the presidency. 
 
 Judge Douglas, in the House of Representa- 
 tives, and in the United States Senate, had estab- 
 lished a national reputation as a debater. No man 
 was better furnished with the weapons of debate, 
 or exhibited more skill in their use, than he. On 
 the other hand, Mr. Lincoln had only a State 
 reputation, extending, perhaps, to some of the 
 adjoining States, but no national reputation as a 
 debater. In Illinois, Lincoln had the reputation 
 of a logical debater. He had already measured 
 swords with Judge Douglas, and each had 
 received a taste of the other's metal. Doubtless, 
 Judge Douglas' nation-wide reputation attracted 
 marked attention to the debate the country over, 
 and thereby Mr. Lincoln was brought into a 
 national notoriety and prominence which later, 
 in i860, resulted in his nomination by the 
 Republican party as its candidate for the presi- 
 dency. 
 
 No sketch of Mr. Lincoln can be in any sense 
 adequate which does not deal with his astonish- 
 ing power over words. It is not too much to say 
 of him, that he is among the greatest masters of 
 prose ever produced by the English race. On this 
 subject of Lincoln's power of expression, I will 
 quote from a writer of the highest standing, a 
 
 33 
 
portrayal of the characteristics which gave to 
 Lincoln his classic style of expression, that will, 
 for all time, be the envy of those who strive for 
 excellence in speech. 
 
 "The most striking characteristic of Lincoln's style 
 may be found in the record from the beginning. Can- 
 dor was a trait of the man and not less of his verbal 
 manner. His natural honesty of character, his desire 
 to make his meaning clear, literally to demonstrate 
 what he believed to be the truth with mathematical 
 precision— this gave to his expression both attractive- 
 ness 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— perhaps with exag- 
 geration—that, without the massive reasoning of Web- 
 ster or the resplendent rhetoric of Burke, Lincoln ex- 
 ceeded them both in his faculty of statement. His 
 style was affected, too, by the personal traits of con- 
 sideration of those of a contrary mind, his toleration 
 and large human sympathy. But Lincoln's style might 
 have had all these qualities and yet not have carried 
 as it did. Beyond these traits comes the miracle— the 
 cadence of his prose and its traits of pathos and of 
 imagination. Lincoln's prose, at its height and when 
 his spirit was stirred by aspiration and resolve, affects 
 the soul like noble music. That is 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. 
 
 "Lincoln's power of expression was evidently one 
 
 34 
 
of the most effective elements of his leadership. The 
 sympathy and toleration which made his writings and 
 speeches so persuasive, assisted his leadership not only 
 in convincing his listeners and in endearing him, the 
 leader, to individuals and the masses, but helped him 
 as a statesman to take large and humane views and 
 to adopt measures in keeping with these views. To 
 that sympathy and that toleration a reunited country 
 is under constant obligation, not merely for the result 
 of a successfully conducted war— successful in the true 
 interests of both antagonists— but for the continuing pos- 
 sibility of good feeling between the sections. To think 
 that in the preparatory political struggle and during 
 the four years of the hideous conflict, Abraham Lin- 
 coln, though his spirit was strained almost beyond hu- 
 man endurance by the harassments of his position, 
 though misunderstood and foully calumniated by pub- 
 lic antagonists, and thwarted and plotted against by 
 some of his own supporters, uttered not one word of 
 violence or rancor— not a phrase which, after the ces- 
 sation of hostilities, might return to embitter the de- 
 feated combatants or be resented by their descendants!" 5 
 
 I will close this brief sketch with the closing 
 sentence of the estimate of Mr. Lincoln by Mr. 
 Herndon, his long-time law partner: "Take him 
 all in all, he was one of the best, wisest, greatest 
 and noblest of men in all the ages." 
 
 3 Richard Watson Gilder, "Lincoln the Leader," in the 
 Century, February, 1909. p.m. a. 
 
 35 
 
Biographical Sketch of 
 
 HON. JAMES S. EWING 
 
 James S. Ewing was born in 1835, in territory 
 then a fart of McLean County, but now in- 
 cluded in Woodford County, Illinois. In 1840 
 his father, long a leading business man, removed 
 to Bloomington and was at one time mayor of 
 that city. Mr. Ewing prepared for college at a 
 school called Jubilee College, situated in Peoria 
 County. Later he graduated from Centre College 
 at Danville, Kentucky. He read law at Blooming- 
 ton and was admitted to practice in January, 
 1859, after which he spent a year in the office of 
 Hon. John C. Bullitt, a leading attorney of Phila- 
 delphia, and, while in the latter city, he attended 
 a course of law lectures. Since that time Mr. 
 Ewing has practiced law at Bloomington, Illinois, 
 with the exception of fovir years, during which 
 time— 1893-1897— he was United States Minister 
 to Belgium. He has always been a Democrat, 
 and always active in State and National politics, 
 but was never a candidate for any political office. 
 Mr. Ewing is still living at Bloomington, Illinois. 
 
 36 
 
Speech of 
 
 Hon. James S. Ewing 
 
 AT THE BANQUET OF THE ILLINOIS SCHOOLMASTERS' 
 CLUB, BLOOMINGTON, FEB. 12, 1909 
 
 Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen: 
 
 uring the years 1 844 and 1 845, my 
 father, Mr. John W. Ewing, was the proprietor 
 of the old National Hotel, on Front street, in the 
 city of Bloomington. At that time circuit courts 
 were held in McLean county, twice a year, and 
 there were a number of lawyers from other 
 counties who usually attended these terms. 
 Amongst those whom I specially remember as 
 coming from Springfield, and who were guests 
 at my father's house, were Hon. James 
 McDougall, afterward a Senator from Cali- 
 fornia; Mr. John T. Stuart, and Abraham Lin- 
 coln. I thus became acquainted with Mr. 
 Lincoln, and I continued to know him, as a boy 
 knows a distinguished man whom he often 
 
 37 
 
meets, until i860, when he was elected Presi- 
 dent of the United States. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was fond of children. At least 
 he knew many of the boys and girls of the vil- 
 lage, the children of his older friends, and often 
 talked to them and expressed an interest in their 
 welfare. They liked Mr. Lincoln, and most of 
 the boys in the town knew him and many of 
 them talked to him, as we all thought, on most 
 intimate terms. 
 
 In 1844, Mr. Lincoln was thirty-five years of 
 age, in the very prime of his younger manhood, 
 and during the following fifteen years (except 
 one term of service in Congress) he "traveled 
 the circuit," devoting most of his time to the prac- 
 tice of the law. When I first knew anything of 
 courts, Hon. Samuel H. Treat was the presiding 
 judge of this circuit. He was afterward appointed 
 to the Federal bench, and the Hon. David Davis 
 became his successor and continued as the circuit 
 judge until appointed by Mr. Lincoln as an asso- 
 ciate justice of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States. It was then the habit for such lawyers as 
 possessed sufficient experience and ability to 
 attract a clientage to follow the court around the 
 circuit. Mr. Lincoln was of this number and 
 more than perhaps any other was most constant 
 and unremitting in his attendance. 
 
 38 
 
During these fifteen years, with the eager 
 curiosity of a boy, I was a frequent attendant in 
 the court room, and heard Mr. Lincoln try a 
 great many law suits. The suits themselves often 
 dealt with trivial matters, but great men were 
 engaged in them. Mr. Lincoln was engaged in 
 most of the suits of any importance. He was won- 
 derfully successful. He was a master in all that 
 went to make up what was called a "jury law- 
 yer." His wonderful power of clear and logical 
 statement seemed the beginning and the end of 
 the case. After his statement of the law and the 
 facts in any particular case, we wondered either 
 how the plaintiff came to bring such a suit or 
 how the defendant could be such a fool as to 
 defend it. By the time the jury was selected, each 
 member of it felt that the great lawyer was his 
 friend and was relying upon him as a juror to 
 see that no injustice was done. Mr. Lincoln's 
 ready, homely, but always pertinent, illustrations 
 and anecdotes could not be resisted. Few men 
 ever lived who knew, as he did, the mainsprings 
 of action, secret motive, the passions, prejudices 
 and inclinations which inspired the actions of 
 men, and he played on the human heart as a 
 master on an instrument. 
 
 This power over a jury was, however, the least 
 of his claims to be entitled a good lawyer. He 
 
 39 
 
was masterful in a legal argument before the 
 court. His knowledge of the general principles 
 of the law was extensive and accurate, and his 
 mind was so clear and logical that he seldom 
 made a mistake in their application. Courteous 
 to the court, fair to his opponent, and modest and 
 restrained in his assertions, he was certainly the 
 model lawyer. 
 
 As for myself, I decided I would be a lawyer, 
 and that I would be just such a lawyer as Mr. 
 Lincoln was. Well, as a matter of fact, I didn't 
 become just such a lawyer. My failure in that 
 regard, to my friends, was a regret rather than a 
 surprise. I was like a rather frothy young friend 
 of mine, who had been to hear Bishop Spaulding 
 preach, and, inspired by the eloquence of the 
 great preacher, imparted to me in confidence 
 that "if he had his life to live over, he would be 
 a bishop." 
 
 While my great ambition fell so far short of 
 realization, yet of one thing I am sure— success 
 was very much nearer by reason of the high 
 ideals I imbibed from Lincoln. I believe that 
 every young lawyer then at the Bloomington bar 
 became a better lawyer on account of Mr. Lin- 
 coln's example. 
 
 I heard Mr. Lincoln make a number of politi- 
 cal speeches. I heard his speech in the old court 
 
 40 
 
house in 1854, on the Kansas and Nebraska bill, 
 in answer to the speech of Mr. Douglas on the 
 same subject, made a few days before. In this 
 speech, what impressed me most was that same 
 wonderful power of statement to which I have 
 before referred. I can never forget the manner 
 in which he stated the causes and events which 
 led up to the enactment of the Missouri Com- 
 promise; just what that compromise was, and 
 how it affected the question of slavery; the his- 
 tory of the events and causes which led to the 
 passage of the compromise of 1850; its consti- 
 tutional elements; just what the South got and 
 just what the North got by it, and how it was 
 affected by the repeal of the other compromise 
 bill. It seems to me I could almost repeat those 
 statements to-day, after a half century, so vivid 
 was the impression. 
 
 I heard his speech in the Major Hall Conven- 
 tion in May, 1856, spoken of sometimes as the 
 "Lost Speech." But this speech did not impress 
 me as the one of two years before— possibly 
 because it was only one of several great speeches 
 by other great orators— Owen Lovejoy, O. H. 
 Browning, John M. Palmer, Archibald Williams, 
 T. Lyle Dickey, Norton, Gridley, Farnsworth 
 and others, who all took an active part in that 
 historic convention. 
 
 41 
 
In 1854, Judge Stephen A. Douglas came to 
 Bloomington to make a speech defending the 
 principles of the Kansas and Nebraska bill. 
 Judge Lawrence Weldon, who was then a young 
 lawyer at Clinton, and who had come up to hear 
 the speech, went with Mr. Stevenson and myself 
 to call upon and pay our respects to the "Little 
 Giant." We were presented to Judge Douglas by 
 Mr. Amzi McWilliams, then a prominent Demo- 
 cratic lawyer of this city. After we had been in 
 Mr. Douglas' room a few minutes, Mr. Lincoln 
 came in, and the Senator and he greeted each 
 other most cordially as old friends, and then Mr. 
 Douglas introduced Mr. Lincoln to Judge Wel- 
 don. He said: "Mr. Lincoln, I want to introduce 
 you to Mr. Weldon, a young lawyer who has 
 come to Illinois from Ohio, and has located at 
 Clinton." Mr. Lincoln said: "Well, I am glad 
 of that; I go to Clinton sometimes myself, and 
 we will get acquainted." This was the beginning 
 of an acquaintance which ripened into a strong 
 friendship and which, founded on mutual admi- 
 ration and respect, grew and strengthened as the 
 years passed, and ended only in death. They met 
 again at Clinton; a sort of local partnership was 
 formed; they tried law suits and rode the circuit 
 together. Judge Weldon was the active promoter 
 of Mr. Lincoln's political interests, and was an 
 
 42 
 
elector in the campaign of i860. I doubt if any 
 man living knew Mr. Lincoln better, or had in 
 a greater degree his confidence, than our dis- 
 tinguished friend and citizen, Judge Lawrence 
 Weldon. 
 
 In view of the recent controversy as to Mr. 
 Lincoln's temperance principles, as to whether 
 he was a "wine-bibber" or the "president of a 
 temperance society," the following may be of 
 interest: At this same meeting I heard Mr. Lin- 
 coln define his position on the liquor question. 
 This is authentic, as coming from Mr. Lincoln 
 himself, and ought to settle this question forever. 
 But it won't. The controversy will go on, like the 
 brook, "forever," until each side convinces itself. 
 This meeting I am speaking of, being a Demo- 
 cratic meeting, the committee had placed on the 
 sideboard of Judge Douglas' room (probably 
 without his knowledge) a pitcher of water, some 
 glasses and a decanter of red liquor. As visitors 
 called they were invited to partake; most of the 
 Democrats declined. When Mr. Lincoln rose to 
 go, Mr. Douglas said, "Mr. Lincoln, won't you 
 take something?" Mr. Lincoln said, "No, I think 
 not." Mr. Douglas said, "What! are you a mem- 
 ber of the Temperance Society?" "No," said Mr. 
 Lincoln, "I am not a member of any temperance 
 society; but I am temperate, in this, that I don't 
 drink anvthing." 
 
At the same meeting, another incident oc- 
 curred which I wish to relate. One of the visitors 
 who came to call on Senator Douglas was the 
 Hon. Jesse W. Fell. He was an old friend, and 
 had known Douglas when he first came to the 
 State. I remember very well their cordial meet- 
 ing and recall clearly a part of their conversation. 
 After talking a while of old times and mutual 
 friends, Mr. Fell said, "Judge Douglas, many of 
 Mr. Lincoln's friends would be greatly pleased 
 to hear a joint discussion between you and him 
 on these new and important questions now inter- 
 esting the people, and I will be glad if such 
 a discussion can be arranged." Mr. Douglas 
 seemed annoyed, and, after hesitating a moment, 
 said : "No, I won't do it ! I come to Chicago, and 
 there I am met by an old line abolitionist; I come 
 down to the center of the State, and I am met 
 by an old line Whig; I go to the south end of the 
 State, and I am met by an anti-administration 
 Democrat. I can't hold the abolitionist respon- 
 sible for what the Whig says; I can't hold the 
 Whig responsible for what the abolitionist says, 
 and I can't hold either responsible for what the 
 Democrat says. It looks like dogging a man over 
 the State. This is my meeting; the people have 
 come to hear me, and I want to talk to them." 
 Mr. Fell said: "Well, Judge, you may be right; 
 
 44 
 
perhaps some other time it can be arranged." 
 
