973.7L63 Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 BL638e An Evening with Lincoln. LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY MEMORIAL the Class of 1901 founded by HARLAN HOYT HORNER and HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER h '^s~ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/eveningwithlincoOOIinc An Evening with LINCOLN SHERWIN CODY SCHOOL OF ENGLISH ROCHESTER. N. Y. Made in the U. S. A. COPYRIGHT 1927 BY SHERWIN CODY 3L toS e CONTENTS Page Lincoln, Life 7 Ideal American Hero 7 Lincoln's Mother 10 Journey to Indiana 11 What Lincoln Read 14 Strikes Out for Himself 18 Politics and Love 19 Captain in the Black Hawk War 21 His First Speech 22 Studies Law 23 "A House Divided Against Itself" (Speech). 26 Elected President 27 Lincoln's Character 28 Assassination 31 Page His Life at the White House 32 Lincoln's Domestic Life 37 An Autobiographic Letter 41 Personal Appearance 43 Letters and Recollections 44 Speeches 66 Note for Law Lecture 66 Reply to Douglas at Peoria 68 Farewell Address at Springfield, 1861 74 First Inaugural 75 Emancipation Proclamation 89 Gettysburg Address 91 Second Inaugural 92 Anecdotes 95 Lincoln's Pardons 95 Lincoln's Own Stories 102 Miscellaneous Anecdotes 108 LINCOLN Every man should have a hero. If there is any- one who confesses he has none, do not trust him ; he has no high ideals, he does not wish to be greater or better than he is, and it is certain that he is in a fair way to become one of earth's degenerates. There is no nation that has ever attained greatness without its list of heroes. Greece had Achilles and Socrates and Demosthenes, Rome had Caesar, France Napoleon, Germany Bismarck, England Alfred the Great and Gladstone. America has her heroes, too, whose names have been given to states and towns and streets all over the land, until there is no one who has not heard them often. Washington was truly the Father of his Country, Franklin stands for American wit and American common sense, and Lincoln, born in poverty, brought up in a wildnerness, full of ignorance, we worship as the savior of the Nation. Lincoln the Ideal American Hero. Lincoln is an ideal hero for Americans, because he came from the very lowest, poorest, meanest stock, and rose to the very highest office we have to bestow. As a boy and as a young man he was so like one of us that there are few who cannot say they have as many natural gifts or as many opportunities as he had. He was plain, he was honest, he had good 8 LINCOLN health, and he was determined to get along in the world. He had his faults, too. He did not like to work any better than you do, he had a weakness for loafing and telling stories, and he was not as polite and polished in manners as his wife would have liked him to be. Even when he became Presi- dent he was worth but a few hundred dollars, all invested in his small house and plain furniture in Springfield. But money does not make a man, polished man- ners do not make him, even education does not make great a man whose soul is small. Lincoln had but a few months' schooling at a district school, and though he read a good many books and studied law until he was fairly skilled in his profession, his self- education was no greater than may easily be at- tained by any average American. Lincoln was great because he looked at every- thing so honestly and with such healthy common sense. He never felt himself above even the humblest of his fellows; and though he knew he could think more clearly and act more vigorously than most of the men he met, he did not fancy that to be a cause for "putting on airs." He was always the same Lin- coln, whether President in the White House or a poor railsplitter on a Western farm. That made the people love him. They wanted him to be great, because they seemed all to share in his greatness ; they wished him to hold high office because they felt they could trust their most difficult problems to him ; and they knew that however high he rose he LIFE 9 would be just as ready to talk with them and help them as when he was indeed one of themselves. But much as his friends liked him and trusted him, no one knew how really great he was until sud- denly he was made President of the Union, just as the Union seemed falling to pieces. He was like a giant rock that has rolled down from a mountain into the sea. The wind blew and the waters dashed over it, and though it had come down so suddenly it seemed as if it had been there forever. The drowning and the hopeless clung to it, the boats all anchored under its lee, and though the timid pre- dicted the rock would fall on them and crush them all, it stood unmoved till the gale was over. Here is a hero whom we all may imitate. If we have gifts and opportunities that he had not, let us be thankful and make the most of them as he would have done. But if we are no better off than he, as is the case with many of us, let us take courage and fight manfully on as he did; and while we may not be great enough to fill as great a post as he did, in whatever place our lot may fall we may act hon- orably, nobly, and honestly, as he would have done. This is what it means to choose an honest hero and shape our lives after his. Caesar sacrificed his coun- try to his ambition, and Napoleon, though a very great man, was a very bad one. Lincoln fought a bloody war, but, unlike Napoleon, he fought to save. Even Napoleon's friends came in time to hate him. Today the South, who once thought Lincoln their arch-enemy, have learned in a measure to look on him as their best friend; and he is no longer the 10 LINCOLN hero merely of the West, or merely of the North; he is the hero of the whole nation, and perhaps some day he will be the hero of other nations that have not yet heard his name. ********* Poor White Trash. Lincoln was assassinated more than sixty years ago, but it is still difficult to speak of him without being tempted to pronounce a sort of funeral eulogy over him. We shall understand him better, how- ever, if we follow the homely details of his early life. Abraham Lincoln was born in Hardin county, Kentucky, February 12, 1809. His parents belonged to that class known in the South as "poor white trash." Lincoln himself was very reserved about his origin and his early life. When he was nom- inated for the Presidency one of the first newspaper men to interivew him was J. L. Scripps of the Chi- cago Tribune, who wished to prepare a campaign biography of him. "Why, Scripps," said he, "it is a great piece of folly to try to make anything out of me or my early life. It can all be condensed into a single sentence, and that sentence you will find in Gray's 'Elegy,' 'The short and simple annals of the poor.' That's all my life, and that's all you or any one else can make out of it." Lincoln's Mother. Lincoln seldom spoke of his mother, Nancy Hanks, as she is usually called. Mr. Herndon, Lincoln's law LIFE 11 partner, says in his biography that only once did the future President refer in his hearing to his origin. "It was about 1850, when he and I were driving in his one-horse buggy to the court at Menard county, Illinois During the trip he spoke for the first time of his mother, dwelling on her character- istics, and mentioning or enumerating what qualities he inherited from her. He said, among other things, that she was the daughter of Lucy Hanks and a well- bred but obscure Virginia farmer or planter; and he argued that from this source came his power of analysis, his logic, his mental activity, his ambition, and all the qualities that distinguished him from the other members and descendants of the Hanks fam- ily." His grandfather on his father's side was also named Abraham. This Lincoln (or Linkhorn) went from Virginia to Kentucky in 1780, and two years later was killed by Indians, "not in battle," his grandson tells us, "but by stealth when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest." Abraham's son Thomas, father of the President, was a remark- ably shiftless man, and was always moving from one farm to another, leaving his debts behind him. Lincoln worked on the farm with his father until he was grown up; but he had little respect for him, and in later years did not often see him. The Journey to Indiana. Abraham had an older sister Sarah. When she was seven years old they moved to Indiana, where in the wilderness his father had purchased a farm 12 LINCOLN of the Government for two dollars an acre. He brought his carpenter's tools and a quantity of whis- key down Rolling Fork Creek on a crazy flatboat he had built himself. When he reached the Ohio River the boat upset one day, and all his goods went to the bottom; but he got them out again, by dint of patient fishing; and leaving them in care of a farmer and selling his boat, he secured his farm and walked back to get his family, whom he brought on in a borrowed wagon. In the woods they built what was called a half-faced camp, being enclosed on all sides but one. It had neither floor, door, nor windows. In this hovel they lived for a year, at the end of which time friends and relatives joined them, to whom they gave up the "half-faced camp," moving into a more pretentious cabin. "It was of hewed logs, and was eighteen feet square. It was high enough to admit of a loft, where Abe slept, and to which he ascended each night by means of pegs driven in the wall. The rude furniture was in keep- ing with the surroundings. Three legged stools an- swered for chairs. The bedstead, made of poles fastened in the cracks of the logs on one side, and supported by a crotched stick driven in the ground on the other, was covered with skins, leaves and old clothes. A table of the same finish as the stools, a few pewter dishes, a Dutch oven, and a skillet com- pleted the household outfit." Here Lincoln spent his boyhood. One day they had only roasted potatoes for dinner. As usual the father asked a blessing. Little Abe looked up, and LIFE 13 remarked irreverently but very drolly, "Dad, I call these mighty poor blessings." The boy was somewhat mischievous, too. He used to like to go coon hunting with the other boys. There was, however, a little yellow dog that would always bark when they tried to slip away. One night, to prevent that, they carried the dog with them. They got their coon and killed him, and then for the fun of the thing sewed the coon's hide on the yellow dog. The dog didn't like the operation and as soon as he was let loose made a beeline for home. Bigger dogs, scenting coon, followed him, and, perahps mistaking him for a real coon, killed him. The next morning Thomas Lincoln, the father, found his yellow dog lying dead in the yard with the coonskin on him. He was very angry, but the boys knew that yellow Joe would never sound the call again when they started on a coon hunt. Scarcely two years had passed when Nancy Lin- coln died of what was called "the milk-sick." Their neighbors Betsey and Thomas Sparrow died of the same disease, and even the cattle were affected by this strange sickness. Mrs. Lincoln knew she was going to die, and placing her feeble hands on little Abe's head she said, "Be good to father and sister"; to all she said, "Be good to one another," and ex- pressed the hope that they might live, as they had been taught by her, to love their kindred and wor- ship God. 'She had done her work in this world. Stoop-shouldered, thin-breasted, sad, — at times mis- erable, — without prospect of any betterment in her condition, she passed from earth, little dreaming of 14 LINCOLN the grand future that lay in store for the ragged, hapless little boy who stood at her bedside in the last days of her life." A Dreary Life. What a life little Abe and his sister lived after this can be better imagined than told. It was dreary in the extreme. But in the spring Thomas Lincoln went back to Kentucky and married an old sweet- heart, Sally Bush, who was a widow. This is the way Thomas proposed : "Miss Johnston, I have no wife and you no husband. I came a-purpose to marry you. I knowed you from a gal and you knowed me from a boy. I've no time to lose; and if you're willin', let it be done straight off." She replied that she could not marry at once, as she had some debts to pay. He said, "Give me the list of them." He got the list and paid them that evening. The next morning they were married. The new Mrs. Lincoln had a good stock of house- hold furniture, and took it with her to Indiana. For the first time in their lives Sarah and Abe had a comfortable bed to sleep on. They had also found a new mother, and learned to love her even more than their own. She also brought into the family her own three children, two girls and a boy, with whom the Lincolns lived in perfect accord. She was espe- cially kind to Abe, and when she was old and pen- niless he gave her a farm, on which she died in 1869, five years after he himself had gone to his account. What Lincoln Read. So the boy grew up, attending school a few months LIFE 15 each year, working on his father's farm, and reading when he could, often lying at full length on the floor before the fire, which gave the only light, for the Lincolns were too poor to afford candle or lamp. There were few books in those days. Lincoln read the Bible, "Aesop's Fables," "Robinson Crusoe," Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," a "History of the United States," and Weems' "Life of Washington." The last-named book he borrowed from a close- fisted neighbor named Josiah Crawford. He laid it on a little shelf in the cabin, near which there hap- pened to be a crack between the logs. One night a storm came up and the covers of the book got wet. Crawford, whom the boys called "Old Blue Nose," assessed the injury at seventy-five cents. Abe did not have the money, but set to work and pulled fodder for three days to pay off the debt He was over six feet before he was seventeen, and when he attained his growth he was six feet four inches, and proportionately strong. He was a great story-teller, and always had his joke; but he liked to read and study much better than he did to work. The farmers sometimes thought him lazy, for "his chief delight was to lie down under the shade of some inviting tree to read and study. At night, lying on his stomach in front of the open fireplace, with a piece of charcoal he would cipher on a broad wooden shovel. When the latter was covered over on both sides he would take his father's drawing knife or a plane and shave it off clean, ready for the next day." Says his cousin John Hanks: "When Abe and I returned to the house from work he 16 LINCOLN would go to the cupboard, snatch a piece of corn bread, sit down, take a book, cock his legs up as high as his head, and read. We grubbed, plowed, mowed and worked together barefooted in the field. Whenever Abe had a chance in the field while at work, or at the house, he would stop and read." One of Lincoln's early delights was going to mill, where was ground the corn which formed the prin- cipal food of the family. The mill had a long arm, to which each customer hitched his horse, and driving it round and round, ground his own corn. One day Lincoln's turn did not come till nearly night. The old flea-bitten gray mare was rather lazy, and as he sat on the arm he kept urging her to go faster, crying, "Get up, you old hussy." The mare bore it for a while, but suddenly, in the midst of one of these exclamations, she let her hoof fly and hit him in the forehead, knocking him senseless. The miller picked up the lifeless boy and sent for his father, who came and took him home in a wagon. He lay all night unconscious, but toward morning began to show signs of recovering. As his blood began to flow through his veins once more, he awoke and blurted out, "you old hussy," thus finishing the phrase he had begun when the mare's hoof struck him. He always regarded this as a remarkable oc- currence in his life. Pioneer Social Life. The place in which Lincoln's early life was spent was known as Gentry ville. The social life of the people centered about the church, which they would often go eight or ten miles to attend, sometimes LIFE 17 staying over until the next day. Says Mr. Herndon, "The old men starting from the fields and out of the woods would carry their guns on their shoul- ders and go with the women. They dressed in deer- skin pants, moccasins, and coarse hunting shirts — the latter usually fastened with a belt or leather strap. Arriving at the house where the services were to be held they would recite to each other thrilling stories of their hunting exploits, and smoke their pipes with the old ladies. They were