LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/growthoflincolnsOOhorn 
 
THE HOOSIER YOUTH 
 
 Statue on Entrance Plaza of The Lincoln National Life Insurance Company Build- 
 ing, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Sculptor, Paul Manship. Photo by Courtesy of The 
 Lincoln National Life Foundation. 
 
The Growth of 
 Lincoln' s Faith 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 gKftgmgbon'ro ss 
 
 THE ABINGDON PRESS 
 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO 
 
HORNER 
 THE GROWTH OF LINCOLN'S FAITH 
 
 Copyright, 1939, by 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 All rights reserved — no part of this book 
 may be reproduced in any form without 
 permission in writing from the publishers, 
 except by a reviewer who wishes to quote 
 brief passages in connection with a re- 
 view written for inclusion in magazine or 
 newspaper. 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
<\11.1^ 
 
 &4W-7*. 
 
 '3- 
 
 
 To 
 
 Henrietta Calhoun Horner 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 chapter page 
 
 Foreword 9 
 
 I. The Wonder of the Child . .13 
 
 II. The Hunger of the Youth . .31 
 
 III. The Doubt of the Man . . 50 
 
 IV. The Convictions of the Lawyer 
 
 and Politician . . .80 
 
 V. The Sublime Faith of the Presi- 
 dent 127 
 
 Index 173 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Hoosier Youth. Statue on the en- 
 trance plaza of Lincoln National Life 
 Insurance Company Building at Fort 
 Wayne, Indiana, by Paul Manship 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 Young Lincoln. Statue in Delaware 
 Park at Buffalo, New York, by Bryant 
 Baker .... Facing page 32 
 
 Lincoln the Captain . Statue on the site 
 of old Fort Dixon at Dixon, Illinois, by 
 Leonard Crunelle . Facing page 50 
 
 Lincoln the Circuit Rider. Statue in 
 Carle Park at Urbana, Illinois, by 
 Lorado Taft . . Facing page 80 
 
 Lincoln the President. Statue in front 
 of the District of Columbia Court 
 House, Washington, D. C, by Lot 
 Flannery . . . Facing page 128 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 FOR the last twenty-five years my principal 
 avocation has been the accumulation of a 
 Lincoln library and a study of all phases of the 
 life of the martyred President. I have been 
 especially interested in the books, pamphlets, 
 and magazine articles on Lincoln's religion. 
 Much has been written of a controversial 
 nature. In the light of his career and of his 
 assured place in history, it now seems to me 
 idle to spend time upon questions which have 
 troubled many Lincoln students. 
 
 Was Lincoln an atheist? Was he an infidel? 
 Was he a spiritualist? Was he a Roman 
 Catholic, a Quaker, a Baptist, a Methodist, a 
 Presbyterian, a Universalist? Was he, indeed, 
 a Christian? 
 
 It does not matter now what the answer is 
 to any of these questions. There is a funda- 
 mental difference between creed and religion, 
 between dogma and faith. Lincoln sub- 
 scribed to no creed and was actuated by no 
 dogma. His religion was rooted in the dis- 
 tinctions he made between right and wrong 
 and his faith was based upon a consciousness 
 of the supreme purpose of the Almighty. He 
 
 9 
 
10 Foreword 
 
 came in the fullness of his power under the 
 great burden that was laid upon him to have a 
 faith which literally moved mountains. This 
 little book undertakes to trace the growth and 
 the full blossoming of that faith. It was a slow 
 process. The wonder of the child left many 
 unanswered questions. The hunger of the 
 youth was not fully satisfied. The doubt of 
 the man was never entirely dissolved. The 
 convictions of the lawyer and politician were 
 years in crystallizing. The magnificent faith 
 of the President, which transcended sectarian- 
 ism, was an evolution and now makes the 
 memory of the immortal Lincoln the common 
 inheritance of good men everywhere who love 
 their fellow men. 
 