 I have told this incident for a purpose. Mr. 
 Fell never gave up this idea of a joint discussion. 
 He was the first man to suggest it. From 1854 
 to 1858 he continued to urge it, and to Mr. Jesse 
 W. Fell, more than to any other man, is due the 
 credit of bringing about those great debates, the 
 full influence of which, upon Mr. Lincoln's for- 
 tunes, the events of history and the fate of the 
 nation, no man is wise enough to know. Mr. 
 Fell was the intimate, devoted, and wise friend 
 of Mr. Lincoln. I speak with some knowledge 
 and with perfect sincerity when I say that, with 
 the possible exception of the Hon. David Davis, 
 Mr. Fell did more than any other man, living or 
 dead, to secure the nomination of Mr. Lincoln to 
 the presidency. 
 
 Mr. Fell was one of our citizens. He was 
 Bloomington's first lawyer. His life was a bene- 
 faction to this community. I am pleased to take 
 advantage of this opportunity to connect his 
 name with the name of the man he helped, and 
 to pay a modest tribute to one of the best men 
 that ever lived. 
 
 In the fall of i860, I met Mr. Lincoln on the 
 sidewalk in front of the old court house. He had 
 come from Springfield to arrange some old suits, 
 in view of his departure for Washington. He 
 
 45 
 
shook hands with me, and said: "Well, you have 
 gotten to be a lawyer. Let me give you some 
 advice: Don't meddle with politics; stick to the 
 law." I replied: "Mr. President, I fear your 
 example may prove more alluring than your 
 advice." "No! no!" said he; "that was an acci- 
 dent." He passed into the court house, and that 
 was the last time I ever saw him. 6 
 
 Personal reminiscences must be confined to a 
 time prior to i860. The four years following 
 belong to the history of the world. 
 
 This is the time of the making of many books, 
 the writing of many histories, biographies, short 
 and long sketches in magazines and newspapers, 
 critiques and tributes, memoirs, stories, anec- 
 dotes and lies about Mr. Lincoln. There are 
 books by His Private Secretary, by the "Man 
 Who Knew Lincoln," by lots of men and women 
 who didn't know him, by a member of the New 
 York Bar, by members of other bars, by editors, 
 schoolmasters and preachers, by "butlers, bakers 
 and candlestick-makers," by "old neighbors" and 
 
 6 This incident could not have taken place at Blooming- 
 ton in the fall of i860. Between May 18, i860, when 
 Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency, and February 
 11, 1 86 1, when he started on his journey to Washington, 
 he left Springfield only twice: the first time in November, 
 i860, for a trip to Chicago; and again, in January, 1861, 
 to visit his step-mother in Coles County, Illinois, p.m. a. 
 
 46 
 
by "old clients'— all about "Lincoln as a Boy," 
 "Lincoln the Man," "Lincoln the Soldier," "Lin- 
 coln the Lawyer," "Lincoln the Story-Teller," 
 "Lincoln the Lover," "Lincoln the Dreamer," 
 "Lincoln the Farmer," the "Wood Chopper" and 
 the "Foot Racer." There will be delivered this 
 1 2th day of February, 1909, more than fifty 
 thousand speeches, addresses, orations and me- 
 morials which will help to swell this Lincolnian 
 literary melange to the proportions of an Alex- 
 andrian library. 
 
 It would be strange indeed, in view of the 
 many authors, the variety of publications and the 
 character of the subject, if there should not be 
 found an immense amount of misrepresentation, 
 false history, inaccurate estimates, false narrative, 
 tiresome repetitions, sentimental bathos, and silly 
 white lies. Old Doctor Johnson, when Boswell 
 told him he "intended to write his life," said, "If 
 I believed you, I would take yours." If Mr. Lin- 
 coln had been told what some of his friends 
 intended to do, he would have said with David, 
 "Oh, that mine enemy would write a book!" 
 
 The trouble is that men who never saw Mr. 
 Lincoln, and who have no adequate conception 
 of his life and character, have gotten up old 
 stories, incidents, traditions, second-hand anec- 
 dotes, and rushed into print to make history. 
 
 47 
 
Others even manufacture goody-goody lies to 
 increase his reputation. Others write of him as a 
 slouch, a buffoon, an uneducated gawk, to 
 increase the wonder of his career. Others tell of 
 artful practices and doubtful tricks, to demon- 
 strate his shrewdness. Others recite sentimental 
 and impossible rescues and charities, which put 
 old Santa Claus to shame. One old citizen tells 
 of a wonderful conversation he had with Mr. 
 Lincoln at the time of the Douglas and Lincoln 
 debate at Bloomington— a debate which never 
 took place. A reverend gentleman tells how an 
 actor friend of his was invited by Mr. Lincoln to 
 "stay all night" with him at the White House 
 during the war; how they talked till midnight, 
 and how Mr. Lincoln told him all the secrets of 
 the war; how, when they had retired, the actor 
 heard some one apparently in great distress; how 
 he got up and wandered about the halls until he 
 found Mr. Lincoln's private bedroom, and, look- 
 ing through the keyhole, saw Mr. Lincoln on his 
 knees, agonizing in prayer, etc. I suppose this 
 preacher believed that proving Mr. Lincoln a 
 saint justified him in proving his friend a liar 
 and a sneak. 
 
 Another one of these stories is how Mr. Lin- 
 coln manufactured an almanac and introduced 
 it in evidence to confound a witness who had 
 
 4 8 
 
sworn a certain night was moonlight, when the 
 manufactured almanac showed it was the dark 
 of the moon, thus saving his client's life. This 
 story is repeated in Mr. Churchill's book, "The 
 Crisis," and even in school books. No one who 
 knew Mr. Lincoln can think of him as deliber- 
 ately perpetrating a forgery upon the court, and 
 practicing a trick of which only a pettifogger 
 could conceive— a silly trick, too, which would 
 certainly have been instantly exposed. 
 
 Another friend of Mr. Lincoln tells how he 
 accompanied him to Washington from Spring- 
 field in i860, and how the President "kept the 
 entire company in constant roars of laughter" by 
 telling questionable stories and jokes. It is prob- 
 able this fellow was not on the train at all. I 
 think there have been more lies told about Mr. 
 Lincoln than about Santa Claus. A curious thing 
 is that they are not usually malicious, but mostly 
 told by mistaken friends and for good purposes. 
 They are white lies, but I fear, unlike that of 
 Uncle Toby and the loving lie of Desdemona, 
 they will never be blotted out by the tears of the 
 recording angel. 
 
 You and I can do little to stem this literary 
 flood, but we can thank God that the subject of 
 it is safe in the Pantheon, beyond the domain of 
 human praise, blame or— stupidity. 
 
 49 
 
Mr. Lincoln dressed as well as the average 
 Western lawyer of his day. I do not think he gave 
 much time to the tying of his necktie, and he 
 could not have been said by his best friends to 
 be much of a dude, but he was always respect- 
 ably clothed. Mr. Lincoln was not a story-teller 
 in the sense of "swapping stories/' or telling a 
 story for the sake of the story itself. He was pos- 
 sessed of great humor, and a wonderfully acute 
 sense of the ridiculous. He had that marvelous 
 "gift of the gods" which we sometimes call the 
 "sixth sense." Unexpected situations, curious 
 expressions, odd sayings, unusual appearances 
 and humorous actions made an impression on 
 him. He remembered these and often used them 
 as illustrations. He seldom, if ever, told a story 
 except to illustrate a point in his speech or argu- 
 ment, and in this kind of illustration no man 
 was more apt. A few minutes after the voting in 
 the legislature, in 1858, 7 when Mr. Douglas was 
 elected Senator, Mr. Lincoln was asked by a 
 friend, "How do you feel?" Said he, "I feel like 
 the boy who stumped his toe: I am too big to 
 cry and too badly hurt to laugh." 
 
 Hon. Ezra M. Prince, a Bloomington lawyer, 
 who knew Lincoln very well, told the following 
 story: After the adjournment of the Major Hall 
 
 7 January 5, 1859. p.m.a. 
 
 5° 
 
convention, the Republican editors of Illinois 
 met in convention at Bloomington. Mr. Lincoln 
 attended and was invited to address the meet- 
 ing. 8 He said he was afraid he was out of his 
 place. He was not an editor, and had no busi- 
 ness there; in fact, he was an interloper. He said: 
 "I feel like I once did when I met a woman rid- 
 ing horseback in the woods. As I stopped to let 
 her pass, she also stopped, and, looking at me 
 intently, said, 1 do believe you are the ugliest 
 man I ever saw.' Said I, 'Madam, you probably 
 are right, but I can't help it !' 'No/ said she, you 
 can't help it, but you might stay at home !' ,J 
 
 Hon. John B. Henderson, who was a Senator 
 from Missouri during the war, told the follow- 
 ing story, as showing how Mr. Lincoln could 
 illustrate a situation by an incident: He said he 
 was at the White House, talking with Mr. Lin- 
 coln. It was at a time when great pressure was 
 being brought upon the President by certain 
 radical members to induce him to issue an 
 Emancipation Proclamation. Mr. Lincoln had 
 been telling Mr. Henderson about his troubles 
 in that regard. He did not think the time was 
 ripe, and was very much annoyed at the per- 
 
 8 The anti-Nebraska editors met at Decatur rather than 
 Bloomington, and three months prior to the Bloomington 
 convention instead of immediately after it. But Lincoln 
 was in attendance, as Ewing stated, p.m.a. 
 
 0. OF »Lk 
 
sistence of three men whom he named— Sena- 
 tors Wade and Sumner, and Thaddeus Stevens, 
 of Pennsylvania. All at once Mr. Lincoln said, 
 "Henderson, did you ever attend an old field 
 school ?" "Yes," said the Senator. "Well," said 
 Mr. Lincoln, "I did, and a funny thing occurred 
 one day. You know, we had no reading books, 
 and we read out of the Bible. The class would 
 stand up in a row, the teacher in front of them, 
 and read verses, turn about. This day we were 
 reading about the Hebrew children. As none of 
 us were very good readers, we were in the habit 
 of counting ahead and each one practicing on 
 his particular verse. Standing next to me was a 
 red-headed, freckled-faced boy, who was the 
 poorest reader in the class. It so fell out that the 
 names of the Hebrew children appeared in his 
 verse. He managed to work through Shadrach, 
 fell down at Meshach, and went all to pieces at 
 Abednego. The reading went on, and in due 
 course of time came round again, but when the 
 turn came near enough for the boy to see his 
 verse, he pointed to it in great consternation, and 
 whispered to me, Took! there come them three 
 d d fellers again.' And there," said Mr. Lin- 
 coln, pointing out of the window, "come those 
 three same fellows." And sure enough, there 
 were Wade, Stevens and Sumner, coming up the 
 
 52 
 
walk. Mr. Henderson added: "As I arose to take 
 my departure, the other gentlemen entered, and 
 there was a smile on Mr. Lincoln's face, as if his 
 thoughts had flown away over all the years, from 
 war and trouble, to the old field school in the 
 forest of Indiana." 
 
 No one called Mr. Lincoln "Abe." Judge 
 Davis, General Gridley, Mr. Isaac Funk, Mr. 
 Fell, Leonard Swett, General William Ward 
 Orme, Lawrence Weldon, William McCul- 
 lough, Judge Treat, John T. Stuart, Owen T. 
 Reeves, Reuben M. Benjamin, and William H. 
 Hanna— all of them Lincoln's early friends and 
 associates, and all of them elegant and dignified 
 gentlemen— invariably addressed him as "Mr. 
 Lincoln." It was always Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, 
 Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 It is a mistake to think of Mr. Lincoln as an 
 ordinary man, even from the first. In 1844 he 
 was a lawyer of state reputation; nine years 
 before he was in the legislature, where he met 
 such men as Douglas, McClernand, Browning, 
 Ebenezer Peck, Robert Blackwell, Joseph Gilles- 
 pie and Judge Purple. These were great men, 
 and he was never dwarfed in their presence. I 
 have spoken of the men with whom he associated 
 and acted in our city. He was always easily the 
 leader; he was the talker; everybody deferred to 
 
 53 
 
Mr. Lincoln; he had the center of the stage by 
 common consent. He knew more of the matter 
 in hand. He thought more; he was a better 
 talker, and was a natural leader. 
 
 When elected to the presidency, Lincoln did 
 not select for his adviser, his private secretary 
 and other unknown men, but William H. 
 Seward, Edward Bates, Salmon P. Chase— all of 
 whom had been prominent candidates in the 
 Republican party for the presidential nomina- 
 tion, and to these were added other distinguished 
 and leading men who constituted his Cabinet. 
 He did not fear he would be overshadowed, and 
 he never was. From the first he was the equal of 
 any of them, and in Washington, as in Bloom- 
 ington, he was the "Leader of Men." 
 
 It is a mistake to think of Mr. Lincoln as an 
 uneducated man. The "kindergarten" and "pri- 
 mary" courses were taken in a Kentucky cabin, 
 with his mother as "principal." Possibly he never 
 learned at his school to make maps, but he did 
 learn "manners and morals." At the age of nine 
 he entered the academy to prepare for college. 
 This "school of learning" was located in a "clear- 
 ing" on his father's farm, a "little house in the 
 woods" in the State of Indiana. Here his atten- 
 tion was first directed to "physical culture." This 
 study he was not permitted to neglect. The 
 
 54 
 
"gymnasium" was well furnished with "appa- 
 ratus'—axes, wedges, mauls, log-chains, cross- 
 bars, swinging saplings, etc. Then came "nature 
 study out on the campus." He found spring beau- 
 ties and sweet williams, May-apples and purple 
 grapes, and, out beyond, the prairie grasses and 
 the wild rose. From these, from tree, shrub and 
 plant, from form, color and perfume, came that 
 sense of beauty embodied in those exquisite prose 
 poems which we so much love to read. This 
 branch of study included zoology. He learned 
 the names of animals, their nature, habits, 
 instincts, history and language. He knew when 
 the birds mated and how they built their homes, 
 and he learned well the lesson best worth learn- 
 ing from this science— to be kind and gentle to 
 all animal nature. 
 