treated, and treated each other, with the utmost kindness. A bottle of liquor, a pitcher of water, sugar, and glasses were set out for them ; also a basket of apples or turnips, with now and then a pie or cake. Thus they regaled themselves until the preacher found himself in condition to begin. The latter, having also partaken freely of the refreshments provided, would "take off his collar, read his text, and preach and pound till the sweat, produced alike by his exertions and the exhilarating effects of the toddy, rolled from his face in great drops. Shaking hands and singing ended the service." At nineteen Lincoln grew restless and wanted to leave his father's home; but a friend advised against it, and soon after he had an opportunity to join another friend in taking a flat-boat loaded with meat and grain on a trading expedition to New Orleans. Here on a second journey made a few years later he attended a slave-market. He saw a girl put on sale. The auctioneer trotted her up and down, and the men pinched her flesh and observed her gait as if she had been a fine-bred mare instead of a human 18 LINCOLN being. Turning away from the scene in disgust, he then and there conceived a deep-rooted hatred for the institution of slavery; and though afterward he showed great tolerance toward the slave-owners, and never wished to deprive them of their property without compensation, he felt that the institution of slavery was a violation of the essential spirit of the Declaration of Independence. Soon after his return his father removed with all his family to Macon county, Illinois. One incident of the journey is worth relating. They took a little dog with them, which trotted along behind the ox wagon. One day it fell behind and failed to catch up till after they had crossed a stream. Soon they saw him on the opposite bank, whining and jumping about in great distress. As the stream was partly frozen and the water was running over the edges of the ice, the dog was afraid to cross. The majority decided that it was not worth while to go back merely for a dog, "but," says Lincoln himself in telling the story, "I could not endure the idea of abandoning even a dog. Pulling off shoes and socks I waded across the stream and triumphantly returned with the shivering animal under my arm. His frantic leaps of joy and other evidences of a dog's grati- tude amply repaid me for all the exposure I had undergone." Strikes Out for Himself. He helped his father and the others hew out the logs from which their house was to be built, and split the rails for the fences; but as he had now Llbh. 19 become of age, he felt that it was time to strike out for himself. He worked within sight of home for a while, and then accepted an offer from one Denton Offut to take a boat load of stock and provisions down to New Orleans. He and John Hanks made their way to Springfield. As Mr. Offut had no boat ready, they set to work and built one themselves. At New Salem their boat stuck on a dam, where it hung for a day and a night. It was partly filled with water. They unloaded it, but the water kept it from clearing the dam, though one end projected over the edge. Lincoln devised the simple expedient of rolling the barrels forward and boring a hole in the bottom of the boat at the end which stuck over the dam. Of course the water ran out and the boat went over easily. Offut thought this was wonderful ingenuity, and said he would build a steamboat which should have rollers for shoals and dams, runners for ice, and with Lincoln in charge "By thunder, she'd have to go." A little farther down they had to take on some pigs. The swine refused to be driven aboard, always running back just as they seemed to be on the point of going over the gangplank. Lincoln con- ceived the idea of sewing up their eyes ; but after that was done they still refused to go, and they had to catch the pigs one by one and carry them aboard. Politics and Love. On his return from New Orleans he promised to act as clerk for Denton Offut, who proposed to open 20 LINCOLN a store at New Salem. He described himself at this time as a piece of floating driftwood, that after the winter of deep snow had come down the river with the freshet; borne along by the swelling waters, and aimlessly floating about, he had accidentally lodged at New Salem. Here he was to make his first efforts as a speaker and a politician; here he met the girl with whom he fell in love, whose early death first called out that melancholy which always brooded over him, and made him the saddest as well as the drollest of men. Here, too, he first made his reputation for spinning yarns, with which he was always ready. He also gained the respect of the whole town by his skill in wrestling. It happened that a few miles southwest of the village was a strip of woods known as Clary's Grove. The boys who lived down there were the terrors of the whole region. Yet they were also ever ready to fight for the defenceless, or for any one who could command their respect. Their leader was Jack Armstrong, under whom they were in the habit of "cleaning out" New Salem whenever his word went forth. Offut maintained that Lincoln "was a better man" than Jack Armstrong, and arranged a bet with "Bill" Clary. The contest was to be a friendly one fairly conducted, and all New Salem turned out to see it. Even to this day the people of New Salem (now scattered far and wide, for New Salem no longer exists) tell the exciting scenes of that day; how Lincoln, sudden Iv enraged at a suspicion of foul tactics, fairlv lifted the great bully from the ground by the throat and shook him like a rag; and how LIFE 21 from that day the Clary Grove boys were his firm friends and supporters. Lincoln at this time weighed two hundred and fourteen pounds, and had arms so long and muscles so wiry that he could throw a cannon ball or maul farther than any one else, while we hear that he once raised a barrel of whiskey from the ground and drank from the bunghole. But this young giant had a strong head and a soft heart, and many friends of a character very different from the Clary Grove boys. Among these was Men- tor Graham, the schoolmaster, on whose advice he hunted up a man named Ganer, who was said to be the owner of a Kirkham's grammar. After a walk of several miles he returned to the store where he was clerking with the book under his arm. Some- times he would lie at full length on the counter, his head propped up by rolls of calico; or he would steal away to the shade of a nearby tree, where he tried patiently and persistently to master the rules of grammar. How well he succeeded in mastering the English language we may know when we remember that in the Gettysburg speech we have one of the most perfect specimens of oratory in the history of any language. Goes to the Black Hawk War. Lincoln did not make a good clerk. Offut's store failed, and Lincoln enlisted for the Black Hawk war. He was elected captain of the company, an honor which he appreciated; but he knew little of military tactics. Once when he was marching the 22 LINCOLN company twenty abreast they came to a narrow gate. Lincoln could not remember the military order for "turning the company endwise." The situation was becoming decidedly embarrassing when he faced the lines and called, "Halt! This company will break ranks for two minutes and form again on the other side of the gate." The company did as ordered, and thought none the less of their leader. His com- pany was somewhat unruly, and for their misdeeds he was once deprived of his sword for a day, and at another time he was made to carry a wooden sword for two days. His First Speech. When he came home he decided to run for the legislature. This is the way in which he opened his campaign. "Fellow Citizens, I presume you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by many friends to become a candidate for the legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance. I am in favor of a national bank. I am in favor of the internal improvement system and a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments and political principles. If elected I shall be thankful; if not it will be all the same." Of the 208 votes in New Salem, Lincoln received all but three. He was not elected this time, however. It was the only time he was ever defeated at the hands of the people. He now bought an interest in a country store, and started in business for himself; but he did not sue- LIFE 23 ceed, and accumulated debts which he was many years in paying off in full. He paid every penny he owed, however. Studies Law. As he had nothing to do after the failure of the business he decided to study law. He arranged to get board on credit, borrowed some law books and went to work. His friends remember him at this time lying on his back under a tree, putting his feet up the tree, as he pored over a volume of Chitty or Blackstone. He had been appointed postmaster, but this took little of his time, and as he went about carrying the letters in his hat, he was able to give most of his thought and attention to the study of law. He also did odd jobs for the farmers. One day when he was splitting rails a friend came out and told him he had been appointed deputy surveyor. As he himself was a Whig and he knew the man who offered the appointment to be a Democrat, he first asked if he were to be perfectly free to express his political opinions should he accept the office. Said he, "If my sentiments or even expression of them is to be abridged in any way I would not have it or any other office." He was wretchedly poor and overwhelmed with debt, while trying to study law under the most adverse circumstances, yet lie had the courage to assert his independence ! What better proof that he was an honest man to the very core! He knew nothing of surveying; but he soon learned it, as he did everything to which he turned 24 LINCOLN his mind. From that time he was always able to earn a comfortable living. His Political Career. • The subsequent events of his life may be briefly told. He was elected to the legislature, and was re-elected a number of times. As soon as he was able he opened a law office in Springfield, where he continued in practice until he was elected President. He was for one term a member of Congress. As a lawyer he was not great in the sense that Webster was, but he had a commonsense, straight- forward way of stating his case that always gained the confidence of judge and jury. He never took up a case unless he believed it was right, and many a poor man or woman's cause he pleaded for nothing. When the Republican party was organized in 1856, Lincoln, though nearly fifty years of age, was merely a fairly successful lawyer and local politician. He was ambitious, and wished to be sent to the United States Senate, but he was unknown outside of Illi- nois. At the State convention that year he stated his views, but his friends persuaded him to withdraw what he had said for the time being. Two years passed. In 1858 he was nominated by the Repub- licans as their candidate for United States Senator. Stephen Douglas was nominated by the Democrats. Lincoln knew he would be nominated, and had pre- pared his speech and had showed it to a number of friends. They all advised him to omit the first para- graph, told him it would cost him his election, and that in every way it was unwise. He replied quietly, LIFE 25 "Friends, this thing has been retarded long enough. The time has come when these sentiments should be uttered; and if it is decreed that I should go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the truth— let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right." When he spoke those words he was no longer an ambitious politician ; he had begun to be great, as he had never been before; for that first made it possible for him to become President, or rather, let us say, those firm, honest words first convinced thinking men that here was the one man the nation could trust in its hour of need. The famous joint debate with Douglas followed, and Douglas was elected Senator; but already Lincoln looked forward to the Presidency. To understand what he did, and why he is so great, we must consider the conditions and the times. The question of slavery no longer interests us, for it has been settled forever. But in 1858 it was the great question for the nation. The South wanted slavery, felt that it could not exist without it, and was determined to stick to it under all cir- cumstances. In the North there was a small but very active part of Abolitionists that hated it, and was determined to fight it to the bitter end. Most of the people in the North did not believe in slavery, but wished to let the Southern people have their own way. So for fifty years the great men in Congress wrangled and struggled to find some compromise, some halfway plan that would satisfy both North and South. Henry Clay had his plan; Webster de- livered some of his greatest speeches in this turbu- 26 LINCOLN lent discussion. Just here a new question arose. The South said, We are tired of this fight. Unless you let us alone we will withdraw from the Union — we will secede. Webster's greatest speech was made on the proposition that no state could withdraw from the Union. "A House Divided Against Itself." Such were the conditions when Lincoln stood up before the convention at Springfield, 111., and said : "Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention. If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation not only has not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dis- solved — I do not expect 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 will rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states old as well as new, North as well as South." LIFE 27 What Lincoln said was true. There could be no peace till the battle had been fought out and slavery had won or been beaten and driven from the coun- try. Lincoln did not wish war; but if war must come he was ready for it. Elected President. After the Douglas debates he made a great speech at the Cooper Union, in New York, at which William Cullen Bryant presided; and from this moment he knew that he might become President. He was elected in 1860, and was inaugurated March 4, 1861. At that time it seemed as if the country was fall- ing to pieces, that the great and glorious nation founded by Washington and Franklin and Adams and Patrick Henry and the rest was about to come to an end. Less than six weeks after Lincoln en- tered the White House, on April 14, 1861, Fort Sumter surrendered. War had begun; brother was fighting brother; one after another the Southern states withdrew and set up a government of their own. At first Lincoln did not very well comprehend the gigantic task laid upon him; but he gradually realized it, and when he sent his second annual message to Congress he could say, "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generations. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that 23 LINCOLN we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we know how to save it. We, even we, here — hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free— honorably alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth." Lincoln's Character. And this was the spirit in which he himself pro- ceeded to do what he conceived to be his duty. "Our common country is in great peril, demanding the loftiest views and boldest action to bring a speedy relief. Once relieved, its form of govern- ment is saved to the world; its beloved history and cherished memories are vindicated, and its happy future fully assured and rendered inconceivably grand "I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more when- ever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they are shown to be true views." In a letter to Reverdy Johnson he said, "I am a pa- tient man — always willing to forgive on Christian terms of repentance, and also to give ample time for repentance. Still, I must save this government, if possible. What I cannot do, of course, I will not do; but it may as well be understood, once for all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed." LIFE 29 In such utterances we see how cool and calm he was. He did not get nervous or excited, he never tried to do more than he could, and after days of darkness and doubt and defeat, victory came at last, the nation was saved, and peace now unites the whole country in a common brotherhood. During the time of his Presidency, Lincoln seldom wrote to his friends, or indulged in any pleasures or business of his own ; but he did tell a great many stories to those who came to see him. It is i,aid that in 1862, when the North was plunged in gkom by repeated defeats, an Ohio Congressman went to see Lincoln, who at once began a funny story. "Mr. President," said the Congressman, "I lid not come here this morning to hear stories; it is too serious a time!" "Ashley," replied Lincoln quickly, "sit down! I respect you, as an earnest, sincere man. You can- not be more anxious than I have been, constantly, since the beginning of the war; and I say to you now, that were it not for this occasional vent, I should die!" Nothing endeared President Lincoln so much to the hearts of the people as his tenderness toward the unfortunate. He was always pardoning deserters and spies condemned to death. To a friend he once said, "Some of our generals complain that I impair discipline and subordination in the army by my pardons and respites, but it makes me rested, after a hard day's work, if I can find some good excuse for saving a man's life." A father once came to Lincoln to intercede for 30 LINCOLN the life of his son. Lincoln found it impossible to grant a direct pardon, but wrote, "Job Smith is not to be shot till further orders from me." The anxious father was not satisfied with this and begged for something more definite. "Well, my old friend," said Lincoln, "I see you are not very well acquainted with me. If your son never looks on death till fur- ther orders come from me to shoot him, he will live to be a great deal older than Methusaleh." Once when Lincoln had pardoned twenty-four de- serters at one time, all of whom were sentenced to be shot, one of his generals objected that "Mercy to the few is cruelty to the many." Lincoln replied, "My general, there are already too many weeping widows in the United States. For God's sake, don't ask me to add to the number, for I won't do it." The war was fought out during Lincoln's first term as President. Grant won his victories in the West, at Vicksburg and other places, and then led the army against Richmond, forcing the surrender of Lee. Lincoln's renomination was a foregone conclusion ; but to the convention he said simply that he knew of no reason why he was a better man for the Presidency than many others, but like the old Dutch farmer, he thought it best "not to swop horses while crossing a stream." When triumphantly reelected, he turned to the South with words of kindness and affection, bidding his misguided brethren to come back in peace. "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firm- ness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the na- LIFE 31 tion's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." Assassination. Thus he spoke in his inaugural address. Only a few weeks later, on the 14th of April, the anniversary of the surrender of Fort Sumter, he was assassinated by Wilkes Booth, the actor. Booth was a hot- headed young man, and with other Southern sympathizers formed a plot to assassinate all the chief men and overthrow the government. Lincoln had gone to the theater with friends for an evening's relaxation. He occupied a box, into the back of which Booth made his way. At what he conceived to be the dramatic moment he shot the President, and leaped upon the stage. Unfortunately for him he caught his foot in the flag which draped the box and sprained his ankle. Nevertheless he stalked across the stage, exclaiming in melodramatic fash- ion, "Sic semper tyrannis" "So ever with tyrants !" At first the people thought this part of the play ; but when they understood what had been done all was confusion. When the news was flashed over the country that Lincoln had been assassinated, it seemed as if a sud- den pall and gloom had fallen on the land, as when it becomes suddenly dark at midday, and people won- der if the world is coming to an end. For four years the nation had rested on Lincoln, depending on him to carry it through ; and now it seemed as if 32 LINCOLN the glad fruits of the victories of a four years' war were about to be lost, and the country would fall into confusion and anarchy once more. But gradually it was found that Lincoln's spirit was as powerful after his death as it had ever been before; and it has been growing stronger ever since, until we realize that no small part of our country's greatness today is due to him. The President's Life at the White House. John Hay, one of Lincoln's private secretaries and later Roosevelt's secretary of state, has given us an interesting description of the President's life at the White House during the period of war. "The President rose early, as his sleep was light and capricious. In the summer, when he lived at the Soldier's Home, he would take his frugal break- fast and ride into town in time to he at his desk at eight o'clock. He began to receive visits nominally at ten o'clock, but long before that hour struck the doors were besieged by anxious crowds, through whom the people of importance, Senators and Mem- bers of Congress, elbowed their way after the fashion which still survives. On days when the Cabinet met — Tuesdays and Fridays — the hour of noon closed the interviews of the morning. On other days it was the President's custom, at about that hour, to order the doors to be thrown open and all who were waiting to be admitted. The crowd would rush in, throng in the narrow room, and one by one would make their wants known. Some came merely to shake hands, to wish him Godspeed; their errand LIFE 33 was soon done. Others came asking help or mercy; they usually pressed forward, careless in their pain as to what ears should overhear their prayer. But there were many who lingered in the rear and leaned against the wall, hoping each to be last, that they might in tete-a-tete unfold their schemes for their own advantage or their neighbor's hurt. These were often disconcerted by the Presi- dent's loud and hearty, 'Well, friend, what can I do for you?' which compelled them to speak, or retire and wait for a more convenient season. The in- ventors were more a source of amusement than of annoyance. They were usually men of some orig- inality of character not infrequently carried to ec- centricity. Lincoln had a quick apprehension of mechanical principles, and often detected a flaw in an invention which the contriver had overlooked. He would sometimes go into the waste fields that then lay south of the Executive Mansion to test an experimental gun or torpedo. He used to quote with much merriment the solemn dictum of one rural inventor that 'a gun ought not rekyle; if it rekyles at all, it ought to rekyle a little forrid/ "At luncheon time he had literally to run the gauntlet through the corridors between his office and the rooms at the west end of the house occupied by the family. The afternoon wore away in much the same manner as the morning; late in the day he usually drove out for an hour's airing; at six o'clock he dined. He was one of the most ab- stemious of men; the pleasures of the table had few attractions for him. His breakfast was an tgg and 34 LINCOLN a cup of coffee; at luncheon he rarely took more than a biscuit and a glass of milk, a plate of fruit in its season; at dinner he ate sparingly of one or two courses. He drank little or no wine; not that he remained on principle a total abstainer, as he was during a part of his early life in the fervor of the 'Washingtonian' reform ; but he never cared for wine or liquors of any sort and never used tobacco. "There was little gayety in the Executive House during his time. It was an epoch, if not of gloom, at least of a seriousness too intense to leave room for much mirth. There were the usual formal en- tertainments, the traditional state dinners and recep- tions, conducted very much as they have been ever since. The great public receptions, with their vast, rushing multitudes pouring past him to shake hands, he rather enjoyed; they were not a disagreeable task to him, and he seemed surprised when people commiserated him upon them. He would shake hands with thousands of people, seemingly uncon- scious of what he was doing, murmuring some monotonous salutation as they went by, his eye dim, his thoughts far withdrawn; then suddenly he would see some familiar face, — his memory for faces was very good, — and his eye would brighten and his whole form grow attentive; he would greet the visitor with a hearty grasp and a ringing word and dismiss him with a cheery laugh that filled the Blue Room with infectious good nature. Many people armed themselves with an appropriate speech to be delivered on these occasions, but unless it was com- pressed into the smallest possible space, it never was LIFE 35 uttered; the crowd would jostle the peroration out of shape. If it were brief enough, and hit the Presi- dent's fancy, it generally received a swift answer. One night an elderly gentleman from Buffalo said, 'Up our way we believe in God and Abraham Lin- coln,' to which the President replied, shoving him along the line, 'My friend, you are more than half right.' "During the first years of the administration the house was made lively by the games and pranks of Mr. Lincoln's two youngest children, William and Thomas; Robert, the eldest, was away at Harvard, only coming home for short vacations. Tho two little boys, aged eight and ten, with their Western independence and enterprise, kept the house in an uproar. They drove their tutor wild with their good- natured disobedience; they organized a minstrel show in the attic; they made acquaintance with the office-seekers and became the hot champions of the distressed. William was, with all his boyish frolic, a child of great promise, capable of close applica- tion and study. He had a fancy for drawing up railway time-tables, and would conduct an imaginary train from Chicago to New York with perfect pre- cision. He wrote childish verses, which sometimes attained the unmerited honors of print. But this bright, gentle, and studious child sickened and died in February, 1862. His father was profoundly moved by his death, though he gave no outward sign of his trouble, but kept about his work the same as ever. His bereaved heart seemed afterwards to pour out its fullness on his youngest child. ' Tad' was a 36 LINCOLN merry, warm-hearted, kindly little boy, perfectly law- less, and full of odd fancies and inventions, the 'chartered libertine' of the Executive Mansion. He ran continually in and out of his father's cabinet, interrupting his gravest labors and conversations with his bright, rapid and very imperfect speech, — for he had an impediment which made his articulation almost unintelligible until he was nearly grown. He would perch upon his father's knee, and sometimes even on his shoulder, while the most weighty con- ferences were going on. Sometimes, escaping from the domestic authorities, he would take refuge in that sanctuary for the whole evening, dropping to sleep at last on the floor, when the President would pick him up and carry him tenderly to bed. "Mr. Lincoln spent most of his evenings in his office, though occasionally he remained in the draw- ing-room after dinner, conversing with visitors or listening to music, for which he liad an especial liking, though he was not versed in the science, and preferred simple ballads to more elaborate composi- tions. In his office he was not often suffered to be alone; he frequently passed the evening there with a few friends in frank and free conversation. If the company was all of one sort he was at his best; his wit and rich humor had full play; he was once more the Lincoln of the Eighth Circuit, the cheeriest of talkers, the riskiest of story-tellers; but if a stranger came in he put on in an instant his whole armor of dignity and reserve. He had a singular discernment of men; he would talk of the most im- portant political and military concerns with a free- LIFE 37 dom which often amazed his intimates, but we do not recall an instance in which his confidence was misplaced. "Where only one or two were present, he was fond of reading aloud. He passed many of the summer evenings in this way when occupying his cottage at the Soldiers' Home. "He read Shakspere more than all other writers together. He made no attempt to keep pace with the ordinary literature of the day. Sometimes he read a scientific work with keen appreciation, but he pursued no systematic course. He owed less to reading than most men. He delighted in Burns; of Thomas Hood he was also excessively fond. He often read aloud 'The Haunted House.' He would go to bed with a volume of Hood in his hands, and would sometimes rise at midnight and, traversing the long halls of the Executive Mansion in his night- clothes, would come to his secretary's room and read aloud something that especially pleased him. He wanted to share his enjoyment of the writer; it was dull pleasure for him to laugh alone. He read Bryant and Whittier with appreciation; there were many poems of Holmes that he read with intense relish. 'The Last Leaf was one of his favorites; he knew it by heart, and used often to repeat it with deep feeling." Lincoln's Domestic Life. Lincoln's relations with his wife were peculiar. He had first of all been deeply in love with Anne Rut- ledge, and her death had cast a gloom over his whole 33 LINCOLN life. After that he paid his addresses to various young ladies, for his tender heart seemed to yearn for domestic life. Each in turn refused him, how- ever. At last he met in Springfield the sister of the wife of a political comrade, Ninian W. Edwards. Mary Todd came of a more or less aristocratic Southern family, was well educated, and refined in manners and habits. Lincoln was not; but she was ambitious, and she believed he had a political future. Stephen Douglas, Lincoln's superior in refinement and education, attempted to supplant Lincoln, but soon dropped out of the race. Lincoln was never sure he was really in love with Miss Todd. In some of his gloomy moments he made up his mind that he would break off their engagement, and wrote her a letter telling her he did not think he loved her. He showed it to a friend, who threw it in the fire and told Lincoln to go and tell her face to face. So the young man set off ; but he did not return for some hours. "Well, old fellow, did you do as I told you and you promised?" Speed asked when his friend re- turned. "Yes, I did," responded Lincoln, "and when I told Mary I did not love her, she burst into tears, and almost springing from the chair and wringing her hands as if in an agony, said something about the deceiver being himself deceived." Then he stopped. "And what else did you say?" inquired Speed. "To tell you the truth, Speed, it was too much for me. I found the tears trickling down my own cheeks. I caught her in my arms and kissed her." LIFE 39 So the engagement was renewed and January 1, 1841, set for the marriage. All Miss Todd's friends assembled, the house was decked with flowers, and the bride in her wedding veil and silks waited for the bridegroom. But he did not appear. Messengers were sent for him and he could not be found. So the guests went sadly home and the lights were put out. Miss Todd's mortification may easily be imag- ined. As for Lincoln, he was found by his friends toward daybreak alone in the woods. Restless, miserable, gloomy, desperate, he was truly an object of pity. His friends feared insanity, and kept from him "knives and razors, and every instrument that could be used for self-destruction." Moreover, they watched with him night and day. He was a member of the legislature, which was then in session ; but he was unable to attend it until near its close. After the adjournment he went to Kentucky, where he spent some time at the home of his friend Speed, and finally recovered his mental health and spirits. Speed was married not long after this, and was so happy that Lincoln was encouraged to make the trial himself. A diplomatic lady friend brought Miss Todd and Lincoln together again, their friend- ship was renewed, and at last, on November 4, 1842, they were married. One of Lincoln's friends thinks he married his wife to save his honor, and that therdby he sacri- ficed his domestic peace. Lincoln lived with his wife in much the way that other married couples live, and had several children, of whom the best 40 LINCOLN known is Robert T. Lincoln. To the outer world there never appeared to be any serious friction be- tween the couple, but it would appear that they were not altogether happy together. Lincoln's manners were certainly annoying. One evening while lying on the floor in his shirtsleeves