 He had lessons in political economy— the value 
 of money; supply and demand; the virtue of 
 economy; the proper sources of wealth; the les- 
 sons of necessity, and the value of labor. He 
 closed his academic course at the age of twenty- 
 one, with the honors of his class, and entered 
 the university. He studied mathematics, became 
 a surveyor and naval architect. He became a 
 great linguist, and his success was all the greater 
 in that he confined himself to one language. He 
 devoted himself so diligently to the study of his- 
 
 55 
 
tory that he learned how to make history. 
 
 He read and re-read Shakespeare, Burns and 
 Byron. He studied some of the best English clas- 
 sics, and that wonderful volume of Hebrew lit- 
 erature, the Bible. The result of these "language 
 studies" is the purest English ever written. 
 
 Rhetoric and logic came easy. He was a phi- 
 losopher by nature. "Civil government" he 
 learned under Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton. 
 He took a post-graduate course in law under 
 Professors Blackstone and Chitty, and from this 
 department, as from the university and the acad- 
 emy, he carried away all honors, and was the 
 valedictorian of his class. And yet there are 
 pseudo historians and pretentious litterati who 
 speak of Lincoln as illiterate and uneducated. I 
 say, he was the best educated man in his day, if 
 the best education means the best equipment for 
 the duties of life. 
 
 There are a great many good Americans who 
 are not exactly satisfied with Mr. Lincoln's 
 ancestry. They can stand his poverty all right- 
 that could be remedied— but a great man ought 
 to have not only a father and a mother, but sev- 
 eral grandfathers. In that marvelous transition 
 from poverty to affluence, from a cabin to the 
 White House, from obscurity to fame, the aching 
 void is the want of ancestry. Mr. Lincoln, in his 
 
 56 
 
biography, gives the following account of his 
 family: 
 
 "I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin 
 county, Kentucky. My parents were both from 
 Virginia, of undistinguished families — second 
 families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who 
 died in my tenth year, was of a family of the 
 name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in 
 Adams county, and others in Macon county, 
 Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham 
 Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham county, 
 Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or 1782, 
 where, a year or two later, he was killed by 
 Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he 
 was laboring to open a farm in the forest. His 
 ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia 
 from Berks county, Pennsylvania. An effort to 
 identify them with the New England family of 
 the same name ended in nothing more definite 
 than a similarity of Christian names in both 
 families." 
 
 But this modest account, splendid in its sim- 
 plicity, is by no means satisfying to the inquirer 
 after a nobler lineage. Since we have known 
 anything of the history of the human race, there 
 has been traceable a disposition to make of the 
 hero a demigod. Achilles, the son of Pelius, was 
 also the son of Thetis. Alexander, after he had 
 
 57 
 
conquered the world, was the son of Hercules. 
 Julius Caesar became a descendant of Aeneas, 
 who had a goddess for his mother. Moses no 
 longer has a Hebrew mother, but is the son of 
 the Pharaohs. This is only the symbolism of that 
 disposition of human nature to account for great 
 men and great achievements by greatness of 
 birth. 
 
 But there is hope ! I bring you good news ! Mr. 
 Lincoln's ancestors have been discovered! Two 
 "distinguished genealogists/' one an American 
 and one an Englishman, have for years been 
 collaborating to trace the ancestry of the great 
 President to his English forebears, through col- 
 leges of heraldry and the records of the courts 
 of chancery, for many generations. They have 
 made many wonderful discoveries. The result of 
 these genealogical labors is a book (I quote from 
 the publishers) "which is a fine example of sound 
 genealogical research, and is now offered at this 
 centenary of Lincoln's birth," to a waiting pub- 
 lic; "with elaborate tables, copious appendices, 
 richly illustrated, and including "a defense of 
 Thomas Lincoln, in one octavo volume, at ten 
 dollars net" ! 9 Mr. Lincoln had written it all in 
 
 9 The reference is to J. Henry Lea and J. R. Hutchin- 
 son, The Ancestry of Abraham Lincoln, Houghton Mif- 
 flin, 1909. P.M. A. 
 
 58 
 
twelve lines. These "distinguished genealogists 
 require a quarto volume." Which do you like the 
 better? Seriously, is it not strange, and is it not 
 deplorable, that an intelligent American could 
 believe that Saxon or Norman lineage could add 
 anything to the fame of a man whose presence 
 already fills the world ? If his birth was lowly, his 
 deeds are royal in that land which men call fame. 
 We are all hero-worshipers, and often, when 
 our heroes are above the clouds, we build unto 
 ourselves graven images. Sometimes their crowns 
 are only tinsel, and are easily tarnished; some- 
 times their halos are only of paper and are very 
 fragile. Men will differ as to the chief foundation 
 of Mr. Lincoln's fame, but there will be no dif- 
 ference as to its being real and lasting. Some day, 
 the true historian will appear. Some day, out of 
 all this rubbish and jumble of inconsistencies, 
 the true history will be written. Some day, when 
 the rugged proportions of this great historic fig- 
 ure, by time and distance have been rounded 
 into form, the real man will be known. Then, I 
 think, we will come to realize that, in the his- 
 tory of a great man, chance is not so much a 
 factor as Providence. Then we will understand 
 better and appreciate more, how priceless was 
 our heritage, and that, although given to the 
 ages, "it was not taken from us." 
 
 59 
 
Biographical Sketch of 
 COL. RICHARD PRICE MORGAN 
 
 Richard Price Morgan was born at Stock- 
 bridge, Massachusetts, on September ij, 1828, 
 and died at Dwight, Illinois, May 20, 19 10, 
 which was after the address published in this 
 booh was delivered. In 1852, he came to Illinois 
 in charge of the location and construction of 
 what is now the Chicago & Alton Railroad, with 
 his headquarters at Bloomington. Upon the com- 
 pletion of that road he became its general super- 
 intendent, in which capacity he served until 
 1857. He founded the city of Dwight, Illinois, 
 and lived there with some interruptions until his 
 death. In his later life he was connected with 
 many very important engineering projects, and 
 became a great authority in all engineering mat- 
 ters, serving at one time as chief engineer of the 
 United States Pacific Railway Commission. In 
 1896 he was appointed by President Cleveland 
 a member of the board of engineers to select a 
 location and prepare plans and estimates for a 
 deep water harbor on the southern coast of Cali- 
 fornia. Later in life, the degree of Doctor of 
 Engineering was conferred upon him by the 
 University of Illinois. 
 
 60 
 
In i860, when King Edward, then the Prince 
 of Wales, visited the United States, Mr. Morgan 
 entertained him, at Dwight, during his stay in 
 that town on a hunt. Mr. Morgan was a large 
 minded and public spirited man, and in his 
 death, the State lost a most useful citizen. Of 
 faultless dress and lofty and dignified hearing, 
 "Col. Morgan" as he was called, was a typical 
 gentleman of the old school. 
 
 61 
 
Address of 
 Richard Price Morgan 
 
 AT PONTIAC, ILLINOIS, FEBRUARY 12, 1909, 
 ON "LINCOLN AT THE DECATUR CONVENTION" 
 
 Mr. President and Fellow 
 Citizens of Livingston County: 
 
 have assembled to celebrate the 
 coming of Abraham Lincoln, the mightiest 
 human power and inspiration for good ever given 
 to mankind. This is an auspicious day for this 
 country and for the oppressed of all nations. It 
 is being most earnestly celebrated throughout 
 the world wherever Christianity has lifted up the 
 people. In joining with you to celebrate this 
 great period in the march of time, and in the 
 history of our country, it is my duty to you as 
 chairman of your delegation to the Republican 
 State Convention at Decatur, Illinois, on the 
 ninth and tenth of May, i860, to give an accu- 
 rate account to you of my stewardship. 
 
 62 
 
Your delegation was selected at a county con- 
 vention held in the old courthouse in Pontiac, 
 early in May. The personnel of the delegation 
 was: The late Hon. Jason W. Strevell, William 
 Gagan, A. J. Cropsey, deceased, and Richard 
 Price Morgan. It is fitting for me to say in this 
 connection that Mr. Strevell, of Pontiac, was 
 the first delegate chosen in the County Conven- 
 tion, and by priority and also by his fine abilities 
 he naturally became chairman; but, on account 
 of my acquaintance with and friendship for Mr. 
 Lincoln, Mr. Strevell urged and, by his own 
 motion, caused me to act as chairman of the 
 delegation. I may appropriately add that your 
 delegation worked in the convention in per- 
 fect harmony with the twelve delegates from 
 McLean County, all of whom have passed away. 
 Their enthusiasm for Lincoln was unbounded, 
 and they claimed that the flint was first struck 
 by Lincoln at Bloomington, that started the 
 patriotic fires which lighted his way for the 
 presidency. 
 
 My personal acquaintance with and friend- 
 ship for Mr. Lincoln began in 1853, and con- 
 tinued until his death in 1865. The instructions 
 we received when we were appointed delegates 
 were to vote as a unit for State officers, and 
 especially we were charged to do all in our power 
 
 63 
 
to secure the passage of a resolution pledging the 
 State of Illinois to the National Convention, 
 about to assemble in Chicago, its patriotism and 
 integrity, as represented in the person of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, to secure his nomination for the 
 presidency. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was personally present at the 
 convention, and your delegates, as all others, had 
 ample opportunity to meet and freely converse 
 with him, upon the topics of the day. I shall not 
 attempt to describe the intense patriotism which 
 animated that most notable assembly. But to give 
 you some idea of its spirit, I will repeat a short 
 sentence from the speech of our War governor, 
 Richard Yates, in acknowledging his nomina- 
 tion. He said: "Let us hope that the South will 
 not attempt to destroy this Union; but, if it 
 should, flaming giants will spring from every 
 cornfield in the State of Illinois. ,, 
 
 After the State business was concluded, the 
 following resolution was unanimously adopted 
 with unbounded enthusiasm. Resolved: "That 
 Abraham Lincoln is the choice of the Republican 
 party in Illinois for the presidency, and that the 
 delegates from this State are instructed to use all 
 honorable means to procure his nomination by 
 the Chicago Convention, and that their vote be 
 cast as a unit for him." 
 
 6 4 
 
Mr. Lincoln was then escorted into the wig- 
 wam and to the platform by a committee selected 
 by the chair. His appearance before the conven- 
 tion was the signal for another outburst of most 
 hearty welcome. He received it without a smile, 
 but the benignant expression of his eyes and 
 face, and also his whole attitude, disclosed to 
 every man in that multitude the affectionate 
 gratitude of his heart. 
 
 The response of Mr. Lincoln to the resolution 
 was in a few grateful words of thanks. At the 
 close of his remarks, Livingston County first led 
 off and gave the word— Three times Three for 
 Abraham Lincoln, our next President. After 
 these nine cheers were given with a will, the 
 word came again from another part of the con- 
 vention—Three times Three for Honest Old 
 Abe, our next President. This was followed by 
 another and another. 
 
 When quiet was partially restored, Mr. Lin- 
 coln came slowly down from the platform, shak- 
 ing the hundreds of hands which were extended 
 to him. At this juncture the rail committee, 
 headed by Mr. Hanks, pressed through the 
 crowd with several rails, carried them to the plat- 
 form, and standing them up stood by them. 
 Without further word the crowd, into which 
 Lincoln had pressed his way some distance, com- 
 
 65 
 
menced to shout "Identify your work." He was 
 at once seized upon and carried in the arms and 
 over the heads of the crowd to the platform again 
 and placed beside the rails. Then the Conven- 
 tion, being again seated, shouted, "Identify your 
 work! Identify your work!" After a moment's 
 hesitation, addressing himself to the Convention, 
 he said, quite solemnly, "I cannot say that I split 
 these rails." Turning to Mr. Hanks and the 
 committee, and looking at the rails, Mr. Lincoln 
 asked: "Where did you get the rails?" Mr. 
 Hanks replied: "At the farm you improved 
 down on the Sangamon." "Well," said Lincoln, 
 "that was a long time ago. However, it is possible 
 I may have split these rails, but I cannot iden- 
 tify them." Again the Convention shouted, 
 "Identify your work! Identify your work!" At 
 this time the care visible on Mr. Lincoln's face 
 gave way to a pleasant smile and he again said, 
 "What kind of timber are they?" The committee 
 replied, "Honey locust and black walnut." 
 "Well," said Lincoln, his smile increasing, "that 
 is lasting timber, and it may be that I split the 
 rails." Then he seemed to examine the rails criti- 
 cally, his smile all the time increasing, until his 
 contagious merriment was visible, and he laugh- 
 ingly said, "Well, boys, I can only say I have 
 split a great many better looking ones." 
 
 66 
 
This tactful turn was met by a storm of 
 approval, and three times three were then given, 
 and three more for "Honest Abraham Lincoln, 
 the rail candidate, our next President." 
 
 The Convention then adjourned sine die. In 
 a moment there was a rush of delegates to the 
 platform. The rails were seized upon and pieces 
 of some of them were sawed off for souvenirs. I 
 am happy to say that Livingston County was 
 again among the first to get two pieces, and that 
 I have with me as a token of the rail episode of 
 that convention parts of the pieces of rails 
 brought home to Livingston County, now in the 
 form of a gavel. 
 
 Nothing could have afforded more decisive 
 proof that Lincoln did split the rails than his 
 adroit presentation of the circumstantial evi- 
 dence. This was at once recognized by every 
 delegate and was received with delightful satis- 
 faction. The significance of this rail episode in 
 respect to the character of Mr. Lincoln and his 
 subsequent conduct of the affairs of our country 
 through its most dreadful trial, will be manifest 
 to all thoughtful persons. His honesty, sagacity 
 and tact were the foundations upon which he 
 stood immovable, when saving our country, until 
 the day of his death. 
 
 I have for this reason considered it my duty 
 
 6 7 
 
in this respect especially to report to you and in 
 the interest of accurate history state the facts 
 which I have for so many years been possessed 
 of in data and in an excellent memory. I feel so 
 assured in what I have said that I do not believe 
 it possible for any one to raise reasonable doubt 
 of its general accuracy, nor shall I recede from 
 any part of it without the indisputable proof of 
 eye-witnesses like myself. 
 
 Soon after the adjournment of the convention, 
 your delegation called on Mr. Lincoln to give 
 him its best wishes and bid him good-bye for 
 Livingston county. At that interview he said, in 
 answer to a question as to his chances : "I reckon 
 111 get about a hundred votes at Chicago, and I 
 have a notion that will be the high mark for me." 
 This was the last duty of your delegation, and 
 this report briefly represents the primary action 
 of Livingston county in giving Abraham Lincoln 
 to the world. 
 
 I have been requested to refer to some personal 
 reminiscences of my relations with Mr. Lincoln. 
 I had the good fortune to become acquainted 
 with him in Bloomington in 1853, when I was 
 division engineer, building the Chicago & Alton 
 Railroad. Bloomington was then a village of 
 1,200 people, overcrowded with emigrants, land 
 buyers, railway contractors and laborers. Being 
 
 68 
 
somewhat permanently located, I was fortunate 
 enough to have a large room on the first floor of 
 my boarding-house, to which circumstance I am 
 indebted for my acquaintance with Mr. Lincoln. 
 On a hot afternoon, I think in the autumn sea- 
 son, I was seated in my room with the door partly 
 open to the main hall, when I overheard the fol- 
 lowing conversation: "Indeed, if you cannot 
 accommodate me, I am sure I do not know what 
 I shall do. I am here for this term of the Circuit 
 Court, and have tried everywhere to find accom- 
 modations, but so far have failed, and I see no 
 probability of success unless you can care for 
 me." The landlady, to whom the above was 
 addressed, replied: "Mr. Lincoln, I would like 
 very much to give you a room and board while 
 you are in the city, but I have no room or bed 
 to offer you; but if it will help you any to come 
 here for your meals, I will do the best I can for 
 you." "Well," said Mr. Lincoln, "you are very 
 kind, but I have nowhere to lay my head." 
 
 Those being early days of western life, of 
 which I had seen something, I stepped to the 
 hall door and for the first time saw the tall man 
 of destiny. After a moment, I said to the land- 
 lady: "Is this gentleman a friend of yours?" To 
 which she replied, introducing him as "Mr. Lin- 
 coln, of Springfield, a lawyer who is practicing 
 
 6 9 
 
in the court of McLean county. He is a friend of 
 mine, and I am very sorry indeed that I am 
 unable to accommodate him." After looking at 
 Mr. Lincoln a moment, and he at me, with a 
 rather inquiring expression, I said: "If you will 
 put a bed in my room, which is too large for 
 one person in these crowded times, I would 
 be pleased to have Mr. Lincoln room with me 
 during his stay in the city." As I finished this 
 remark, Lincoln threw back his head a little, 
 and with it the long black hair that came over 
 his forehead, and said: "Now, that is what I 
 call clever."* 
 
 I thus became the roommate of the greatest 
 man since Washington, the peer of any man in 
 the love of liberty, justice and mercy; and I wish 
 to record here that during the time of this stay- 
 several weeks— I learned from him many things 
 which have been of priceless value to me. 
 
 Although his time was very much engrossed 
 by court proceedings, he seemed to strive, al- 
 though I was twenty years his junior, to make 
 his companionship interesting and serviceable 
 to me. I was told by him of many things and 
 stories of the earlier settlers in Illinois, and also 
 he recited selections of poetry, one of them being 
 
 *In common western parlance the word "clever" was 
 often used in the sense of kind or accommodating. 
 
 7 
 
the poem, a Oh, why should the spirit of mortal 
 be proud?" of which he was very fond. 
 
 One evening he said : "The people of McLean 
 county, before they became interested in railway 
 construction, and when Pekin, on the Illinois 
 River, was their market, had very little to occupy 
 their time, especially at some seasons of the year. 
 They would come to Bloomington on Saturdays 
 with all sorts of vehicles— wagons, carts, and on 
 horseback— and put in most of the day in fun, 
 horse racing, settling old feuds, etc. When eve- 
 ning came and they were about to separate and 
 return to their homes, almost every man, besides 
 being well filled before starting, carried with him 
 a good-sized brown jug in the front end of his 
 
 wagon or cart. 
 
 Speaking of the relative merits of New Eng- 
 land rum and corn juice, as he called it, to illu- 
 minate the human mind, he told me this story of 
 John Moore, who resided south of Blooming 
 Grove, and subsequently became State Treas- 
 urer: Mr. Moore came to Bloomington one Sat- 
 urday in a cart drawn by a fine pair of young 
 red steers. For some reason he was a little late 
 starting home, and besides his brown jug, he 
 otherwise had a good load on. In passing through 
 the grove that night, one wheel of his cart struck 
 a stump or root and threw the pole out of the 
 
 7i 
 
ring of the yoke. The steers, finding themselves 
 free, ran away, and left John Moore sound asleep 
 in his cart, where he remained all night. Early 
 in the morning he roused himself, and looking 
 over the side of the cart and around in the woods, 
 he said: "If my name is John Moore, I've lost a 
 pair of steers; if my name ain't John Moore, Fve 
 found a cart/' After a good laugh together, Lin- 
 coln said: "Morgan, if you ever tell this story, 
 you must add that Moore told it on himself." 
 
 On the adjournment of the Circuit Court, Mr. 
 Lincoln returned to Springfield, after which I 
 only met him incidentally when visiting Spring- 
 field, until the following autumn, when I 
 became superintendent of the Chicago & Alton 
 Railway, soon after which I engaged the services 
 of Mr. Lincoln as attorney and counselor for the 
 company, and thereafter had frequent business 
 intercourse with him. 
 
 It is not necessary for me to speak of his then 
 acknowledged ability at the bar, but to illustrate 
 his touch of humor and knowledge of human na- 
 ture, which was ever present with him, I quote 
 a letter which I received from him, inclosing an 
 expired annual pass for 1855, and requesting 
 its renewal, which was due him as counsel for 
 the company : 
 
 7- 
 
"Springfield, Feb. 13, 1856.— r. p. morgan, esq.: 
 Says Tom to John, 'Here's your old rotten wheelbar- 
 row. I've broke it usin' on it. I wish you would mend 
 it, 'case I shall want to borrow it this arternoon.' Acting 
 on this as a precedent, I say, 'Here's your old 'chalked 
 hat.' I wish you would take it and send me a new one, 
 'case I shall want to use it by the 1st of March/ 
 
 "Yours truly, A. Lincoln." 
 
 I have always understood that this letter was 
 written to me more as an acquaintance and 
 friend than in my official capacity. The expres- 
 sion "chalked hat" was at that era, in railroad- 
 ing, at least, quite generally used in connection 
 with persons who were fortunate enough to 
 possess annual passes, and when they were called 
 upon by the conductors, the holders would say, 
 "I have a chalked hat," or, in brief, "I chalk." 
 
 It was in the summer of the year that I re- 
 ceived this letter— 1856— that I stood next to Mr. 
 Lincoln and heard him say: "You can fool some 
 of the people all of the time, and all of the peo- 
 ple some of the time, but you can't fool all of the 
 people all of the time." He was addressing an 
 assemblage of about three or four hundred peo- 
 ple from the raised platform of the entrance 
 to the Pike House, in Bloomington, 111., upon 
 the subject of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and re- 
 viewing the arguments of Douglas in support 
 
 73 
 
of it. His application of his epigram was so apt 
 and so forcible that I have never forgotten it, 
 and I believe that no verbal modification of it 
 would be accurate. 10 In his final peroration of 
 that address, referring again to the arguments 
 favoring the Kansas-Nebraska Act, he said, with 
 wonderful energy and earnestness: "Surely, sure- 
 ly, my friends, you cannot be deceived by such 
 sophistries." 
 
 The occurrences of which I have spoken were 
 all anterior to the war to preserve the Union. 
 Among some treasures I have is an autograph 
 letter, written in 1863, in which Mr. Lincoln 
 declares himself to be my personal acquaintance 
 and friend. 
 
 I consider it my duty to mention one fact 
 that may otherwise be lost in the history of our 
 county, as seemingly there is no record of it. 
 Upon the call of President Lincoln for 75,000 
 volunteers, "Flaming Giants" did spring from 
 the cornfields of Livingston county. On the 1 6th 
 of April, the morning after the call, at 5 o'clock, 
 I had the honor of standing at the door of the 
 Adjutant General's office in the old State House 
 
 10 This apothegm, so confidently attributed to Lincoln, is 
 nowhere to be found in his published writings or speeches. 
 In 1905 several men claimed that he used it at Clinton, 
 Illinois, in 1858. See Nicolay and Hay, Complete Works 
 of Abraham Lincoln, New York, 1905, III, 349n. p.m.a. 
 
 74 
 
at Springfield, holding in my hand a muster roll 
 of eighty volunteers from Livingston county. 
 It was recorded as No. 13, twelve others only 
 standing ahead of me in the line, and before 
 the office opened there were as many behind 
 me, holding up their muster rolls. These volun- 
 teers from Livingston county were not mustered 
 in as a company, because there were more vol- 
 unteers in the State at large than its quota under 
 that call. Most of these men immediately sought 
 service in Regiments Seven to Twelve, inclu- 
 sive, which constituted the First Brigade of Illi- 
 nois Volunteers, organized from April 25 to May 
 10, 1861. 
 
 75 
 
Biographical Sketch of 
 JUDGE FRANKLIN BLADES 
 
 Judge Franklin Blades was born November 
 29, 1830, in Rush County, Indiana. He was the 
 son of a country physician, but lost his father 
 at the age of sixteen. In his youth, there were 
 few schools in Indiana, and none free. He 
 therefore got in youth only such education as 
 he could pick up at home and under private tu- 
 tors. He was, however, fortunate enough to ac- 
 quire in his youth a love for good books, and 
 in time he became a man of cultivated mind 
 through the study of such authors as Irving, 
 Goldsmith, Johnson, Shakespeare, Addison and 
 others. In 1852 he graduated from the Rush 
 Medical College of Chicago, and subsequently 
 took post-graduate courses in medicine in the 
 University of Pennsylvania and in Jefferson 
 Medical College at Philadelphia. He early set- 
 tled down to his life work at Watseka, Illinois. 
 He was the editor of a Republican newspaper, 
 supporting Fremont for the presidency in 1856. 
 In the latter year he was also elected to the Illi- 
 nois Legislature. Again, in i860, he was elected 
 and served in the legislature. 
 
 76 
 
In 1858, having studied law in the meantime, 
 he was admitted to the Illinois bar. Subse- 
 quently, in 1 862, he reverted to his original pro- 
 fession of medicine long enough to serve as sur- 
 geon of the y6th Illinois Infantry. In 1864 he 
 was a Republican presidential elector for Illi- 
 nois, and had the satisfaction of voting for his 
 friend, Abraham Lincoln, for his second term. 
 In i8yy Blades was elected to the circuit bench 
 for a short term, and in June, 1879, ^ e was re ~ 
 elected for a full term of six years. In January, 
 1888, because of ill health, he removed to Cali- 
 fornia, and is now living and raising oranges at 
 Pomona in that State. A short biography of him- 
 self which the Judge prepared for the publishers 
 of this book, closes with these modest words: 
 
 "And now as I near the close of my long life 
 I recall with affection, and almost tearful grati- 
 tude, the memory of the many friends whose 
 kindly offices did so much to promote such suc- 
 cess as 1 have had, and which 1 think quite equal 
 to my merits." 
 
 77 
 
Recollections of 
 Judge Franklin Blades 
 
 HAD SOME PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 with Mr. Lincoln. The first time I met him was 
 in a caucus of the Republican members of the 
 Illinois House of Representatives, of which I 
 was a member, in the winter of 1857. The meet- 
 ing was held in Mr. Lincoln's office in Spring- 
 field, Illinois. I was much interested in observing 
 his homely, friendly, cordial manners, and the 
 candor and good sense in what he had to say. 
 There were those of the Senate and House who 
 had been elected in opposition to Democratic 
 candidates, but who had not become identified 
 with the new Republican party. These men not 
 long afterward became Republicans. Among 
 these was Senator Gillespie, subsequently gen- 
 
 78 
 
erally known as Judge Gillespie. He had been 
 an old Whig friend of Mr. Lincoln. During the 
 session of our caucus, Mr. Lincoln said: "Boys, 
 what do you say to having old Joe Gillespie in 
 here?" There being general assent, the Senator 
 was sent for, and it was interesting to see the 
 cordial, friendly manner in which they greeted 
 each other. I afterward came to know Judge 
 Gillespie quite well, and have heard him say 
 many an affectionate word concerning his old 
 friend, years after that old friend had, by the 
 universal acclaim of mankind, been enshrined 
 among the immortals. 
 
 I once attended a reception by Mr. and Mrs. 
 Lincoln at their old-fashioned residence in 
 Springfield. The invitation I received was in 
 the handwriting of Mr. Lincoln. I have it yet. 
 The guests were received in an informal and 
 friendly manner by Mrs. Lincoln. On being 
 ushered upstairs I found Mr. Lincoln and the 
 Democratic State Auditor, whose name, as I re- 
 member it, was Jones, 11 sitting on a high post 
 bed, chatting with each other, Mr. Lincoln par- 
 ticularly greeting all who came into the room. 
 Mr. Lincoln was not then talked of for the presi- 
 dency—certainly not outside of his own State. 
 
 n A bad guess. No Illinois State Auditor in Lincoln's 
 lifetime bore the name Jones, p.m.a. 
 
 79 
 
In the spring of 1858, having been admitted 
 to the bar, and intending to give up the profes- 
 sion of medicine, I wrote to Mr. Lincoln, re- 
 questing the use of his name as a reference on 
 my professional card as a lawyer. He had known 
 me as a physician, and in writing to him I said 
 nothing about my change of profession, and so 
 in replying he seemed to be in doubt as to 
 whether I was the same Blades he had known. 
 So he wrote: "I do not know whether you are 
 Dr. Blades or not. If you are Dr. Blades, you 
 may use my name; if you are not Dr. Blades, if 
 Dr. Blades says you may use my name, you may 
 do so." 
 
 Some time afterward I met him in Spring- 
 field, and taking me by the hand he said, with 
 an amused twinkle in his eye: "You got my let- 
 ter, did you?" And then he repeated it. The 
 excuse I offer for introducing this incident, so 
 personal to myself, is its quaintness of style, so 
 characteristic of him, and so graphically appar- 
 ent in the famous and caustic reply to Mr. Gree- 
 ley. I don't know what became of the letter, 
 but I think that it was stolen from among my 
 papers when packing for my move to California. 
 