reading, a knock was heard at the door, and though Mrs. Lincoln had often protested against his answer- ing the door he insisted on doing it. This time he found two ladies come to make a social call. He invited them into the parlor, and informed them that he would "trot the women folks out." It is not strange that such things irritated Mrs. Lincoln not a little. Besides, she was strongly pro-slavery, being a Kentucky woman. "If ever my husband dies," she once remarked, "his spirit will never find me living outside the limits of a slave state." He humored her, however, though he often avoided his home, staying in his office without food ill day and all night, or when he was "on circuit" spending his Sundays at the poor little tavern where he had been lodging while his brother lawyers hastened to their happy homes. Once, it is said, a man called on Mrs. Lincoln to find out why his niece had been unceremoniously discharged as her servant. It seems the good lady used her tongue upon him rather roughly. He at once went to find Lincoln and require proper satisfaction for this disagreeable treatment. Lincoln listened for a moment to his story. "My friend," he interrupted, "I regret to hear this, but let me ask you in all candor, can't you LIFE 41 endure for a few moments what I have had as my daily portion for the last fifteen years?" Mr. Hern- don, who tells the story, says these words were spoken so mournfully and with such a look of dis- tress that the man was completely disarmed, and went away, merely pressing Lincoln's hand and ex- pressing his sympathy. Lincoln had four children, one of whom died in infancy, one (Willie) died in the White House, Thomas or Tad,' who died in Chicago, and Robert Todd Lincoln, who became ambassador to the Court of St. James (London) and who died in 1926. At the request of a friend, Mr. Lincoln wrote out the following account of himself: An Autobiographic Letter. "I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin county, Kentucky. My parents were both born in 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, and others in Macon county, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham county, Vir- ginia, to Kentucky about 1781 or 1782, where a year or later he was killed by the 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, Penn- sylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family of the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian 42 LINCOLN names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Morde- cai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like. "My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and he grew up literally without educa- tion. He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer county, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home about the time the State came into the Union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond "readin', writin,' and cipherin' " to the rule of three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three, but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity. "I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, Macon county. Then I got to New Salem, at that time in Sangamon, now in Menard county, where I remained a year as a sort of clerk in a store. Then came the Black Hawk war, and I was elected a captain of volunteers, a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since. I went the campaign, was elated, ran for the legislature the same year (1832), and was beaten — the only time I LIFE 43 ever have been beaten by the people. The next and three succeeding biennial elections I was elected to the legislature. I was not a candidate afterward. During this legislative period I had studied law and removed to Springfield to practice it. In 1846 I was once elected to the lower house of congress. Was not a candidate for re-election. From 1849 to 1854, both inclusive, practiced law more assiduously than ever before. Always a Whig in politics, and generally on the W T hig electoral tickets, making active canvasses. I was losing interest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known. "If any personal description of me is thought desir- able, it may be said I am, in height, six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes. No other marks or brands recollected." Lincoln's Personal Appearance. Horace White, who reported Lincoln's joint de- bates with Douglas for the Chicago Tribune, has this vivid description of his personal appearance. Says he, "I have before me a photograph taken at Pittsfield, Illinois, during the campaign of 1858. It looks as I have seen him a hundred times, his lantern jaws and large mouth and solid nose firmly set, his sunken eyes looking at nothing yet not unex- pressive, his wrinkled and retreating forehead cut off by a mass of tousled hair, with a shade of melan- 44 LINCOLN choly drawn like a veil over his whole face. Noth- ing more unlike this can be imagined than the same Lincoln when taking part in a conversation, or addressing an audience, or telling a story. The dull, listless features dropped like a mask. The melancholy shadow disappeared in a twinkling. The eye began to sparkle, the mouth to smile, the whole countenance was wreathed with animation, so that a stranger would have said: 'Why, this man, so angular and sombre a moment ago, is really handsome.' " LETTERS AND RECOLLECTIONS.* In one sense the life of Lincoln as President is the history of the Civil War. Now that it is all over, we agree that he saved the Union. How did he do it? What personal qualities, manners and methods resulted in the final victory with which we are all familiar. The authoritative history of this period is the mon- umental work of Nicolay and Hay, the ten-volume Life of Lincoln. But here we get only the political aspects, documents, and statements of historic facts. There is little light on the simple question. "How did the rail splitter manage a war that cost a million dollars every twenty-four hours, control men who were opposing him at every turn, and in the end attain success?" The question is too difficult to be answered fully in the small space here available, but the following quotations and anecdotes will suggest the answer. *Letters in this section are used by permission of the Century Company, owners of the copyright. LIFE 45 The First Inaugural. Lincoln's first public appearance in Washington was when he delivered his first inaugural address. Says Mr. L. E. Chittenden in his "Recollections," "Mr. Lincoln's ordinary voice was pitched in a high and not unmusical key. Without effort it was heard at an unusual distance. Persons at the most distant margins of the audience said that every word he spoke was distinctly audible to them. The silence was unbroken. No speaker ever secured a more undivided attention, for almost every person felt a personal interest in what he was to say. His friends feared, those who were not his friends hoped, that, forgetting the dignity of his position, and the occa- sion, he would descend to the practices of a story- teller, and fail to rise to the level of a statesman. For he was popularly known as the 'Rail-splitter'; was supposed to be uncouth in his manner, and low, if not positively vulgar in his moral nature. If not restrained by personal fear, it was thought that he might attack those who differed with him in opinion with threats and denunciations. "But the great heart and kindly nature of the man were apparent in his opening sentence, in the tone of his voice, the expression of his face, in his whole manner and bearing "His introduction had not been welcomed by a cheer, his opening remarks elicited no response. The silence was long-continued, and became positively painful. But the power of his earnest words be- gan to show itself; the sombre cloud which seemed 46 LINCOLN to hang over the audience began to fade away when he said, 'I hold that in the contemplation of uni- versal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these states is perpetual!' — with the words 'I shall take care, as the Constitution expressly enjoins upon me, that the "Laws of the Union shall be faithfully executed in all the states." ' And when, with up- lifted eyes and solemn accents, he said, 'The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the government/ a great wave of enthusiasm rolled over the audience, as the united voices of the im- mense multitude ascended heavenward in a roar of assenting applause. "From this time to the end of his address, Abra- ham Lincoln controlled the audience at his will." What Lincoln did in this speech he had to do over and over again continually. Within a month Wm. H. Seward, his secretary of state, sent him a remarkable memorandum headed "Some thoughts for the President's consideration," which have been summarized as follows: "After a month's trial, you, Mr. Lincoln, are a failure as President. The country is in desperate straits, and must use a des- perate remedy. That remedy is to submerge the South Carolina insurrection in a continental war. Some new man must take the executive helm, and wield the undivided presidential authority. I should have been nominated at Chicago, and elected in No- vember, but am willing to take your place and perform your duties." Mr. Lincoln quietly /pigeonholed this remarkable LIFE 47 document and no one knew of it till twenty-five years later. In his reply he wrote with simple dig- nity, "If this must be done, I must do it. When a general line of policy is adopted, I apprehend there is no danger of its being changed without good rea- son; still, upon points arising in its progress I wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice of all the cabinet." This reply ended the argument. "In one mind at least there was no further doubt that the cabinet had a master, for only some weeks later Mr. Seward is known to have written: There is but one vote in the cabinet, and that is cast by the President.' " Lincoln and his Generals.. The military situation during the war may be briefly summarized as follows: Most of the army was gathered about the city of Washington, at first under McClellan, and later under Hooker, Halleck, and other generals, who were always getting ready to fight, but never fighting except when they were attacked, until "All quiet on the Pot-o-mac" became a byward of ridicule. A lesser army was operating in the vicinity of the Mississippi river, and the first great victory was the capture of Vicksburg by Grant. But at the end of three years Robert E. Lee was holding Virginia and no progress had been made toward Richmond, indeed the Union army had been disgracefully defeated on various occa- sions. These were the darkest days for Lincoln; but after Grant's successes in the West, he was made lieutenant-general and placed in command 48 LINCOLN of the Army of the Potomac. Sherman made his famous march to the sea, and Sheridan cleared the Shenandoah valley. After a hard year's fighting Lee surrendered at Richmond. Nothing is more interesting than the way in which Lincoln handled his incompetent generals, trying to get what he could out of each, until he found further effort useless. The following letters to McClellan well illustrate the consideration and tact with which he tried to crowd him into action, until, giving him up as hope- less, he ordered McClellan's removal. Telegram to General McClellan. Washington, 1 May, 1862. Your call for Parrott guns from Washington alarms me, chiefly because it argues indefinite pro- crastination. Is anything to be done? Letter to general McClellan. Washington, 9 May, 1862. My dear Sir: I have just assisted the Secretary of War in framing part of a despatch to you re- lating to army corps, which despatch of course will have reached you long before this will. I wish to say a few words to you privately on this subject. I ordered the army corps organiza- tion not only on the unanimous opinion of the twelve generals whom you had selected and as- signed as generals of division, but also on the unanimous opinion of every military man I could get an opinion from (and every modern military LIFE 49 book), yourself only excepted. Of course, I did not on my own judgment pretend to understand the subject. I now think it indispensable for you to know how your struggle against it is received in quarters which we cannot entirely disregard. It is looked upon as merely an effort to hamper one or two pets and to persecute and degrade their supposed rivals. I have had no word from Sumner, Heintzelma-i, or Keyes. The commanders of these corps are of course the three highest officers with you, but I a:n constantly told that you have no con- sultation or communication with them; that you consult and communicate with nobody but General Fitz-John Porter and perhaps General Franklin. I do not say these complaints are true or just, but at all events it is proper you should know of their existence. Do the commanders of corps disobey your orders in anything? When you relieved General Hamilton of his com- mand the other day, you thereby lost the confidence of at least one of your best friends in the Senate. And here let me say, not as applicable to you per- sonally, that senators and representatives speak ot me in their places as they please without question, and that officers of the army must cease addressing insulting letters to them for taking no greater lib- erty with them. But to return. Are you strong enough — are you strong enough, even with my help — to set your foot upon the necks of Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes all at once? This is a practical and very serious question for you. 50 LINCOLN The success of your army and the cause of the country are the same, and of course I only desire the good of the cause. Telegram to General McClellan. Washington, 28 May, 1862. I am very glad of General F. J. Porter's victory. Still, if it was a total rout of the enemy, I am puzzled to know why the Richmond and Fredericks- burg Railroad was not seized again, as you say you have all the railroads but the Richmond and Fredericksburg. I am puzzled to see how, lacking that, you can have any, except the scrap from Rich- mond to West Point. The scrap of the Virginia Central from Richmond to Hanover Junction, with- out more, is simply nothing. That the whole of the enemy is concentrating on Richmond, I think cannot be certainly known to you or me. Saxton, at Harper's Ferry, informs us that large forces, supposed to be Jackon's and Ewell's, forced his advance from Charlestown to-day. General King telegraphs us from Fredericksburg that contrabands give certain information that 15,000 left Hanover Junction Monday morning to reinforce Jackson. I am painfully impressed with the importance of the struggle before you, and shall aid you all I can consistently with my view of due regard to all points. Letter to General McClellan. Washington, 1 July, 1862. It is impossible to reinforce you for your present emergency. If we had a million men we could not LIFE 51 get them to you in time. We have not the men to send. If you are not strong enough to face the enemy, you must find a place of security, and wait, rest, and repair. Maintain your ground if you can, but save the army at all events, even if you fall back to Fort Monroe. We still have strength enough in the country and will bring it out. Telegram to General McClellan. Washington, 5 July, 1862. A thousand thanks for the relief your two des- patches of 12 and 1 p. m. yesterday gave me. Be assured the heroism and skill of yourself and offi- cers and men is, and forever will be, appreciated. If you can hold your present position, we shall have the enemy yet. From a Letter to General McClellan. Washing- ■on, 13 October, 1862. My dear Sir: You remember my speaking to you of what I called your over-cautiousness. Are you not over-cautious when you assume that you can- not do what the enemy is constantly doing? Should you not claim to be at least his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim? As I understood, you telegraphed General Halleck that you cannot sub- sist your army at Winchester unless the railroad from Harper's Ferry to that point be put in working order. But the enemy does now subsist his army at Winchester, at a distance nearly twice as great from railroad transportation as you would have to do without the railroad last named. He now 52 LINCOLN wagons from Culpeper Court House, which is just about twice as far as you would have to do from Harper's Ferry. He is certainly not more than half as well provided with wagons as you are. I cer- tainly should be pleased for you