 I was a member of the Republican State con- 
 vention of 1858, before which Lincoln made 
 the famous speech in which he repeated the 
 
 80 
 
saying of Christ, that a house divided against 
 itself cannot stand, and in which he contended 
 that the States of the Union must all become 
 free or all slave. He gave no hint that he was 
 in favor of division, or that he was in favor of 
 the domestic institutions of all the States becom- 
 ing the same; but Stephen A. Douglas, in cam- 
 paigning over the State, seeking re-election as 
 Senator, perverted and misstated and misrepre- 
 sented what he said, and contended that Mr. 
 Lincoln was really in favor of making the do- 
 mestic institutions the same in all the States. 
 Mr. Lincoln had said that he did not believe 
 that the Union would be dissolved, but did be- 
 lieve that the opponents of slavery would ar- 
 rest the further spread of it, and place it where 
 the public mind would rest in the belief that 
 it was in the course of ultimate extinction; or 
 its advocates "would push it forward, till it would 
 become alike lawful in all the States, old as well 
 as new, North as well as South." His manner 
 of delivery of that speech was calm, deliberate, 
 dispassionate and without a single gesture. There 
 were over-cautious Republicans who thought 
 that he had better have omitted some things 
 that he said; and, in fact, it formed the principal 
 capital stock of Mr. Douglas in his campaign 
 for the senatorship; but the result demonstrated 
 
 81 
 
that Lincoln was a great political prophet and 
 statesman. 
 
 I was a delegate to the State Republican con- 
 vention which met at Decatur, the county seat 
 of Macon county, in i860, which selected the 
 delegates to the National Convention, then soon 
 to meet in Chicago for the purpose of nominat- 
 ing a candidate for the presidency, and which 
 instructed those delegates to support Mr. Lin- 
 coln's candidacy. Mr. Lincoln was present and 
 was seated on the platform during the session of 
 the convention. While the convention was in 
 session, Mr. Hanks, a cousin of Mr. Lincoln, 
 and another man came into the hall, bearing 
 aloft two old rails, between which was stretched 
 a banner on which was printed the statement 
 that the rails were a part of a lot of rails made 
 by Mr. Lincoln in the county of Macon, many 
 years before. Mr. Hanks had at the time worked 
 with Mr. Lincoln in making the rails, and per- 
 sonally no doubt remembered better than Mr. 
 Lincoln could then recall that the statement was 
 true. When the rails were brought in, the en- 
 tire body of the delegates rose to their feet, 
 waving their hats and cheering at the top of 
 their voices, and shouting, "Lincoln! Lincoln! 
 Lincoln!" He came to the front of the platform 
 looking very much amused, holding his hands 
 
 82 
 
folded in front of him. He spoke briefly, saying 
 it was true that when he was a young man he 
 made some rails in Macon county, but he really 
 could not say whether the rails brought in by 
 Mr. Hanks were a part of the lot or not. I have 
 seen a statement in some magazine that this 
 incident occurred in the National Convention 
 at Chicago, but I personally know that it did 
 not, for I was present in both conventions, 
 though not a delegate in the Chicago conven- 
 tion. Of course, it would not have been tolerated 
 in the National Convention, where there was 
 more than one candidate for the nomination. 
 
 I do not think that Mr. Lincoln was very con- 
 fident of being nominated at Chicago. A friend 
 and neighbor of his from Springfield said that 
 before coming away he inquired of him if he 
 was going to attend the convention. Mr. Lin- 
 coln replied that he was not; that he was most 
 too much of a candidate to attend, and hardly 
 enough of a candidate to stay away. 
 
 I was considerably younger than Mr. Lincoln 
 and, besides, did not see him frequently enough 
 to become on terms of intimacy with him. He 
 knew enough of me to regard me as a personal 
 and political friend, and I knew enough of him 
 to know that many of the purported anecdotes 
 that I have often read of him were gross and 
 
 83 
 
scandalous caricatures of him. He was hearty 
 and cordial in manner toward those with whom 
 he was on terms of friendship. I was particularly 
 indignant when I read the coarse and vulgar 
 fiction of him which appeared in "The Crisis/' 
 The vulgar, ill-bred familiarity which, in "The 
 Crisis," characterizes the supposed intercourse 
 between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Joseph Medill 
 is repulsive and without the least foundation in 
 the character of either of them. Medill was con- 
 siderably younger than Mr. Lincoln, and had 
 no intimate or long-standing acquaintance with 
 him. While Mr. Lincoln was not in the least 
 assertive of his dignity and self-respect, yet there 
 was that about him which would prevent any 
 one from slapping him on the back and calling 
 him "Abe," except it might possibly be the few 
 who were familiar with him from his young 
 manhood and who had kept pace with him in 
 his gradually increasing social standing. 
 
 In the long past I occasionally heard interest- 
 ing and amusing anecdotes of Mr. Lincoln by 
 Judge Weldon and others who used to meet him 
 at the bar of the old eighth judicial circuit, in 
 which Judge David Davis presided, but I can- 
 not recall them with sufficient distinctness to 
 make it worth while to relate them. It is true 
 
 8 4 
 
 
I might supply the want of memory by fictions, 
 as some of his biographers have done. 
 
 An anecdote told me many years ago by my 
 friend Beckwith, a lawyer of Danville, Illinois, 
 now lamented as dead, I will venture to relate. 
 Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Vorhees, a distinguished 
 lawyer, a sometime United States Senator for 
 Indiana, were engaged on opposite sides of a 
 suit in the Circuit Court of Danville. In argu- 
 ing a question to the judge, Mr. Vorhees made 
 some discourteous and rather offensive remarks 
 about Mr. Lincoln. When Mr. Lincoln came 
 to reply he so unmercifully and at the same 
 time so humorously ridiculed Mr. Vorhees that 
 some of the lawyers ran out of the court house 
 and lay down on the grass in explosions of laugh- 
 ter. Mr. Vorhees took great offense, and in the 
 evening called at the room where Mr. Lincoln, 
 Judge Davis and some others were engaged in 
 social chat, and furiously assailed— not assaulted 
 — A4r. Lincoln, but he came off much worsted, 
 as he had in the discussion before the judge. 
 
 It is much to be lamented that Judge David 
 Davis did not leave on record his recollections of 
 Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln practiced many years 
 before him, and they were probably on more 
 intimate terms than any others after Mr. Lincoln 
 
 8 5 
 
began the practice of the law. Judge Davis was 
 a man of infinite humor, which often cropped 
 out while on the bench, and could heartily ap- 
 preciate the humor of Mr. Lincoln. Why did 
 he not leave memoirs of his intimate friend, to 
 be read through all time? 
 
 In 1 86 1 I was a member of the Illinois House 
 of Representatives, elected as a Republican, and 
 was present during the entire regular session, 
 beginning in January, and also attended the spe- 
 cial session convened in April, on the calling 
 for 75,000 troops by the President on the fall 
 of Fort Sumter. That winter, during the sitting 
 of the regular session, was the most gloomy and 
 despondent period of my life. I felt sure that the 
 Southern States meant permanent secession even 
 if they had to fight for it. But they did not an- 
 ticipate civil war. In the South it was generally 
 believed that the people of the North were so 
 commercialized and were so divided in partisan- 
 ship that war for the Union would be "impossi- 
 ble." On the other hand, the levity with which 
 the secession movement was for the most part 
 regarded by Republicans, and which was dis- 
 tinctly manifest among the Republican members 
 of the legislature, to me was inexplicable and 
 depressing. Sensible men, and even good friends, 
 
 86 
 
regarded my gloomy apprehension as next thing 
 to absurd. 
 
 During the session of the legislature, a con- 
 vention of the Democracy was held in the hall 
 which had been given up to them by vote of 
 the House. I was a lobby onlooker of that con- 
 vention, and the incendiary speeches which were 
 made and applauded to the echo, and the mis- 
 apprehensions of Mr. Lincoln, were so vividly 
 impressed on my memory that now, nearly fifty 
 years after, they are recalled with almost startling 
 distinctness. Among my papers I have preserved 
 a copy of the Missouri Republican (now the 
 Missouri Republic), of the date of January 19, 
 1 86 1, purporting to give a verbatim report of 
 the speeches. Among the most eloquent was that 
 of Henry S. Fitch, Buchanan's United States 
 District Attorney for the Northern District of 
 Illinois. The speech itself was not disloyal, but 
 the responses it drew out showed the temper 
 of the members to be as favorable to the South 
 as the most fiery secessionist could wish. Fitch 
 played on that convention as if it were a musical 
 instrument. Among other things, he said: "This 
 Union was purchased by blood; it was cemented 
 by blood; and isn't it worth saving by blood 
 now?" "No, No!" was the universal response. "I 
 
 87 
 
say it is," said he, and that was hissed. And then 
 he said, "But blood won't save it," and that was 
 uproariously applauded. The report in the paper 
 states that when he said it was worth saving by 
 blood he was greatly applauded, but that ap- 
 plause came from Republicans who had gath- 
 ered in the lobby. Poor, dear, loyal, brilliantly 
 eloquent fellow! he died in the far South, a 
 major in the Union army. 
 
 A Mr. William Homes made a speech. Among 
 other things, he said: 
 
 "Gentlemen of the Convention and Fellow 
 Citizens: I know one thing to be true: that it 
 would be no difficult matter to produce civil 
 war in Illinois. I know that the state of feeling 
 which might be fanned into a flame is so deep 
 here in this city now that, if it correctly repre- 
 sents, as I believe it does, the feelings of the 
 State, it might break out into an act of secession 
 at home, and Illinois thus become a divided 
 State." 
 
 R. T. Merrick, of Chicago, among many other 
 things, said: 
 
 "I feel that I cannot be in error when I say 
 that this Union never can he saved by force. 
 Coercion! — force! This is war — war upon the 
 Southern States— not on South Carolina alone 
 —not on the cotton States alone— but upon the 
 
 88 
 
entire South. For be assured, gentlemen, that 
 whether the border States follow the secession 
 of States of the extreme South or not, they will 
 most certainly regard any hostile attack upon 
 these Southern States as an attack upon them- 
 selves. It will be a war, then, upon fifteen States. 
 Are you prepared for such a war? (Shouts of 
 'No, no! Fight here!') No, gentlemen, thank 
 God! fanaticism has not yet so hardened our 
 hearts that we are ready to imbrue our hands 
 in the blood of our brothers. (Applause.) Such 
 a war would be most accursed, wicked, unjust, 
 cruel and diabolical; and if the Republican lead- 
 ers expect that it would be a war in the Southern 
 States— a war at a distance so far removed from 
 the North that those who had brought it on 
 would not even be disturbed by the roar of its 
 cannon, let them undeceive themselves at once. 
 The tone and feeling of this convention responds 
 to my own; and I am satisfied that, if such a 
 conflict ever comes, it will be war in the North, 
 and not war in the South. (Applause.) It will be 
 war in Chicago— war in Springfield— war on the 
 broad prairies of Illinois. (Loud applause.) Be- 
 fore the patriotic people of this State will allow 
 an invading force to pass beyond its borders to 
 subjugate the South, they will make one vast 
 mausoleum of your State. (Continued ap- 
 plause.)" g^ 
 
Mr. Richardson, not long before a Senator of 
 the United States, in his speech to the conven- 
 tion, said: "Why, Mr. Lincoln has said, and Mr. 
 Seward has said, 'Away with this doctrine of the 
 inequality of races. It is in violation of the Dec- 
 laration of Independence. The government can- 
 not endure half slave and half free/ Mr. Seward 
 said in Ohio: Tou, my friends, must turn in 
 and help me; we can extinguish this thing of 
 slavery/ " How false he must have known his 
 words to be! 
 
 Now, at the time this convention was being 
 held, the South Carolina legislature was push- 
 ing through a bill to call out and arm 10,000 
 troops; and batteries were being erected to bom- 
 bard Fort Sumter. Four States had already se- 
 ceded. Senators and representatives from these 
 States were resigning from the House and Sen- 
 ate. And yet, if this threatened war on the part 
 of the South were resisted, we were told there 
 would be war in Illinois— war in Chicago. No 
 word of sympathy for Mr. Lincoln, who, in his 
 home, not much more than a stone's throw from 
 the hall of the convention, was brooding sadly, 
 weighed down with the awful responsibility that 
 rested on him to save the Union, if, in the face 
 of a united South, and the great body of an in- 
 tensely hostile party in the North, it could be 
 
 90 
 
saved. Everything was said calculated to en- 
 courage the secessionists. Mr. Lincoln and the 
 man he had determined on to be his Secretary 
 of State were misrepresented as holding senti- 
 ments hostile to the South, which they had never 
 expressed, and did not entertain. I relate these 
 things here to show the situation— the awfully 
 discouraging situation— that Mr. Lincoln faced 
 in January, 1861. 
 
 Governor Yates was condemned for recom- 
 mending a reorganization of the militia. In the 
 House a Democrat (Green of Massac) moved 
 to amend the militia bill by providing that the 
 militia be armed with cornstalks; and yet these 
 people professed to be in favor of the Union. 
 Yes; but it was to be only such a Union as would 
 be satisfactory to the most radical of the slave- 
 holders. But even that sort of a Union these 
 slaveholders would not then have accepted. They 
 disliked the Northern feofle. They were more 
 unlike the Northern people than they were un- 
 like the people of England. Their manners were 
 different from ours. Their education had been 
 different. Their dialect was different. Slavery 
 had made them aristocrats. They placed the la- 
 boring man on a level with their negroes. They 
 expected to win without civil war. And they 
 
 91 
 
would have won had they not fired a gun— if 
 they had not attacked Fort Sumter. 
 
 The Springfield convention, in response to 
 Democratic conventions which had been held 
 in Kentucky and Indiana, as a means of concil- 
 iating the South, recommended the calling of 
 a convention of all the States to amend the con- 
 stitution. The Missouri Refuhlican, in an edi- 
 torial discussing this method of settling the trou- 
 ble, recommended that resort to secession as a 
 remedy should be had only after "all other means 
 of reconciliation have been exhausted." 
 
 In the midst of the gloom and portents of the 
 on-coming tragedy of civil war, Mr. Lincoln 
 showed a willingness to conciliate the great 
 Northern party which was so thoughtlessly feed- 
 ing the fires of secession. He was willing to con- 
 cede something in the way of compromise which 
 did not contemplate a surrender of the principles 
 of which he had been the foremost advocate, 
 and which he deemed not to be inconsistent with 
 the domestic institutions of the slaveholding 
 States; for he was naturally a conservative man, 
 and always held that by virtue of the constitu- 
 tion the slaveholder was entitled to have his 
 fugitive slaves returned to him. No compromise 
 could be framed that would stop the agitation 
 by those in the North who believed that slavery 
 
 92 
 
was sinful. He, with the great majority of the 
 North, believed slavery to be wrong, but they 
 faithfully regarded the constitutional obligation 
 to protect it in the slaveholding States. Nor could 
 any compromise prevent the operations of the 
 underground railroad, which but few, compara- 
 tively, were engaged in conducting, but in the 
 operation of which everybody would have taken 
 part if secession had succeeded. 
 
 Deeming it not unwise to make some response 
 to the sentiment which seemed to be so ex- 
 tensively entertained, not only in Illinois, but 
 throughout the North, in favor of offering com- 
 promise, as expressed by the Illinois convention, 
 even if no other effect should be produced than 
 to demonstrate the folly of expecting that the 
 South would entertain any proposition of com- 
 promise whatever, Mr. Lincoln drafted a pre- 
 amble and resolutions which he caused to be 
 adopted by the Illinois legislature, which were 
 entered in the House and Senate journals, as 
 follows : 
 
 "Mr. Jarrot, from the Committee on Federal Rela- 
 tions, to which was referred sundry resolutions refer- 
 ring to the condition of the Union, reported the same 
 back with the following preamble and resolutions: 
 
 "Whereas, Although the people of the State of 
 Illinois do not desire any change in our Federal Con- 
 stitution, yet as several of our sister States have indi- 
 
 93 
 
cated that they deem it necessary that some amend- 
 ment should be made thereto; and 
 
 "Whereas, In and by the Fifth Article of the Con- 
 stitution of the United States, provision is made for 
 proposing amendments to that instrument, either by 
 Congress or by a convention; and 
 
 "Whereas, A desire has been expressed in various 
 parts of the United States for a convention to propose 
 amendments to the Constitution; therefore, be it 
 
 "Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of 
 Illinois, That if application shall be made to Congress 
 by any of the States deeming themselves aggrieved, 
 to call a convention, in accordance with the constitu- 
 tional provision aforesaid, to propose amendments to 
 the Constitution of these United States, that the Leg- 
 islature of the State of Illinois will and does hereby 
 concur in making such application. 
 
 "Resolved, That until the people of these United 
 States shall otherwise direct, the present Federal Union 
 must be preserved as it is, and the present Constitution 
 and laws must be administered as they are; and to this 
 end, in conformity to that Constitution and the laws, 
 the whole resources of the State of Illinois are hereby 
 pledged to the Federal authorities. 
 
 "Resolved, That copies of the above preamble and 
 resolutions be sent to each of the Representatives and 
 Senators in Congress and to the Executives of the sev- 
 eral States."* 
 
 *The preamble and resolutions were voted on separately 
 and as a whole and adopted by the House. (House Journal, 
 pp. 301, 302, 303, 304, Feb. 1.) Concurred in by Senate. 
 (Senate Journal, p. 231, Feb. 2, 1861.) Concurrence re- 
 ported back to House. (House journal, p. 534, Feb. 13, 
 1 861.) Printed also in the public laws of 1861, p. 281. 
 
 94 
 
This important document has so far escaped 
 the historian, for at the time of its passage it did 
 not purport to come from Lincoln. There is no 
 record that he had anything to do with it; nor 
 was it publicly given out that he wrote the reso- 
 lutions. But I know very well that he did write 
 them. It was not concealed from the Republican 
 members of the Legislature that he wrote them. 
 I was very well acquainted with every Republi- 
 can member, and I know that no one of them 
 claimed to be the author. I do not remember who 
 introduced them, nor, indeed, that anyone did. 
 I have the impression, though indistinct after the 
 lapse of nearly fifty years, that no one did, but 
 that they were privately handed to Mr. Vital 
 Jarrot, chairman of the Committee on Federal 
 Relations, and by him reported to the House. 
 I sat near Mr. Jarrot during the entire session 
 and was on familiar, almost intimate, terms with 
 him. I think it was from him that I received my 
 impression as to the authorship. 12 Mr. Jarrot was 
 a most excellent, sensible gentleman and a true 
 patriot. He was one of the not many Republican 
 members of the House who deemed it important 
 that some offer of compromise should be made, 
 
 12 The reader should note well the tenuous evidence on 
 which Judge Blades attributed these resolutions to Lin- 
 coln. P.M.A. 
 
 95 
 
though having but little faith that any offer 
 would be accepted by the Southern people. He 
 thought that it should be offered for its effect on 
 our political opponents, if no other benefit should 
 come of it. 
 
 It failed to effect anything, and it remained for 
 the firing on Sumter to disabuse the minds of 
 those who professed to be hopeful that the 
 South would yield to compromise. The many 
 thousands of Southern Illinois, relied on by the 
 Springfield orators to fight in Springfield and in 
 the streets of Chicago, led by the brilliant and 
 gallant Logan, rallied under the banner of the 
 Union on the bloody fields of the South. 
 
 I heard the last speech Senator Douglas ever 
 made. On the invitation of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives of Illinois, at the special session in 
 April, 1 86 1, he made a strong and patriotic ap- 
 peal for a united effort in resisting the attempt of 
 the slave power to destroy the Union. His tower- 
 ing ambition to become President (from the 
 much lower moral plane on the subject of slavery 
 than that of Mr. Lincoln) had tumbled to ruin. 
 I have a vivid recollection of the appeal he made 
 on the one hand to the Republicans to use with 
 moderation, and in a spirit of conciliation to their 
 Democratic opponents, the control they had 
 come to have in the affairs of the government; 
 
 9 6 
 
and on the other hand, to his Democratic friends, 
 "not to allow their opposition to the Republican 
 party to turn them into traitors to their country." 
 This almost startling expression aroused angry 
 feeling in many Democratic members, and it 
 was suppressed in the printed speech, but I was 
 sitting near him and I know he said it. Poor man! 
 From Springfield he went home to Chicago, soon 
 to die in the full prime of his great powers, for 
 he was only forty-eight years of age. Often, often 
 since I have thought of the solemn words, 
 "Death, death, death," he uttered as he lay on 
 his deathbed in the old Tremont House in Chi- 
 cago. Had he not died he might have greatly dis- 
 tinguished himself on the fields of war, and 
 finally become President of the United States. 
 People of a later generation can have no ade- 
 quate appreciation of the intense hostility, and 
 even hatred, with which Mr. Lincoln was re- 
 garded by his political opponents. We who lived 
 then and were heartily with him in his efforts to 
 maintain the Union could see, and did see, that 
 many of them exulted when they heard that he 
 was killed. They dared not much to show it, else 
 they themselves would have been killed. Blinded 
 by intense partisan spirit, and blind to the fact 
 that the slave power had long been planning 
 either to make it lawful to carry their slaves into 
 
 97 
 
every quarter of the Union or to dissolve the 
 Union, they laid the whole trouble at the door of 
 those who were simply resisting the further ex- 
 tension of slavery. 
 
 The principal organ of these opponents of Mr. 
 Lincoln in Illinois was the Chicago Daily Times, 
 owned and edited by Wilbur F. Storey. On the 
 first day of July, 1864, it published an editorial 
 out of which I cut the following extract: 
 
 "We have no disposition to taunt Kentucky in her 
 present condition, but if this resolution is true (refer- 
 ring to a resolution of the Democratic State Conven- 
 tion held on the 28th of June) we must infer that her 
 people are not free. Democratic newspapers are not 
 permitted to circulate in the State, and she is deprived 
 of the other enumerated essentials of a free govern- 
 ment. She is not thus bound because her sons are 
 pigeon-livered and lack gall to make oppression bitter/ 
 but she waits and hopes that she may be unfettered 
 without resorting to force to re-establish law. She will 
 not wait many months, nor will the nation delay in 
 rising to her rescue if a fraudulent presidential election 
 should in form re-invest Mr. Lincoln in his present 
 office. He cannot be fairly and lawfully elected, and 
 the people have determined that he shall not hold 
 office if elected by fraud. He could not be more worth- 
 less dead than he is living, but he would be infinitely 
 less mischievous, and his corpse, repulsive as it would 
 be in its freshest state and richest and most graceful 
 habiliments, would yet be the most appropriate sacri- 
 
 98 
 
fice which the insulted nation could offer in atonement 
 for its submission to his imbecility and despotism." 
 
 Who could doubt that that man Storey and 
 the patrons of his paper rejoiced in their secret 
 souls when their tool, John Wilkes Booth, shot 
 Lincoln down on the night of April 14, 1865? 
 When General Burnside was in command of 
 the department of Ohio, he ordered the Chicago 
 Times to be suppressed. Mr. Lincoln's "despot- 
 ism" was such that he countermanded the order! 
 
 99 
 
Recollections 
 of Abraham Lincoln 
 
 BY MR. JOHN W. BUNN 
 
 OF SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, RELATED IN A 
 CORRESPONDENCE WITH ISAAC N. PHILLIPS 
 
 LETTER OF MR. PHILLIPS 
 
 Bloomington, Illinois, October 25, 19 10 
 
 Mr. John W. Bunn, Springfield, 111. 
 
 My Dear Sir: You have often, in idle hours, 
 related to me your recollections of Lincoln. I feel 
 that some of the things you have told me should 
 be preserved in a permanent form. I am just 
 now helping to get out a little book of recol- 
 lections of Lincoln by a number of men who 
 knew him quite well. I am sure no man now liv- 
 ing had a nearer view of Lincoln, in the period 
 covered by the last dozen years before his as- 
 sumption of the presidency, than you had. I am 
 further sure that no man's recollections of Lin- 
 coln at that period are clearer or more reliable 
 
 100 
 
than yours. You are not a man who is disposed 
 to state doubtful things or to try to exaggerate 
 your own knowledge of, or associations with, 
 Mr. Lincoln. Others have been less modest. 
 
 Very few men are now living who knew Lin- 
 coln well before the war— certainly but few 
 whose recollections are to be depended upon. 
 I am persuaded that much is now related con- 
 cerning Lincoln that is of very doubtful authen- 
 ticity. I therefore feel I have some right to ask 
 you to put in form some of the things you have 
 often told me in private conversation. I wish you 
 to state what kind of a man Lincoln was socially, 
 and what kind of a man he was as a politician, 
 if he was a politician. Please embody these recol- 
 lections and estimates in a letter to me, so I may 
 preserve them in a permanent form and give 
 them publicity. Some errors which have crept 
 into the public mind may thus be corrected, and 
 you will have helped to give the future a more 
 correct view of the most interesting if not the 
 greatest, character of modern times. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Isaac N. Phillips 
 
 ioi 
 
LETTER OF MR. BUNN 
 
 Springfield, 111., Nov. S, 19 10 
 Isaac N. Phillips, Esq., Bloomington, 111. 
 
 My Dear Sir: Your request that I should give 
 you, in a letter, some of my personal recollec- 
 tions of A4r. Lincoln and my estimate of him, 
 both in a social way and as a politician, is before 
 me. My answer shall be made wholly from my 
 personal knowledge and observation of the man. 
 I shall, of course, not try to exhaust the subject, 
 but will give you a little of Lincoln as I saw him 
 and as I knew him. If, in doing this, it should 
 appear that I put in a good deal about myself, 
 I must plead as an excuse that I could not write 
 my recollections of Lincoln without, to some 
 extent, writing about myself. 
 
 I was born in Hunterdon county, New Jersey, 
 in the year 1831. I had a brother, Jacob Bunn, 
 who, in the year 1840, settled in Springfield, 
 Illinois, carrying on there a wholesale and retail 
 grocery business. In 1847, when I was in my 
 sixteenth year, I came to live in Springfield in 
 order to be with my brother, and I have lived at 
 Springfield ever since. In 1847, when I came to 
 Illinois, Lincoln had lived and practiced law at 
 Springfield for ten years and had become some- 
 
 102 
 
what distinguished throughout the State. In 
 fact, he was then serving a term in congress 
 from the district which included Sangamon 
 county, Illinois. My early contact with Mr. 
 Lincoln was brought about by the fact that he 
 was my brother's regular attorney. Almost im- 
 mediately after coming to Illinois I began to 
 know Lincoln in such a way as a boy knows a 
 prominent man whom he often sees and talks 
 with. 
 
 In the year 1853, 13 I remember that Judge 
 Douglas made a great political speech in the 
 State House. Lincoln was present and heard 
 him, and gave notice that he would answer 
 Douglas, one evening very soon, from the same 
 platform. It was a way Lincoln had to talk with 
 people and find out the views they took of cur- 
 rent events, but he seldom or never asked any- 
 body's advice. Accordingly, the next day after 
 Douglas had made his speech Lincoln came 
 along and stopped to talk with me upon the side- 
 walk in front of my brother's store. He said to 
 me, "Did you hear the speech of Judge Douglas 
 last night?" I answered that I had heard the 
 speech, and he said, "What do you think of it?" 
 I replied, "Mr. Lincoln, I think it was a very 
 
 i:, i854. Douglas spoke on the afternoon of October 3, 
 Lincoln on the afternoon of the 4th. p.m.a. 
 
 I03 
 
able speech, and you will have a good deal of 
 trouble to answer it." To this he replied, "I will 
 answer that speech without any trouble, because 
 Judge Douglas made two misstatements of fact, 
 and upon these two misstatements he built his 
 whole argument. I can show that his facts are 
 not facts, and that will refute his speech. " I was 
 present and heard the reply which Mr. Lincoln 
 made to Judge Douglas' speech, and to my mind 
 he did disprove Douglas' facts, and, as I thought, 
 completely answered his arguments. 
 
 When Mr. Lincoln was elected to Congress 
 in 1846, he was the only Whig congressman 
 from Illinois. He served one term in congress 
 and was not a candidate to succeed himself. 
 After his return to private life, he was recog- 
 nized as the leader of the Whig party in Illinois, 
 just as Judge Douglas was recognized as the 
 leader of the Democratic party in the State. 
 These two men were the spokesmen of their 
 respective parties, and no one disputed their 
 supremacy. Judge Douglas soon became the 
 leader of the Democrats of the whole North, if 
 not of the South. These two men were leaders 
 both in debate and in private council. 
 
 Although the Republican party first began to 
 take form in 1854, it was not fully organized 
 until the year 1856, when Fremont was its candi- 
 
 104 
 
date for president. Lincoln and Douglas, as 
 leaders of their parties, were always rivals and 
 political antagonists. Their greatest contest was 
 when they met as rival candidates for the Senate 
 in the great debate of 1858. Douglas was success- 
 ful and Lincoln was defeated, but the apparent 
 defeat of Lincoln in that canvass was not a real 
 defeat, for in that celebrated debate he laid the 
 foundations, broad and deep, for his success over 
 Douglas in the great presidential campaign of 
 i860. In the latter campaign Lincoln carried 
 Illinois against his rival. 
 