to have the ad- vantage of the railroad from Harper's Ferry to Winchester, but it wastes all the remainder of au- tumn to give it to you, and in fact ignores the ques- tion of time, which cannot and must not be ignored. Again, one of the standard maxims of war, as you know, is to "operate upon the enemy's communica- tions as much as possible without exposing your own." You seem to act as if this applies against you, but cannot apply in your favor. Change po- sitions with the enemy, and think you not he would break your communication with Richmond within the next twenty-four hours? You dread his going into Pennsylvania; but if he does so in full force, he gives up his communications to you absolutely, and you have nothing to do but to follow and ruin him. If he does so with less than full force, fall upon and beat what is left behind all the easier. Exclusive of the water-line, you are now nearer Richmond than the enemy is by the route that you can and he must take. Why can you not reach there before him, unless you admit that he is more than your equal on a march? His route is the arc of a circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as good on yours as on his. You know I desired, but did not order, you to cross the Potomac below, instead of above, the Shenandoah and Blue Ridge. My idea was that this would at once menace the LIFE 53 enemy's communications, which I would seize if he would permit. If he should move northward, I would follow him closely, holding his communications. If he should prevent our seizing his communications and move toward Richmond, I would press closely to him, fight him if a favorable opportunity should present, and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the inside track. I say "try" : if we never try, we shall never succeed. If he makes a stand at Winchester, moving neither north nor south, I would fight him there, on the idea that if we cannot beat him when he bears the wastage of coming to us, we never can when we bear the wastage of going to him. This proposition is a simple truth, and is too important to be lost sight of for a moment. In coming to us he tenders to us an advantage which we should not waive. We should not so operate as to merely drive him away. As we must beat him somewhere or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier near to us than far away. If we cannot beat the enemy where he now is, we never can, he again being within the intrenchments of Richmond. Telegram to General McClellan. Washington, 24 October, 1862. I have just read your despatch about sore-tongued and fatigued horses. Will you pardon me for ask- ing what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigues anything? Telegram to General McClellan. Washington, 27 October, 1862. Your despatch of 3 p. m. today, in regard to fill- 54 LINCOLN ing up old regiments with drafted men, is received and the request therein shall be complied with as far as practicable. And now I ask a distinct answer to the question, Is it your purpose not to go into action again until the men now being drafted in the States are incor- porated into the old regiments? On November 5, McClellan was relieved from command. When he placed the command of the Army of the Potomac in the hands of General Hooker he wrote to him the following characteristic letter: Letter to General J. Hooker. Washington, 26 January, 1863. General: I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac, Of course I have done this upon what appear to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, which of course I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in your- self, which is a valuable if not an indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a gieat wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have LIFE 55 heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your re- cently saying that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their commander and withholding con- fidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it; and now beware of rashness. Beware of rash- ness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories. Meade succeeded Hooker and won the battle of Gettysburg, but failed to follow up his success, and Lincoln wrote him as follows; 'but the letter was never signed or sent. Lincoln knew it was useless, and he would not inflict unnecessary pain, even on an erring general. Letter to General Meade After the Battle of Gettysburg. Washington, 14 July 1863. Never Signed or Sent. I have just seen your despatch to General Halleck, asking to be relieved of your command because of a supposed censure of mine. I am very, very 56 LINCOLN grateful to you for the magnificent success you gave the cause of the country at Gettysburg; and I am sorry now to be the author of the slightest pain to you. But I was in such deep distress myself that I could not restrain some expression of it. I have been oppressed nearly ever since the battle of Gettysburg by what appeared to be evidences that yourself and General Couch and General Smith were not seeking a collision with the enemy, but were trying to get him across the river without an- other battle. What these evidences were, if you please, I hope to tell you at some time when we shall both feel better. The case, summarily stated, is this: You fought and beat the enemy at Gettys- burg, and, of course, to say the least, his loss was as great as yours. He retreated, and you did not, as it seemed to me, pressingly pursue him; but a flood in the river detained him till, by slow degrees you were again upon him. You had at least twenty thousand veteran troops directly with you, and as many more raw ones within supporting distance, all in addition to those who fought with you at Gettysburg, while it was not possible that he had received a single recruit, and yet you stood and let the flood run down, bridges be built, and the enemy move away at his leisure without attacking him. And Couch and Smith! The latter left Car- lisle in time, upon all ordinary calculation, to have aided you in the last battle of Gettysburg, but he did not arrive. At the end of more than ten days, I believe, twelve, under constant urging, he reached Hagerstown from Carlisle, which is not an inch LIFE 57 over fifty-five miles, if so much, and Couch's move- ment was very little different. Again, my dear general, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely. If you could not safely attack Lee last Monday, how can you possibly do so south of the river, when you can take with you very few more than two thirds of the force you then had in hand? It would be unreasonable to expect, and I do not expect [that], you can now effect much. Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed im- measurably because of it. I beg you will not consider this a prosecution or persecution of yourself. As you had learned that I was dissatisfied, I have thought it best to kindly tell you why. What Lincoln wanted from his generals was results, and if he got them he cared little how they were obtained. After the capture of Vicksburg Lincoln sent the following letter to General Grant. It is dated July 13, the day before the preceding let- ter to Meade was written. Letter to General Grant After the Surrender of Vicksburg. Washington, 13 July, 1863. My dear General: I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inesti- 58 LINCOLN mable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do what you finally did — march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join General Banks, and when you turned northward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong. A few months later, April 30, 1864, Lincoln wrote as follows to General Grant, who was then in command of the army of the Potomac: Letter to General Grant. Washington, 30 April, 1864. Not expecting to see you again before the spring campaign opens, I wish to express in this way my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it. The par- ticulars of your plans I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any con- straints or restraints upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster or capture of our men in great numbers shall be avoided, I know these points are less likely to escape your attention than thev would be mine. If there is anything LIFE 59 wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you. The following interesting account of a personal inter- view with Lincoln has been attributed to General Grant. Whether true or not, it is an excellent example of Lin- coln's facility in using story telling to illustrate his point. "Just after receiving my commission as lieutenant- general," he says, "the President called me aside to speak to me privately. After a brief reference to the mil. ary situation, he said he thought he could illustrate what he wanted to say by a story, which he related as follows: 'At one time there was a great war among the animals, and one side had great difficulty in getting a commander who had sufficient confidence in himself. Finally they found a monkey by the name of Jocko, who said that he thought he could command the army if his tail could be made a little longer. So they got more tail and spliced it on his caudal appendage. He looked at it admiringly, and then thought he ought to have a little more still. This was added, and again he called for more. The splicing process was repeated many times, until they had coiled Jocko's tail around the room, filling all the space. Still he called for more tail, and, there being no other place to coil it, they began wrapping it around his shoulders. He continued to call for more, and they kept on winding the additional tail about him until its weight broke him down.' I saw the point," says Grant, "and rising from my chair re- plied, 'Mr. President, I will not call for more as- 60 LINCOLN sistance unless I find it impossible to do with what I already have.' " It is said that about the time Grant was winning some of his victories in the West, a temperance or- ganization petitioned the President to remove him because he drank too much whiskey, and the Presi- dent replied, "If I could find out what kind of whiskey Grant drinks, I would send a barrel ful to every other general in the field." A friend asked him later whether this story was true or not, and Lincoln replied that the story originated in King George's time. When General Wolfe was accused of being mad, the King replied, "I wish he would bite some of my generals." General Grant sums up his relations with the President by saying, "With all his disappointments from failures on the part of those to whom he had intrusted commands, and treachery on the part of those who had gained his confidence but to betray it, I never heard him utter a complaint, nor cast a censure, for bad conduct or bad faith. It was his nature to find excuses for his adversaries. In his death the nation lost its greatest hero; in his death the South lost its most just friend." The Dark Hours. "The darkest hour of the Civil War came in the first week of May, 1863, after the bloody battle of Chancellorsville," says W. O. Stoddard, who was at that time an inmate of the White House. "The country was weary of the long war, with its drain- ing taxes of gold and blood. Discontent prevailed LIFE 61 everywhere, and the opponents of the Lincoln ad- ministration were savage in their denunciation. More than a third of each day's mail already consisted of measureless denunciation; another large part was made up of piteous appeals for peace. "There were callers at the White House. Mem- bers of the Senate and House came with gloomy faces; the members of the Cabinet came to con- sult or condole. The house was like a funeral, and those who entered or left it trod softly for fear they might wake the dead. "That night the last visitors in Lincoln's room were Stanton and Halleck, and the President was left alone. Not another soul except the one secre- tary busy with the mail in his room across the hall ! The ticking of a clock would have been noticeable; but another sound came that was almost as regular and as ceaseless. It was the tread of the President's feet as he strode slowly back and forth across his chamber. That ceaseless march so accustomed the ear to it that when, a little after twelve, there was a break of several minutes, the sudden silence made one put down his letters and listen. "The President may have been at his writing table, or he may — no man knows or can guess; but at the end of the minutes, long or short, the tramp began again. Two o'clock and he was walking yet, and when, a little after three, the secretary's task was done and he slipped noiselessly out, he turned at the head of the stairs for a moment. It was so — the last sound he heard as he went down was the footfall in Lincoln's room. 62 LINCOLN "The young man was there again before eight o'clock. The President's room was open. There sat Lincoln eating his breakfast alone. He had not been out of his room; but there was a kind of cheery, hopeful morning light on his face. He had watched all night, but besides his cup of coffee lay his in- structions to General Hooker to push forward. There was a decisive battle won that night in that long vigil with disaster and despair. Only a few weeks later the Army of the Potomac fought it all over again as desperately — and they won it — at Gettysburg." Letter to John D. Johnston, 2 January, 1851, Refusing Request for Loan. The following letter to J. D. Johnston, who was a son by a former marriage of Lincoln's stepmother, is both characteristic and amusing. Dear Johnston : Your request for eighty dollars I do not think it best to comply with now. At the various times when I have helped you a little you have said to me, "We can get along very well now"; but in a very short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now, this can only happen by some defect in your conduct. What that defect is, I think I know. You are not lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether, since I saw you, you have done a good whole day's work in any one day. You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much, merely because it does not seem LIFE 63 to you that you could get much for it. This habit of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should break the habit. It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it, easier than they can get out after they are in. You are now in need of some money; and what I propose is, that you shall go to work, "tooth and nail," for somebody who will give you money for it. Let father and your boys take charge of your things at home, prepare for a crop, and make the crop, and you go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get; and, to secure you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you, that for every dollar you will, between this and the first of May, get for your own labor, either in money or as your own indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for your work. In this I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines in California, but I mean for you to go at it for the best wages you can get close to home in Coles County. Now, if you will do this, you will be soon out of debt, and, what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again. But, if I should now clear you out of debt, next year you would be just as deep in as 64 LINCOLN ever. You say you would almost give your place in heaven for seventy or eighty dollars. Then you value your place in heaven very cheap, for I am sure you can, with the offer I make, get the sev- enty or eighty dollars for four or five months' work. You say if I will furnish you the money you will deed me the land, and, if you don't pay the money hack, you will deliver possession. Nonsense! If you can't now live with the land, how will you then live without it? You have always been kind to me, and I do not mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth the more than eighty times eighty dollars to you. Letter to Horace Greeley. Washington, 22 August, 1862. In Answer to an Open Letter in the Tribune Headed "The Prayer of Twenty Millions," Accusing Lincoln of Being too Friendly To- ward the Pro- Slavery Advocates. Dear Sir: I have just read yours of the 19th, ad- dressed to myself through the New York "Tribune." If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be right. LIFE 65 As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it ; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by free- ing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union ; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expresed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. 