 Lincoln was always a party man and was care- 
 ful to observe and to control, within the sphere 
 of his influence, every detail of party organiza- 
 tion. He was always in close touch with the 
 leaders of his party in the State. The primaries 
 in his own ward and city, the county convention, 
 and the State convention were each and all mat- 
 ters of deep personal concern to him. I do not 
 mean that he always engaged, personally, in all 
 the details of local campaigns, but the men who 
 did the work were generally in his confidence, 
 and were men who were glad to act upon his 
 advice and suggestions. All these things were 
 matters which Mr. Lincoln not only took pride 
 in but enjoyed, just as any man enjoys the 
 things that he does well and does with success. 
 
 105 
 
These things, which I state as facts of my own 
 knowledge, certainly show that Lincoln was a 
 practical politician, but he was not altogether 
 like many other practical politicians. He had his 
 personal ambitions, but he never told any man 
 his deeper plans, and few, if any, knew his inner 
 thoughts. What was strictly private and personal 
 to himself he never confided to any man on 
 earth. When men have told of conversations 
 with Lincoln in which they represent him as 
 giving out either political or family affairs of a 
 very sacred and secret character, their tales may 
 be set down as false. Furthermore, Lincoln was 
 as shrewd and unerring a judge of human na- 
 ture as any man I have ever known. He under- 
 stood the men about him, and he looked through 
 and through them. If he had been going to do 
 a thing so improbable, so contrary to his nature, 
 as to reveal the secrets of his inmost family life 
 to any man whatever, we may be sure his great 
 knowledge of men would have enabled him to 
 select someone who could be trusted not to be- 
 tray his confidence to the world almost the mo- 
 ment his eyes closed in death. 
 
 What I have said of Lincoln's disposition to 
 keep his own counsels does not in any way con- 
 tradict the commonly accepted notion that he 
 was a most genial man and that he was easily 
 
 1 06 
 
approachable. He was in fact a popular man 
 with all who knew him and was generally well 
 liked, personally, not only by his own supporters, 
 but by the members of the party opposed to him, 
 or at least by those members of the opposing 
 party who were sufficiently broadminded not to 
 be very bitter partisans. 
 
 As I have already indicated, Lincoln never, to 
 my knowledge, sought the advice of his friends 
 and associates as to what he should do, even in 
 matters of great importance. However sincerely 
 and confidently Lincoln may have worked for 
 the success of his party, of which he was the 
 acknowledged leader, neither his own personal 
 interests nor the interests of his party ever, in 
 my judgment, to any extent, controlled his polit- 
 ical opinions or his public utterances. Lincoln 
 may have kept many things to himself, and in 
 many matters it may be said he was secretive, 
 but, whenever he did speak, he said what he 
 really thought. He never dealt in double mean- 
 ings or used language for the purpose of con- 
 cealing his opinions. 
 
 When, in the debate of 1858, Lincoln ad- 
 vanced some views, and said some things, which 
 aroused the protests of his political associates, he 
 was undisturbed by the criticisms that were 
 made. It was subsequently demonstrated that 
 
 107 
 
he saw further and more clearly than those who 
 accused him of ruining his own prospects and 
 making trouble for his party. On this occasion, 
 as on many others, in his public life, he relied on 
 his own judgment, and his judgment proved to 
 be correct. 
 
 Lincoln's entire career proves that it is quite 
 possible for a man to be adroit and skillful and 
 effective in politics without in any degree sacri- 
 ficing moral principles. Little men try to do the 
 same things he did, and make very bad work of 
 it. They lack the high moral inspiration that 
 animated Lincoln. Lincoln presents the most 
 remarkable case in American history of a man 
 who could be a practical politician and at the 
 same time be a statesman in the highest sense of 
 both terms. Lincoln was a high-minded patriot. 
 He appreciated intellectual and educated men, 
 but he was at the same time a commoner— a man 
 of the people. He never, however, went out and 
 told the people, in terms, that he was one of 
 them. They knew this without any assertions of 
 the fact. He was always ready to give his best 
 energies and finally did give his life to the serv- 
 ice of his country, but it is not true that he lis- 
 tened to the popular clamor, in order to avoid 
 political storms, so far at least as they affected his 
 personal interests or his political prospects. If 
 
 1 08 
 
what he said or did did not meet with popular 
 approval he had the patience and the foresight 
 to wait for the advance of public opinion. He did 
 not doubt his own ability to see great situations 
 and to solve great political and moral questions, 
 and he always waited with perfect composure the 
 ultimate triumph of that truth and justice which 
 was his high and only aim. 
 
 Between 1850 and 1861, I saw Mr. Lincoln 
 very often. I am proud to say that I was one of 
 his junior political agents. Like very many others, 
 I was always glad to do for him anything that I 
 could do. I was often present at political gather- 
 ings, held for the purpose of consultation, and 
 I thus came to know pretty well the workings of 
 his mind, so far as they could be learned from 
 close personal contact and observation. I cer- 
 tainly knew something about his personal bear- 
 ing and concerning the attitude of others towards 
 him. I never heard any man call Mr. Lincoln 
 "Abe," and he certainly was never spoken of as 
 "Abe" in his own presence. It was not until the 
 campaign of i860 that I began to hear the talk 
 about "Abe" Lincoln and "Honest Abe." His 
 associates always called him Mr. Lincoln. It may 
 be that sometimes men like Judge Logan, John 
 T. Stuart, Judge Davis or Leonard Swett, called 
 him simply "Lincoln." His associates treated him 
 
 109 
 
with the respect that was due to his position, and 
 he always behaved with dignity, so far as I ob- 
 served. Many fictions of a later day have grown 
 up about Mr. Lincoln. They are mostly exaggera- 
 tions indulged in by persons who delight in tell- 
 ing a striking tale, and not infrequently for the 
 purpose of making the relator seem important in 
 his relations with Lincoln. All representations of 
 Mr. Lincoln as a clown or a buffoon are false, 
 and these things, to the real friends of Lincoln 
 —men who really knew him well— are very offen- 
 sive. I have always felt outraged by them. 
 
 I am also able to testify from knowledge that 
 Mr. Lincoln was not so slovenly in his dress, and 
 so ungainly in his appearance, as many have rep- 
 resented him to be. He was angular in his per- 
 son, but he was agile in his movements and far 
 less awkward in his motions than he has been 
 represented to be. He always seemed to me to be 
 as neat in his person and clothing as the common 
 run of lawyers at the Western bar. 
 
 The impression has gone forth that Lincoln 
 was always greatly embarrassed in the presence 
 of ladies, and, indeed, that he seldom talked to 
 ladies at all. Now, I have repeatedly seen Mr. 
 Lincoln in social gatherings at Springfield, at the 
 houses of prominent residents. At such places he 
 was nearly always surrounded by ladies, who 
 
 no 
 
took special delight in talking to him. I did not 
 observe his great embarrassment. I know that it 
 may be said generally that he was as popular 
 among women as he was among men. Women 
 delighted to hear him talk, and he, to my certain 
 knowledge, could talk very interestingly to them. 
 They used to gather about him and make him 
 talk. This was in Springfield at his home, and 
 all I say of Lincoln is confined to the period be- 
 fore his departure for Washington. 
 
 In the year 1857 Mr. Lincoln asked me one 
 day if I did not wish to run for city treasurer of 
 Springfield. The city was then an almost hope- 
 lessly Democratic city, and the proposition rather 
 startled me. He, however, gave me encourage- 
 ment to believe that I could be elected, if I would 
 go about the matter in the right way. My brother, 
 Jacob Bunn, who was present at the time, said 
 to Mr. Lincoln, "John will run if you want him 
 to." The candidate of the Democrats was Mr. 
 Charles Ridgely. I confess I was pleased with the 
 idea, and, when the Republican city convention 
 met, I was an interested auditor of the proceed- 
 ings. I expected to hear my own virtues extolled 
 in the lofty way that was common in such con- 
 ventions. Lincoln had told me nothing of his 
 plans as to how the announcement of my candi- 
 dacy would be made, or in what manner I would 
 
 1 1 1 
 
be brought out. The convention was nearly over, 
 and I began to think the matter of my nomina- 
 tion had been forgotten. In a city so Democratic 
 as Springfield, Republican nominations were re- 
 garded at best as rather formal and perfunctory 
 matters. Near the close of the convention a 
 young man— a lawyer who was an inmate of Lin- 
 coln's office— addressed the chairman, and said 
 he would like to make a nomination for the office 
 of city treasurer, but that if the suggestion he 
 should make did not meet with the favor of every 
 delegate present, he would withdraw the name. 
 He then put my name in nomination, but again 
 said, "If there is any delegate on this floor op- 
 posed to the candidacy of Mr. Bunn, I do not 
 wish his name to be voted upon or to go on the 
 ticket." No one objected and I was nominated 
 by acclamation. 
 
 When I saw who was nominating me and 
 knew that he was an inmate of Mr. Lincoln's 
 office, I, of course, knew very well that he was 
 acting under Mr. Lincoln's orders. The result of 
 the election was that I was chosen for treasurer, 
 and, I may say, I was again chosen in 1858, in 
 1859 and in i860. In all these campaigns I was, 
 so to speak, "under the political wing" of Mr. 
 Lincoln. 
 
 A day of two after my first nomination for city 
 
 112 
 
treasurer I was going up town and saw Mr. Lin- 
 coln ahead or me. He waited until I caught up 
 and said to me, "How are you running?" I told 
 him I didn't know how I was running. Then he 
 said, "Have you asked anybody to vote for you?" 
 I said I had not. "Well," said he, "if you don't 
 think enough of your success to ask anybody to 
 vote for you, it is probable they will not do it, 
 and that you will not be elected." I said to him, 
 "Shall I ask Democrats to vote for me?" He said, 
 "Yes, ask everybody to vote for you." Just then a 
 well known Democrat by the name of Ragsdale 
 was coming up the sidewalk. Lincoln said, "Now, 
 you drop back there and ask Mr. Ragsdale to vote 
 for you." I turned and fell in with Mr. Ragsdale, 
 told him of my candidacy, and said I hoped he 
 would support me. To my astonishment, he 
 promised me that he would. Mr. Lincoln walked 
 slowly along and fell in with me again, and said, 
 "Well, what did Ragsdale say? Will he vote for 
 you?" I said, "Yes, he told me he would." "Well, 
 then," said Lincoln, "you are sure of two votes at 
 the election, mine and Ragsdale's." This was my 
 first lesson in practical politics, and I received it 
 from a high source. 
 
 In the year 1861, when it was about time to 
 nominate a treasurer again, I had a conversation 
 with Mr. Lincoln. He asked me if I was going to 
 
 113 
 
run again for treasurer. I said, "Mr. Lincoln, do 
 you not think that men frequently run for office 
 too often for their own good?" He replied, "Yes, 
 they very often do." I gathered from this that he 
 probably thought I had better not run again, and 
 so I dropped out of the race. 
 
 I may here relate a little incident which is 
 characteristic of Lincoln. During the time be- 
 tween the election of Lincoln and his departure 
 from Springfield to go to Washington, he had his 
 office in the old State House— a building which 
 still stands on the public square, though it has 
 been repaired and a good deal changed. I was, of 
 course, very greatly interested in the campaign 
 in which the Republicans had succeeded in elect- 
 ing Lincoln. I was on a local committee which 
 had charge of matters in Springfield and Sanga- 
 mon county and was treasurer of the committee. 
 One day, after the election had resulted success- 
 fully, I went up to Mr. Lincoln's room in the 
 State House, and as I went up the stairs I met 
 Salmon P. Chase of Ohio just coming away. 
 When I entered the room I said to Mr. Lincoln, 
 rather abruptly, "You don't want to put that man 
 in your cabinet." It was an impertinent remark 
 on my part, but Mr. Lincoln received it kindly 
 and replied to me in a characteristic way, by say- 
 ing, "Why do you say that?" Because," I said, "he 
 
 114 
 
thinks he is a great deal bigger than you are." 
 "Well," said Lincoln, "do you know of any other 
 men who think they are bigger than I am?" I re- 
 plied, "I do not know that I do, but why do you 
 ask me that?" "Because," said Mr. Lincoln, "I 
 want to put them all in my cabinet." This is, per- 
 haps, unimportant talk, but I think it shows a 
 real characteristic of Lincoln and shows that he 
 was not afraid to match himself against other 
 men, however prominent they might be. 
 
 I always had a deep admiration and reverence 
 for Mr. Lincoln and, of course, was very active, 
 in my way, in forwarding his candidacy in the 
 campaign of i860. After the campaign was over 
 and had been successful, I was once in Lincoln's 
 office in the State House, when some question 
 came up about my having spent a great deal of 
 time in and about the canvass locally. Lincoln 
 asked me some questions which brought out the 
 fact that I had spent a good deal of my own 
 money in the canvass— a thousand dollars, or 
 more. Mr. Lincoln said to me that I was not able 
 to lose that money. He spoke very seriously. I re- 
 plied, "Yes, Mr. Lincoln, I am able to lose it, be- 
 cause when you go to Washington you are going 
 to give me an office." This statement seemed to 
 almost startle him. The look on his face grew 
 very serious. He said to me that he had not prom- 
 
 115 
 
ised me any office whatever. I replied, "No, Mr. 
 Lincoln, you have not promised me anything, 
 but you are going to give me an office just the 
 same/' "What office do you think I am going to 
 give you?" asked Mr. Lincoln. I said, "The office 
 of pension agent here in Illinois. During Isaac B. 
 Currans term as pension agent under Buchanan 
 I have done all the work in the office, in order to 
 get the deposits in my brother's bank. The salary 
 amounts to $1,000 a year, and when you go 
 to Washington you are going to give me that 
 office." To this he made no word of reply. He 
 did not say he would give me the office, or that 
 he would not, but on the 7th of March, 1861, 
 I was appointed to the office of pension agent 
 of Illinois by Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of the 
 Interior. 
 
 I do not believe that anything on earth could 
 have extracted a promise from Mr. Lincoln to 
 give me that office, nor do I think he would have 
 bargained to give any man an administrative 
 office before or after his election. It is probable 
 that he had selected the members of his cabinet, 
 and that he had advised them of the fact before 
 they were appointed, but, outside of his cabinet 
 officers, I do not believe he promised anybody an 
 office before the day of his inauguration, and yet 
 the incident I have above related shows that he 
 
 116 
 
was not by any means insensible to ordinary 
 political considerations. 
 