66 LINCOLN SPEECHES NOTE FOR LAW LECTURE Written About 1 July, 1850. I am not an accomplished lawyer. I find quite as much material for a lecture in those points wherein I have failed, as in those wherein I have been moderately successful. The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day. Never let your correspondence fall behind. Whatever piece of business you have in hand, before stopping, do all the labor pertain- ing to it which can then be done. When you bring a common-law suit, if you have the facts for doing so, write the declaration at once. If a law point be involved, examine the books, and note the authority you rely on upon the declaration itself, where you are sure to find it when wanted. The same of de- fenses and pleas. In business not likely to be liti- gated, — ordinary collection cases, foreclosures, par- titions, and the like, — make all examinations of titles, and note them, and even draft orders and de- crees in advance. This course has a triple advantage; it avoids omissions and neglect, saves you labor when once done, performs the labor out of court when you have leisure, rather than in court when you have not. Extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue SPEECHES 67 to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him busi- ness if he cannot make a speech. And yet there is not a more fatal error to young lawyers than relying too much on speech-making. If any one, upon his rare powers of speaking, shall claim an exemption from the drudgery of the law, his case is a failure in advance. Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser — in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough. Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarce- ly be found than one who does this. Who can be more nearly a fiend than he who habitually overhauls the register of deeds in search of defects in titles, whereon to stir up strife, and put money in his pocket? A moral tone ought to be infused into the profession which should drive such men out of it. The matter of fees is important, far beyond the mere question of bread and butter involved. Prop- erly attended to, fuller justice is done to both law- yer and client. An exorbitant fee should never be claimed. As a general rule never take your whole fee in advance, nor any more than a small retainer. When fully paid beforehand, you are more than a common mortal if you can feel the same interest in the case, as if something was still in prospect for you, as well as for your client. And when you lack interest in the case the job will very likely 68 LINCOLN lack skill and diligence in the performance. Settle the amount of fee and take a note in advance. Then you will feel that you are working for something, and you are sure to do your work faithfully and well. Never sell a fee note — at least not before the consideration service is performed. It leads to negligence and dishonesty — negligence by closing in- terest in the case, and dishonesty in refusing to re- fund when you have allowed the consideration to fail. There is a vague popular belief that lawyers are necessarily dishonest. I say vague, because when we consider to what extent confidence and honors are reposed in and conferred upon lawyers by the people, it appears improbable that their impression of dishonesty is very distinct and vivid. Yet the impression is common, almost universal. Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief — resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer resolve to be hon- est without being a lawyer. Choose some other oc- cupation, rather than one in the choosing of which you do, in advance, consent to be a knave. REPLY TO SENATOR STEPHEN A. DOUG- LAS AT PEORIA, Illinois, 16 October, 1854, the Greatest Speech of the Douglas Debate. About a month after the introduction of the bill [to give Nebraska and Kansas territorial govern- SPEECHES 69 ments] on the judge's own motion it is so amended as to declare the Missouri Compromise inoperative and void; and, substantially, that the people who go and settle there may establish slavery, or ex- clude it, as they may see fit. In this shape the bill passed both branches of Congress and became a law. This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The foregoing history may not be precisely accu- rate in every particular, but I am sure it is suffi- ciently so for all the use I shall attempt to make of it, and in it we have before us the chief material enabling us to judge correctly whether the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is right or wrong. I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong — wrong in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska, and wrong in its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other part of the wide world where men can be found inclined to take it. This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal, for the spread of slavery, I can- not but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it de- prives our republican example of its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free institu- tions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity; and especially because it forces so many good men among ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criti- cizing the Declaration of Independence, and insist- 70 LINCOLN ing that there is no right principle of action but self-interest. Before proceeding let me say that I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist among them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among us, we should not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses North and South. Doubtless there are indi-. viduals on both sides who would not hold slaves under any circumstances, and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew if it were out of existence. We know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go North and become tip-top Abolitionists, while some Northern ones go South and become most cruel slave-masters. When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would con- vince me that whatever of high hope (as I think there is) there may be in this in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the SPEECHES 71 next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery at any rate, yet the point is not clear enough for me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feel- ings will not admit of this, and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of whites will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment is not the sole question, if indeed it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill founded, cannot be safely dis- regarded. We cannot then make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emanci- pation might be adopted, but for their tardiness it? this I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South. When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them — >not grudgingly, but fully and fairly ; and I would give them any legisla- tion for the reclaiming of their fugitives which should not in its stringency be more likely to carry a free man into slavery than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one. But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for permitting slavery to go into our own free territory than it would for reviving the African slave-trade by law. The law which for- bids the bringing of slaves from Africa, and that 72 LINCOLN which has so long forbidden the taking of them into Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished on any moral principle, and the repeal of the former could find quite as plausible excuses as that of the latter. Equal justice to the South, it is said, requires us to consent to the extension of slavery to new coun- tries. That is to say, inasmuch as you do not object to my taking my hog to Nebraska, therefore I must not object to your taking your slave. Now, I ad- mit that this is perfectly logical, if there is no dif- ference between hogs and negroes. But while you thus require me to deny the humanity of the ne- gro, I wish to ask whether you of the South, your- selves, have ever been willing to do as much? It is kindly provided that of all those who come into the world only a small percentage are natural tyrants. That percentage is no larger in the slave States than in the free. The great majority South, as well as North, have human sympathies, of which they can no more divest themselves than they can of their sensibility to physical pain. These sympa- thies in the bosoms of the Southern people mani- fest, in many ways, their sense of the wrong of slavery, and their consciousness that, after all, there is humanity in the negro. If they deny this, let me address them a few plain questions. In 1820 you joined the North, almost unanimously, in declaring the African slave-trade piracy, and in annexing to it the punishment of death. Why did you do this? If you did not feel that it was wrong, why did you join in providing that men should be hung for it? The practice was no more than bringing wild ne- SPEECHES 73 groes from Africa to such as would buy them. But you never thought of hanging men for catching and selling wild horses, wild buffaloes, or wild bears. Again, you have among you a sneaking individual of the class of native tyrants known as the "Slave- Dealer." He watches your necessities, and crawls up to buy your slave, at a speculating price. If you cannot help it, you sell to him; but if you can help it, you drive him from your door. You despise him utterly. You do not recognize him as a friend, or even as an honest man. Your children must not play with his; they may rollick freely with the little negroes, but not with the slave-dealer's children. If you are obliged to deal with him, you try to get through the job without so much as touching him. It is common with you to join hands with the men you meet, but with the slave-dealer you avoid the ceremony — instinctively shrinking from the snaky contact. If he grows rich and retires from busi- ness, you still remember him, and still keep up the ban of non-intercourse upon him and his fam- ily. Now why is this? You do not so treat the man who deals in corn, cotton, or tobacco. And yet again. There are in the United States and Territories, including the district of Columbia, 433,643 free blacks. At five hundred dollars per head they are worth over two hundred millions of dollars. How come this vast amount of property to be running about without owners? We do not see free horses or free cattle running at large. How is this? All these free blacks are the descendants of slaves, or have been slaves themselves; and they 74 LINCOLN would be slaves now but for something which has operated on their white owners, inducing them at vast peouniary sacrifice to liberate them. What is that something? Is there any mistaking it? In all these cases it is your sense of justice and hu- man sympathy continually telling you that the poor negro has some natural right to himself — that those who deny it and make mere merchandise of him deserve kickings, contempt, and death. And now why will you ask us to deny the hu- manity of the slaves, and estimate him as only the equal of the hog? Why ask us to do what you will not do yourselves? Why ask us to do for nothing what two hundred millions of dollars could not induce you to do? ADDRESS 'OF FAREWELL. Springfield, Illinois, 11 February, 1861. My Friends: No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a cen- tury, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I my return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail. Trusting in him who can go with me, and remain with you and be everywhere for good, SPEECHES 75 let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To his care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell. FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. Washington, 4 March, 1861. Fellow-citizens of the United States : In compli- ance with a custom as old as the government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly, and to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President "before he enters on the execution of his office." I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement. Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Re- publican administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to '76 LINCOLN do so." Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had' made this and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them. And, more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to them- selves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read: Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic insti- tutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric de- pend, and we denounce the lawful invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes. I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incom- ing administration. I add, too, that all the pro- tection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for what- ever cause — as cheerfully to one section as to an- other. There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions: SPEECHES 77 No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due. It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Con- gress swear their support to the whole Constitution — to this provision as much as any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause "shall be delivered up," their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath? There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by State authority; but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be but of little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done. And should any one in any case be content that his oath shall be unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept? Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave ? And might it not be well at the same time to pro- 78 LINCOLN vide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that "the citizen of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States"? I take the official oath today with no mental reser- vations, and with no purpose to construe the Con- stitution or laws, by any hypocritical rules. And while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional. It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our National Constitution. During that period fifteen different and greatly dis- tinguished citizens have, in succession, administered the executive branch of the government. They have conducted it through many perils and gen- erally with great success. Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief constitutional term of four years under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted. I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own ter- SPEECHES 79 mination. Continue to execute all the express pro- visions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever — it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself. Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it — break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully re- scind it? Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and con- tinued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Con- federation in 1778. And, finally, in 1787 one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union." But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity. It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union ; that resolves and ordinances to that effect 80 LINCOLN are legally void; and that acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances. I therefore consider that, in view of the Con- stitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself. In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power con- fided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the govern- ment, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States, in any interior locality, shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the government to enforce SPEECHES 81 the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable withal, that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices. The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts of the Union. So far as pos- sible, the people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought and reflection. The course here indicated will be followed unless current events and expe- rience will show a modification or change to be proper, and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised according to circum- stances actually existing, and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and af- fections. That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To those, however, who really love the Union may I not speak? Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its bene- fits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence. Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you 82 LINCOLN fly from — will you risk the commission of so fear- ful a mistake? All profess to be content in the Union if all con- stitutional rights can be maintained. It is true, then, that any right, plainly written in the constitu- tion, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitu- tional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution — certainly would if such a right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and nega- tions, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitu- tion, that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a pro- vision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No fore- sight can anticipate, nor any document of reason- able length contain, express provisions for all pos- sible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be sur- rendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitu- tion does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. From questions of this class spring all our con- SPEECHES 83 stitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the government must cease. There is no other alternative; for con- tinuing the government is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this. Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a new Union, as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed secession? Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by con- stitutional checks and limitations, and always chang- ing easily with deliberate changes of popular opin- ions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does, of neces- sity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, re- jecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left. I do not forget the position, assumed by some, 84 LINCOLN that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that such decis- ions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and considera- tion in all parallel cases by all other departments of the government. And while it is obviously pos- sible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a -precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordi- nary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their gov- ernment into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes. One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believe it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive- slave clause of the Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave-trade, are each as SPEECHES 85 well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be worse in both cases after the separations of the sections than before. The foreign slave-trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived, without restriction, in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other. Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We can- not remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A hus- band and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face, and inter- course, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old question as to terms of intercourse are again upon you. This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow 86 LINCOLN weary of the existing government, they can exer- cise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recog- nize the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others not es- pecially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amend- ment to the Constitution — which amendment, how- ever, I have not seen — has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never in- terfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no ob- jection to its being made express and irrevocable. The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have conferred none upon him SPEECHES XV to fix terms for the separation of the States. The people themselves can do this also if they choose; but the executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present government, as it came to his hands, and to transmit it, unim- paired by him, to his successor. Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people. By the frame of the government under which we live, this same people have wisely given their pub- lic servants but little power for mischief; and have with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years. My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frus- trated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied, still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on 88 LINCOLN every sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and de- fend it." I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though pas- sion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretch- ing from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. SPEECHES 89 FINAL EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 1 January, 1863. Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing - , among other things, the following, to wit: That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty- three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever, free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. That the Executive will, on the first day of Jan- uary aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall in the absence of strong countervailing testimony be deemed conclusive 90 LINCOLN evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States. Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, in time of actual armed rebel- lion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war meas- ure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thou- sand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accord- ance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of 100 days from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof, re- spectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit: Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight coun- ties designated as West Virginia, and also the coun- ties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norofolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued. And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons SPEECHES 91 held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judg- ment of mankind and the gracious favor of Al- mighty God. ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE GETTYSBURG NATIONAL CEMETERY, 19 November, 1863. Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, con- ceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a 92 LINCOLN great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting- place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly ad- vanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS. Washington, 4 March, 1865. Fellow Countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. SPEECHES 93 Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the ener- gies of the nation, little that is new could be pre- sented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an im- pending civil war. All dreaded it — .all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war — seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came. One-eigth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it 94 LINCOLN Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered — that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses ! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we dis- cern therein any departure from those divine at- tributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hun- dred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as SPEECHES 95 was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. ANECDOTES Lincoln's Pardons. Such was the serious side of Lincoln's Presi- dency; but woven all through it was the relief of his humor — his amusing stories — and his humanity — which found opportunity for constant exercise in the almost daily private tragedies that came under his personal notice. Many stories are told of how Lincoln pardoned deserters and others condemned to death, and many of these are pure romance, devoid of the slightest truth. In his Reminiscences General Butler tells the following anecdote. He said to the President, "The bounties which are now being paid to new recruits cause very large desertions. Men desert and go home, and get the bounties and enlist in other regiments." 96 LINCOLN " 'That is too true,' he replied, 'but how can we prevent it?' " 'By vigorously shooting every man who is caught as a deserter, until it is found to be a dangerous business.' "A saddened, weary look came over his face which I had never seen before, and he slowly re- plied, — " 'You may be right — probably you are so ; but, God help me ! how can I have a butcher's day every Friday in the Army of the Potomac?'" Perhaps the best known story of Lincoln's par- dons, and the one most truly characteristic of the man, is that of Scott, the Vermonter, who slept at his post when on sentry duty. He had taken the place of a sick comrade one night, and the very next night was drafted himself. He said frankly he was afraid he couldn't keep awake two nights in suc- cession, but if it was his duty he would do his best. The hostile armies lay close together, and the pickets of the two armies had been almost on friendly terms. To correct this demoralization Gen- eral Smith had issued a stringent order, and when Scott was found fast asleep at his post he was singled out as the first victim and was ordered to be shot. Scott's comrades knew there was no braver man in the regiment than this Vermont farmer, and the captain of his company with a few others started out at once to Washington to see Mr. L. E. Chitten- den, who tells the story most authentically in his ANECDOTES 97 Reminiscences. The boys were taken to the President, who opened the conversation by asking, "What is this? Another expedition to kidnap somebody, or to get another brigadier appointed, or for a furlough to go home to vote? I cannot do it, gentlemen. Brigadiers are thicker than drum- majors, and I couldn't get a furlough for myself if I asked it from the War Department." When the little captain had stated Scott's case, he ended, "He is as brave a boy as there is in your army, sir. Scott is no coward. Our mountains breed no cowards. They are the homes of thirty thousand men who voted for Abraham Lincoln. They will not be able to see that the best thing to be done with William Scott will be to shoot him like a traitor and bury him like a dog! Oh, Mr. Lincoln, can you?" "No, I can't!" exclaimed the President. It was one of the moments when his countenance became such a remarkable study. It had become very ear- nest as the captain rose with his subject; then it took on that melancholy expression which, later in his life, became so infinitely touching. I thought I could detect a mist in the deep cavities of his e3*es. Then, in a flash, there was a total change. He smiled, and finally broke into a hearty laugh as he asked me, "Do your Green Mountain boys fight as well as they talk? If they do, I don't wonder at the legends about Ethan Allen." Then his face softened as he said, "What do you expect me to do? As you 98 LINCOLN know, I have not much influence with the depart- ments." A reprieve was suggested to permit an examina- tion of the case. "No!" exclaimed Lincoln, "I do not think that course would be safe. You do not know these officers of the regular army. They are a law unto themselves. They sincerely think that it is good policy occasionally to shoot a soldier. I can see it, where a soldier deserts or commits a crime, but I cannot in such a case as Scott's. They say that I am always interfering with the discipline of the army, and being cruel to the soldiers. Well, I can't help it, so I shall have to go right on doing wrong. I do not think an honest, brave soldier, conscious of no crime but sleeping when he was weary, ought to be shot or hung. The country has better uses for him. "Captain," continued the President, "your boy shall not be shot — that is, not to-morrow, nor until I know more about this case." To me he said, "I will have to attend to this matter myself. I have for some time intended to go up to the Chain Bridge. I will do so to-day. I shall then know that there is no mistake in suspending the execu- tion." I remarked that he was undertaking a burden which we had no right to impose; that it was asking too much of the President in behalf of a private soldier. "Scott's life is as valuable to him as that of any person in the land," he said. "You remember the ANECDOTES 99 remark of a Scotchman about the head of a noble- man who was decapitated, — "It was a small matter of a head, but it was valuable to him, poor fellow, for it was the only one he had." During the day Lincoln went out to the camp. Scott afterward told a comrade the story of his interview with the President. Said he, "The Presi- dent was the kindest man I had ever seen. I knew him at once by a Lincoln medal I had long worn. I was scared at first, for I had never before talked with a great man. But .Mr. Lincoln was so easy with me, so gentle, that I soon forgot my fright. He asked me all about my people at home, the neighbors, the farm ,and where I went to school, and who my schoolmates were. Then he asked me about mother, and how she looked, and I was glad I could take her photograph from my bosom and show it to him. He said how thankful I ought to be that mother still lived, and how, if he was in my place, he would try to make her a proud mother, and never cause her a sorrow or a tear. I cannot remember it all, but every word was so kind. "He had said nothing yet about that dreadful next morning. I thought it must be that he was so kind- hearted that he didn't like to speak of it. But why did he say so much about my mother, and not causing her a sorrow or a tear when I knew that I must die the next morning? But I supposed that was something that would have to go unex- plained, and so I determined to brace up, and tell him that I did not feel a bit guilty, and ask him wouldn't he fix it so that the firing-party would 100 LINCOLN not be from our regiment ! That was going to be the hardest of all — to die by the hands of my comrades. "Just as I was going to ask him this favor, he stood up, and he says to me, 'my boy, stand up here and look me in the face.' I did as he bade me. 'My boy,' he said, 'you are not going to be shot to- morrow. I believe you when you tell me you could not keep awake. I am going to trust you, and send you back to your regiment. But I have been put to a good deal of trouble on your account. I have had to come up here from Washington when I have a great deal to do, and what I want to know is, how are you going to pay my bill?' There was a big lump in my throat ; I could scarcely speak. I had expected to die, you see, and had kind of got used to thinking that way. To have it all changed in a minute ! But I got it crowded down, and managed to say, I am grateful, Mr. Lincoln! I hope I am as grateful as ever a man can be for saving my life. But it comes upon me sudden and unexpected like. I didn't lay out for it at all. But there is some way to pay you, and I will find it after a little. There is the bounty in the savings bank. I guess we could borrow some money on a mort- gage of the farm. There was my pay was some- thing, and if he could wait until pay-day I was sure the boys would help, so I thought we could make it up, if it wasn't more than five or six hundred dollars. 'But it is a great deal more than that,' he said. Then I said I didn't see just now, but I was sure I would find some way — if I lived. ANECDOTES 101 "Then Mr. Lincoln put his hands on my should- ers and looked into my face as if he was very sorry and said, 'My boy, my bill is a very large one. Your friends cannot pay it, nor your bounty, nor the farm, nor all your comrades. There is only one man in all the world who can pay it, and his name is William Scott. If from this day William Scott does his duty, so that, if I was there when he comes to die, he can look me in the face as he does now, and say, I have kept my promise, and I have done my duty as a soldier, then my debt will be paid. Will you make that promise and try to keep it?" William Scott kept his promise. He had this in- terview with Lincoln in September, 18G1. The fol- lowing spring in March, 18G2, Scott was shot in battle before the entrenchments at Lee's Mills, in the vicinity of Yorktown. A desperate charge was ordered, and the Vermont regiment dashed against one of the strongest positions in the Confederate line. They were repulsed, and retreated under a heavy fire, leaving nearly half their number dead or wounded in the river and on the opposite shore. William Scott was almost the first to reach the south bank of the river, the first in the riflepits, and the last to retreat. He recrossed the river with a wounded officer on his back — he carried him to a place of safety, and returned to assist his comrades, who did not agree on the number of wounded men saved by him from drowning or cap- ture, but all agreed that he had carried the last wounded man from the south bank, and was nearly 102 LINCOLN across the stream, when the fire of the rebels was concentrated upon him, he staggered with his living burden to the shore, and fell literally shot all to pieces. So it was that he paid his debt to President Lincoln. Lincoln's Own Stories. Lincoln was a tireless worker. He loaded his Cabinet and his secretaries to the limit of their strength, but was always considerate and thoughtful of their comfort. Three of his secretaries lived with him in the White House and usually worked far into the night, and, even after their labors for the day had closed, Lincoln would often wander around barefooted and in his night-shirt, too wakeful to seek his own bed, and read poems from Burns, jokes from Artemus Ward, and the letters of Petroleum V. Nasby to the members of his household. His sense of humor was his salvation. It was the safety valve by which his heart was relieved. He was melancholy by nature and inclined to be morbid, and it was this keen enjoyment of the ridi- culous that enabled him to endure with patience his official trials and anxieties. Says Chauncey M. Depew in his recollections of Lincoln, "The Presi- dent threw himself on a lounge and rattled off story after story. It was his method of relief, without which he might have gone out of his mind, and certainly would not have been able to accom- plish anything like the amount of work which he did. It is the popular supposition that most of Lincoln's stories were original, but he said. 'I have ANECDOTES 103 originated but two stories in my life, but I tell tolerably well other people's stories.' " The stories Lincoln told, and the anecdotes about him, are so closely related that it is not worth while to try to separate them. They are here re- lated with no special regard to sequence. It is said that during the darkest days of the war a party of prohibitionists called on Lincoln and urged with him that the reason why the North did not win was because the soldiers drank so much whiskey. With a twinkle in his eye Lincoln replied, "That seems very unfair on the part of the Lord, for the Southerners drink a great deal worse whiskey and a great deal more of it than the soldiers of the North." "Stop Your Boat — I've Lost My Apple!" One day a farmer from the backwoods came to the President to tell him that the soldiers had stolen some of his hay, and he wanted his claim paid at once. "Why, my good sir," said Lincoln, "if I should attempt to consider every such individual case, I should find work enough for twenty Presidents," and to illustrate his point he told the following story : "In my early days I knew one Jack Chase, who was a lumberman on the Illinois, and, when steady and sober, the best raftsman on the river. It was quite a trick twenty-five years ago to take the logs over the rapids, but he was skillful with a raft, and always kept her straight in the channel. Finally a steamer was put on, and Jack — he's dead now, poor fellow ! — was made captain of her. He always used 104 LINCOLN to take the wheel going through the rapids. One day, when the boat was plunging and wallowing along the boiling current, and Jack's utmost vigilance was being exercised to keep her in the narrow chan- nel, a boy pulled his coat-tail and hailed him with, 'Say, Mister Captain! I wish you would just stop your boat a minute — I've lost my apple overboard !' " The Swearing Driver. On another occasion a poor man from Tennessee was waiting at the White House, and General Fisk took him in to see the President. The man's son was under sentence of death for some military offense. Lincoln heard him patiently, took his papers, and said he would look into the case and report the following day. ''To-morrow may be too late!" cried the man tragically, and the streaming tears told how much he was moved. "Come," said Mr. Lincoln, "wait a bit, and I'll tell you a story" ; and then he told the old man General Fisk's story about the swearing driver, as follows : When Fisk, then Colonel, organized his regiment in Missouri he proposed to his men that he should do all the swearing for the regiment. They agreed, and for a long time he heard of no violation of their promise. The Colonel had a teamster named John Todd, and as the roads were in very poor condition this teamster had difficulty in driving his team and keep- ing his temper at the same time. One day he hap- ANECDOTES 105 pened to be driving his mule-team through a series of particularly bad mud-holes, when, unable to re- strain himself any longer, he burst forth with a volley of most energetic oaths. When the Colonel heard of it he called John to account. "John," said he, "didn't you promise to let me do all the swearing for the regiment?" "Yes, I did, Colonel," he replied, "but the fact is the swearing had to be done then or not at all and you weren't there to do it." The old man was so much amused he laughed heartily, and then the President wrote a few words on a card which brought tears to the old fellow's eyes, for the life of his son had been saved. "Glad of It." When the telegram from Cumberland Gap reached Lincoln that "firing was heard in the direction of Knoxville," he remarked that he was "glad of it." Some person present, who was thinking intently of the peril of Burnside's army, wanted to know why Mr. Lincoln was "glad of it." "Why, you see," responded the President, "it reminds me of Mrs. Sallie Ward, a neighbor of mine, who had a very large family. Occasionally one of her numerous progeny would be heard crying in some out of the way place, upon which Mrs. Ward would exclaim, " 'There's one of my children that isn't dead yet* " The Coon That "Got Away." Toward the end of the war some gentleman who 106 LINCOLN visited Lincoln at the White House asked him "what he would do with Jeff Davis." "There was a boy in Springfield," replied Mr. Lin- coln, "who saved up his money and bought a coon, which after the novelty wore off became a great nuisance. "He was one day leading him through the streets, and had his hands full to keep clear of the little vixen, who had torn his clothes half off him. At length he sat down on the curbstone, completely fagged out. A man passing by, noticing his unhappy expression, asked him what was the matter. " 'Oh,' said the boy, 'this coon is such a terrible trouble to me!' "'Why don't you get rid of him, then?' said the gentleman. "'Hush!' said the boy. 'Don't you see he is gnaw- ing his rope off? I'm going to let him do it, and then I will go home and tell the folks that he got away from me!'** Root Hog or Die. At the so-called peace conference on the steamer River Queen in Hampton Roads, Feb. 3, 1865, Mr. Hunter, representing the Confederacy, remarked that since the slaves had always worked under compul- sion, if they were freed they would do no work at all, and the South would starve, black and whites together, as no work would be done. Said Lincoln, 'Mr. Hunter, you ought to know a great deal bet- ter about the matter than I, for you have always lived under the slave system. I can only say, in ANECDOTES 107 reply to your statement of the case, that it reminds me of a man out in Illinois by the name of Case, who undertook, a few years ago, to raise a very large herd of hogs. It was a great trouble to feed them ; and how to get around this was a puzzle to him. At length he hit upon the plan of planting an immense field of potatoes, and, when they were sufficiently grown, he turned the whole herd into the field and let them have full swing, thus saving not only the labor of feeding the hogs, but that also of digging the potatoes. Charmed with his sagacity, he stood one day leaning against the fence, counting his hogs, when a neighbor came along. " 'Well, well !' said he. 'Mr. Case, this is all very fine. Your hogs are doing very well just now. But you know out here in Illinois the frost comes early, and the ground freezes a foot deep. Then what are they going to do?' "This was a view of the matter which Mr. Case had not taken into account. Butchering time for hogs was away on in December or January. He scratched his head and at length stammered, 'Well, it may come pretty hard on their snouts, but T don't see but it will be root hog or die!*" Daniel Webster's Dirty Hands. One of the most amusing of Mr. Lincoln's stories was that of Daniel Webster's hands. One day Daniel had done something very naughty in school, and was called up by the teacher to be punished, the form of punishment being the old- fashioned ferruling of the hands. His hands hap- 108 LINCOLN pened to be very dirty, and out of a sense of per- sonal shame, on his way to the teacher's desk, he spit upon the palm of his right hand and rubbed it on his pantaloons. " 'Give me your hands, sir,' said the teacher very sternly. "Out went the right hand, partly cleansed. The teacher looked at it a moment, and said, — " 'Daniel, if you will find another hand in this school as filthy as that, I will let you off this time !' "Instantly from behind his back came the left hand. 'Here it is, sir," was the ready reply. " 'That will do,' said the teacher, 'for this time; you may take your seat, sir.'" Miscellaneous Anecdotes. Quite as characteristic of Lincoln as his stories, are the anecdotes of his witty and humorous remarks on various occasions. He was greatly pestered by the office-seekers but he never refused to see them, saying "They don't want much and get very little. Each one considers his business of great importance, and I must gratify them. I know how I should feel if I were in their place." And when he was attacked with varioloid in 1861 he said to his usher, "Tell all the office- seekers to come and see me, for now I have some- thing that I can give them." Mrs. McCulloch and other ladies called at the White House one afternoon to attend a reception by Mrs. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln said laughingly to them, — ANECDOTES 109 "I am always glad to see you, ladies, for I know you don't want anything." Mrs. McCulloch replied, "But, Mr. President, I do want something; I want you to do something very much." "Well, what is it?" he asked, adding, "I hope it isn't anything I can't do." "I want you to suppress the Chicago Times be- cause it does nothing but abuse the administration," she replied. "Oh, tut, tut ! We musn't abridge the liberties of the press or the people. But never mind the Chicago Times. The administration can stand it if the Times can." On another occasion he went to examine a newly invented "repeating" gun, which was peculiar in that it prevented the escape of gas. After the in- spection, he said, "Well, I believe this really does what it is repre- sented to do. Now, have any of you heard of any machine or invention for preventing the escape of gas from newspaper establishments?" One day he was complaining of the injustice of Mr. Greeley's criticisms when a friend suggested, "Why don't you publish the facts in every news- paper in the United States? The people will then understand our position and your vindication will be complete." "Yes," said Lincoln, "all the newspapers will pub- lish my letter and so will Greeley. The next day 110 LINCOLN he will comment upon it, and keep it up in that way until at the end of three weeks I will be convicted out of my own mouth of all the things he charges against me. No man, whether he be a private citizen or President of the United States, can successfully carry on a controversy with a great newspaper and escape destruction, unless he owns a newspaper equally great with a circulation in the same neighbor- hood." One day a handsome woman called at the White House to get the release of a relative who was in prison. She tried to use her personal attractions to influence the President. After a little he concluded, as he afterwards said, that he was "too soft" to deal with her, and sent her over to the War Depart- ment with a sealed envelope which contained a card on which he had written, "This woman, dear Stan- ton, is smarter than she looks to be." To another woman, whom he suspected of coming to the White House on a pretext, he gave a note ad- dressed to Major Ramsey, which read, — "My Dear Sir: The lady — bearer of this — says she has two sons who want to work. Set them at it if possible. Wanting to work is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged. A. Lincoln." When a delegation of clergymen called to urge the appointment of one of their number as consul to the Hawaiian Islands on the ground that he was sick and needed the change, Lincoln questioned the man closely as to his symptoms and then remarked, ANECDOTES 111 "I am sorry to disappoint yon, but there are eight other men after this place, and every one of them is sicker than you are." A party of friends from Springfield called at the White House one day and told the President what an elaborate funeral had been given to a certain Illinois politician who was noted for his vanity and love of praise. After listening to the end Lincoln remarked, "If Jim had known he was to have that kind of a funeral he would have died long ago." When a deputation called upon the President to criticize certain features of his administration, he responded as follows: "Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were worth was in gold, and you had put it in the hands of Blondin to carry across the Niagara River on a rope: would you shake the cable and keep shouting to him, 'Blondin, stand up a little straighter — Blondin, stoop a little more — go a little faster — lean a little more to the north — lean a little more to the south?' No, you would hold your breah as well as your tongue, and keep your hands off till he was safe over. "The government is carrying an immense weight. Untold treasures are in our hands. We are doing the very best we can. Don't badger us. Keep quiet, and we will get you safe across." Lincoln also had a strain of severity in him. Once an officer attacked General Sherman, calling him a bully and a tyrant, unfit to command troops. 112 LINCOLN Lincoln quietly asked if he had any grievance. The officer replied that General Sherman had accused him of some misconduct and threatened to shoot him if it occurred again. "If I were in your place," remarked the President in a confidential whisper, "I wouldn't repeat that offense, because Sherman is a man of his word." Lincoln's instinctive love of a joke appears very clearly in his humorous remark on hearing of the capture of a brigadier-general and twelve army mules near Washington, — "How unfortunate ! I can fill that general's place in five minutes, but those mules cost us two hundred dollars apiece." The President's last story before his assassination was that of how the Patagonians eat oysters. Ward Lamon had called to ask the President to sign a pardon for an old soldier convicted of violating the army regulations. "Lamon, do you know how the Patagonians eat oysters?" suddenly asked the President as he held the pen in his hand to write the pardon. "I do not, Mr. Lincoln," responded Lamon. "It is their habit to open them as fast as they can and throw the shells out of the window, and when the pile of shells grow to be bigger than the house, why, they pick up stakes and move. Now, Lamon, I have felt like beginning a new pile of pardons, and I guess this is a good one to begin on." 7395-2-39 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 973 7L63BL638E C001 AN EVENING WITH LINCOLN ROCHESTER, NY. 3 0112 031788158