 Lincoln was the leading lawyer in central Illi- 
 nois before his election to the presidency. He 
 was universally respected for his purity and his 
 uprightness and for the rigid integrity that he 
 never failed to exhibit in all the relations of life. 
 He received from all who came in contact with 
 him the high respect and consideration which 
 was due to his position and to his great ability 
 and character. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 John W. Bunn 
 
 117 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abolitionists, not supported by Lincoln, 26, 28 
 
 Abraham Lincoln By Some Men Who Knew Him, as his- 
 torical contribution, 8-9, 14-15; literary quality, 9; quali- 
 ties of excellence, 9-10, 13-18 
 
 Ancestry of Abraham Lincoln, The, Lea, J. Henry and 
 Hutchinson, J. R., cited, 58-9 
 
 Anti-Nebraska Convention, not attended by Lincoln, 28 
 
 Bates, Edward, 54 
 
 Beckwith, Hiram W., Danville lawyer, tells Lincoln anec- 
 dote, 85 
 
 Benjamin, Reuben M., Bloomington judge, Lincoln Cen- 
 tenary speech of, 16; relations with Lincoln, 53 
 
 Breese, Sidney, 29 and 29 n 
 
 Bible, The, read by Lincoln, 56 
 
 Blackstone, William, Sir, studied by Lincoln, 56 
 
 Blackwell, Robert, 53 
 
 Blades, Franklin, 8; and January 1861 resolutions of Illinois 
 legislature, 16-17; Lincoln recollections, 16-17, 78-99; 
 biographical sketch, 76-7 
 
 Bloomington, Illinois, and Lincoln Centenary, 15-16; Lin- 
 coln in, 21-2, 37-40, 69-72; and Republican state con- 
 vention, 1856, 29-30, 41; Lincoln confers with friends 
 at, 31-3; Douglas speaks at, 41-2 
 
 Browning, Orville Hickman, 53; speaks in Bloomington, 41 
 
 Bunn, Jacob, 111, 120 
 
 Bunn, John W., 8; authority on Lincoln, 17; correspond- 
 ence with Phillips, 100-17; biographical sketch of, 102-3; 
 supported for office by Lincoln, 111-14; seeks appoint- 
 ment as pension agent, 115-17 
 
 Burns, Robert, read by Lincoln, 56 
 
 Byron, George Gordon, Lord, read by Lincoln, 56 
 
 Campaign of 1858, 30-3, 81-2, 107-8 
 
 Centenary, Lincoln, see Lincoln Centenary 
 
 Century, The, article quoted, on Lincoln's literary style, 
 34-5 
 
 Il8 
 
Chase, Salmon P., 54; Lincoln's reasons for cabinet ap- 
 pointment of, 114-15 
 
 Chicago Daily Times, editorial excoriates Lincoln, 98-9; 
 suppression countermanded by Lincoln, 99 
 
 Chicago, Illinois, Lincoln speaks at, 28 n; Lincoln-Douglas 
 speeches, 1858, 30-1 
 
 Chitty, Joseph, studied by Lincoln, 56 
 
 Clinton, Illinois, 42 
 
 Cropsey, A. J., delegate, Republican state convention, 
 1860, 63 
 
 Danville, Illinois, 85 
 
 Davis, David, 45; Federal judge, 38; relations with Lincoln, 
 53, 109; failure to record Lincoln recollections deplored, 
 85-6 
 
 Decatur, Illinois, Republican state convention, 1860, 62-8, 
 82-3; "fence rails episode," 65-7, 82-3 
 
 Democratic Party, in Illinois, war sentiment, 1861, 86-97; 
 ascendancy in Springfield, 1857, 111-13 
 
 Dickey, T. L., Ottawa lawver, 22; speaks in Bloomington, 
 41 
 
 Douglas, Stephen A., 53; and Lincoln, on Missouri Com- 
 promise repeal, 27-8; and Lincoln speeches, 1858, 30-3, 
 81-2; and Lincoln's Freeport questions, 31-3; debates 
 with Lincoln, 31-3; and Dred Scott decision, 32-3; skill 
 and reputation as debater, 33; rejects suggestion of de- 
 bates with Lincoln, 44-5; and Lincoln's "House Divided" 
 speech, 81-2; last speech, 96-7; Lincoln and, 103-5; 
 speech answered by Lincoln, 1853, 103-4 
 
 Dred Scott decision, in Lincoln-Douglas debates, 32-3 
 
 Ewing, James S., Lincoln Centenary speech of, 16, 37-59; 
 biographical sketch, 36; deplores biographical misrepre- 
 sentation of Lincoln, 46-9 
 
 Farnsworth, John F., speaks in Bloomington, 41 
 
 Fell, Jesse W., and Lincoln's Freeport questions, 31-2; 
 suggests Lincoln-Douglas debates, 44-5; services to Lin- 
 coln, 45; relations with Lincoln, 53 
 
 Fitch, Henry S., United States District Attorney, Northern 
 District of Illinois, speech quoted, 87-8 
 
 Freeport, Illinois, Lincoln-Douglas debate, 31-3 
 
 Funk, Isaac, relations with Lincoln, 53 
 
 n 9 
 
Gagan, William, delegate, Republican state convention, 
 1860, 63 
 
 Gilder, Richard Watson, quoted, on Lincoln's literary style, 
 34-5 
 
 Gillespie, Joseph, 53; relations with Lincoln, 78-9 
 
 Gridley, Asahel, speaks in Bloomington, 41; relations with 
 Lincoln, 53 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, studied by Lincoln, 56 
 
 Hanks, John, "fence rails episode," Decatur convention, 
 65-7, 82-3 
 
 Hanna, William H., relations with Lincoln, 53 
 
 Henderson, John B., Missouri Senator, tells Lincoln story, 
 51-3 
 
 Herndon, William H., Lincoln law partner, quoted, esti- 
 mate of Lincoln, 35 
 
 Homes, William, Illinois Democrat, speech quoted, 88 
 
 "House Divided" speech, 26-7, 30, 80-2 
 
 Illinois Central Railroad Company suit, 22 
 
 Illinois Schoolmasters' Club, 16, 37 
 
 Jarrot, Vital, member of Illinois legislature, 1861, and 
 compromise resolutions, 93-6 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, studied by Lincoln, 56 
 
 Lea, J. Henry and Hutchinson, J. R., The Ancestry of 
 Abraham Lincoln, cited, 58-9 
 
 Legislature, Illinois, resolutions of January, 1861, 16-7, 
 92-6; Lincoln's election to, 1854, 28-9; elects Trumbull 
 Senator, 29; sessions, 1861, 86 ff. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, conflicting biographical representations 
 of, 7-10, 11, 13-18, 46-9, 59, 83-5, 100-1, 109-11; char- 
 acter of, 9-10, 11, 17-18, 22-3, 83-4, 106-9, 109-11, 117; 
 had few confidants, 14, 53, 83-4, 106-8; and January 
 1861 resolutions of Illinois legislature, 16-17, 92-6; as 
 story teller, 17, 23-4, 39, 50-3, 70-2; ancestry, 17-18, 
 56-9; qualities of leadership, 20-1, 53-4, 104-5, 106-9, 
 111-14, 114-15, 117; in McLean County Circuit Court, 
 21-2, 37-40, 69-72; intellectual superiority, 21, 53-4, 
 103-4, 107-9; personality, 21, 78, 83-4, 106-7, 109-11; 
 and Illinois Central Railroad suit, 22; personal charac- 
 teristics, 22-23, 65-74, 83-4, 109-11, 116-17; apostle of 
 the common people, 24-5, 108-9; and Missouri Com- 
 
 120 
 
promise repeal, 25-9, 40-1; views on slavery, 26-8; 
 "House Divided" speech, 26-7, 30, 80-2; and Douglas, 
 1854 speeches, 27-9, 40-1; elected to Illinois legislature, 
 1854, 28-9; correspondence with Trumbull, 29; and 
 Trumbull's election as Senator, 29-30; "Lost Speech," 
 29-30, 41; guides Illinois Republicans, 29-30, 81-2, 
 104-5; Freeport questions, 31-3; debates with Douglas, 
 31-3, 104-5, 107-8; gains national prominence from de- 
 bates, 33; power of expression, 33-5; interest in children, 
 38; as a lawyer, 39-40; example to young lawyers, 40; 
 and the liquor question, 43; dress and personal appear- 
 ance, 50, 110; education, 54-6; autobiography, 56-7; and 
 Republican state convention, 1860, 62-8, 82-3; and 
 "fence rails episode," 65-7, 82-3; asks railroad pass, 
 72-3; humor, 72-3, 80, 85; "fooling the people" epigram 
 reported, 73-4; hospitality, 79, 111; misrepresented in 
 The Crisis, 82-3; and Illinois war sentiment, 1861, 86- 
 97; willingness to compromise, 1861, 92-6; attitude of 
 political opponents, 97-9, 106-7; and Chicago Daily 
 Times, 98-9; answers Douglas speech, 1853, 103-4; and 
 Douglas, 103-5; as a politician, 103-17 passim; party 
 leadership, 104-8; reticence in personal matters, 106-8; 
 personal dignity, 109-10; popularity with women, 110- 
 11; social popularity, 110-11; supports Bunn for office, 
 111-14; reasons for appointing Chase to cabinet, 114-15; 
 appoints Bunn pension agent, 115-17 
 
 Lincoln Centenary, biographical flood caused by, 7-8, 13, 
 15-16, 46-9 
 
 Livingston County, Illinois, and Lincoln's nomination, 
 
 1860, 62, 63, 65, 67, 68; answers call for volunteers, 
 
 1861, 74-5 
 
 Logan, John A., Union general, 96 
 
 Logan, Stephen T., closeness to Lincoln, 109 
 
 Lovejoy, Owen, speaks in Bloomington, 41 
 
 McLean County Circuit Court, Lincoln in, 21-2, 37-40, 
 
 69-72 
 McClernand, John A., 53 
 
 McCullough, William, relations with Lincoln, 53 
 McDougall, James, Senator from California, 37 
 Madison, James, studied by Lincoln, 56 
 
 121 
 
Medill, Joseph, intercourse with Lincoln misrepresented in 
 The Crisis, 82-3 
 
 Merrick, R. T., Illinois Democrat, speech quoted, 88-9 
 
 Missouri Compromise, repeal of, Lincoln and, 25-9, 40-1 
 
 Missouri Republican, quoted, 87 ff., 92 
 
 Moore, John, Illinois politician, figures in Lincoln story, 
 71-2 
 
 Morgan, Richard Price, Lincoln Centenary speech, 16, 62- 
 75; biographical sketch, 60; delegate, Republican state 
 convention, 1860, 63 
 
 Moses, John, history of Illinois, quoted, 28, 30 
 
 Norton, Jesse O., speaks in Bloomington, 41 
 
 Orme, William Ward, relations with Lincoln, 53 
 
 Ottawa, Illinois, Lincoln-Douglas debate, 31 
 
 Palmer, John M., speaks in Bloomington, 41 
 
 Peck, Ebenezer, 53 
 
 Peoria, Illinois, Lincoln-Douglas speeches at, 28 and 28 n 
 
 Phillips, Isaac N., deplores biographical misrepresentation 
 of Lincoln, 7-8, 13-18; correspondence with Bunn, 
 100-17 
 
 Pontiac, Illinois, and Lincoln Centenary, 16, 62-75; Re- 
 publican county convention, May 1860, 63 
 
 Popular sovereignty, doctrine introduced by Douglas, 27-8; 
 issue in debates, 32-3 
 
 Prince, Ezra M., Bloomington lawyer, tells Lincoln story, 
 50-1 
 
 Purple, Norman H., Peoria lawyer, 53 
 
 Quincy, Illinois, Lincoln speaks at, 28 n 
 
 Reeves, Owen T., Lincoln Centenary speech of, 16, 20-35; 
 biographical sketch, 19; relations with Lincoln, 53 
 
 Republican Party, in Illinois, Bloomington convention, 
 1856, 29-30, 41; guided by Lincoln, 29-30, 81-2, 104-5; 
 in campaign of 1858, 30-2, 81-2, 107-8; state conven- 
 tion, 1860, 62-8, 82-3; state convention, 1858, 80-2; war 
 sentiment, 1861, 86-97; and Lincoln's leadership, 104-17 
 passim; and Springfield city treasurer, 111-14 
 
 Richardson, William A., U. S. Senator from Illinois, 
 quoted, misrepresents Lincoln, 90-1 
 
 Seward, William H., 54 
 
 Shakespeare, William, read by Lincoln, 56 
 
 122 
 
Shields, James, 29 n 
 Slavery, Lincoln's views on, 25-6 
 Smith, Caleb B., Secretary of the Interior, 116 
 South, repudiates Douglas, 32-3 
 
 Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln-Douglas speeches, October 
 1854, 27-8; Republican state convention, 1858, 30-1, 
 80-2; Lincoln-Douglas speeches, 1858, 30-1, 80-2, 107-8; 
 Democratic ascendancy, 1857, 111-13; Lincoln supports 
 Bunn for city treasurer of, 111-14 
 Stevens, Thaddeus, figures in Lincoln story, 51-3 
 Stevenson, Adlai E., Lincoln Centenary speech of, 16 
 Storey, Wilbur F., editorial excoriates Lincoln, 98-9 
 Strevell, Jason W., delegate, Republican state convention, 
 
 1860, 63 
 Stuart, John T., Springfield lawyer, 37; relations with Lin- 
 coln, 53, 109 
 Sumner, Charles, figures in Lincoln story, 51-3 
 Swett, Leonard, Bloomington lawyer, 22; relations with 
 
 Lincoln, 53, 109 
 The Crisis, Winston Churchill, cited, 49; misrepresents 
 
 Lincoln, 82-3 
 Treat, Samuel H., Federal judge, 38; relations with Lin- 
 coln, 53 
 Trumbull, Lyman, elected Senator, 29; correspondence 
 
 with Lincoln, 29 
 Urbana, Illinois, Lincoln speaks at, 28 n 
 Voorhees, Daniel W., Senator from Indiana, anecdote of 
 
 Lincoln and, 85 
 Wade, Benjamin F., figures in Lincoln story, 51-3 
 Washington, George, biographical misrepresentation of, 15 
 Weldon, Lawrence, personal relations with Lincoln, 41-2, 
 
 53, 84 
 Williams, Archibald, speaks in Bloomington, 41 
 Yates, Richard, 91; accepts gubernatorial nomination, 1860, 
 64 
 
 12.3 
 
COLOPHON 
 
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