 In these troubled days of the twentieth cen- 
 tury, nearly seventy-three years after Lin- 
 coln's tragic death, whole nations led by influ- 
 ential dictators deny God, while still others 
 seek through government to prescribe the 
 God their people shall worship. Lincoln is 
 certainly the greatest figure in our history 
 since Washington. As the years go by he 
 looms larger in world history. It is significant 
 that when he came to the great crisis in his 
 own life, which was also a crisis in the life of 
 the Union he served, he turned chiefly to his 
 Maker for counsel. The record is clear that 
 
Foreword 1 1 
 
 he was comforted, sustained, and guided by a 
 sublime faith in Divine Providence. 
 
 For more than nine years, or constantly 
 since our marriage, my wife, Henrietta Cal- 
 houn Horner, has shared fully my interest in 
 building a Lincoln library and in pursuing 
 the theme of this book. I have dedicated it to 
 her because it has been made possible by her 
 zeal and helpfulness. 
 
 H. H. H. 
 Albany, New York 
 December 19, 1937 
 
CHAPTER I 
 THE WONDER OF THE CHILD 
 
 FEW children get wholly satisfactory an- 
 swers to questions which awakening life 
 inspires in them. Childhood remains a period 
 of wonder. It was markedly so in the early 
 days of Abraham Lincoln. There was little 
 in the one-room log cabin in which he was 
 born to satisfy even the mere physical needs 
 of a growing child. It is now believed that the 
 cabin was about eighteen by sixteen feet in 
 dimension. It had an earthen floor. A stone 
 fireplace with a chimney made of sticks of 
 wood chinked with clay occupied one end. A 
 roughly constructed bed was built into one 
 corner of the other end. A small square open- 
 ing in the rear wall was covered with greased 
 paper to let in the light and keep out the cold. 
 The roof was made of boards held in place by 
 poles. There was a door made of slabs. The 
 furnishings were limited to a little bedding, a 
 few dishes and cooking utensils, a table and 
 some stools. Just how Nancy Lincoln kept 
 her children warm and clean and properly 
 fed, as she must have done, for they grew and 
 thrived, nobody knows. It is hard in a totally 
 13 
 
14 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 different environment in another age to 
 imagine the sheer material barrenness of that 
 pioneer home. Despite the best efforts of 
 father and mother, accustomed to primitive 
 living and unacquainted with any other way of 
 life, they must often have been hard put to it 
 to satisfy the natural demands of the baby boy 
 as he sought bodily sustenance and comfort. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln, the father in this house- 
 hold, came of good stock but signally failed to 
 live up to his inheritance. He was "a wander- 
 ing laboring boy and grew up literally with- 
 out education. He never did more in the way 
 of writing than to bunglingly write his own 
 name." There is no evidence that he ever 
 learned to read. He had no use for book learn- 
 ing, and the record shows clearly that he was 
 more of a hindrance than a help to his son 
 whose natural instincts led him to seek edu- 
 cation. Thomas worked at various odd jobs 
 after he grew up, was a carpenter of sorts and 
 a half-hearted and unsuccessful farmer. He 
 was always looking for a bend in the road to 
 bring him fortune. His migrations from home 
 to home and from state to state never profited 
 him. The best that can be said of him is 
 that he was honest and that he never harmed 
 anyone. 
 
 There was never a close bond between 
 
The Wonder of the Child 15 
 
 Abraham and his father. In December, 1848, 
 when Thomas Lincoln was past his seventieth 
 year, he caused a letter to be written to his son 
 in Washington, D. C, then a congressman 
 from Illinois, asking for twenty dollars to save 
 his land from sale. The reply he received, 
 while it granted the request, illy concealed 
 Abraham Lincoln's judgment that his own 
 father was a shiftless, improvident and irre- 
 sponsible old man. Here it is: 
 
 Washington, December 24, 1848 
 My Dear Father: 
 
 Your letter of the 7th was received night before 
 last. I very cheerfully send you the twenty dollars, 
 which sum you say is necessary to save your land 
 from sale. It is singular that you should have for- 
 gotten a judgment against you; and it is more singu- 
 lar that the plaintiff should have let you forget it so 
 long, particularly as I suppose you always had prop- 
 erty enough to satisfy a judgment of that amount. 
 Before you pay it, it would be well to be sure you 
 have not paid, or at least that you cannot prove that 
 you have paid it. 
 
 Give my love to mother and all the connections. 
 Affectionately your son, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln never found the lucky 
 bend in the road for which he always looked. 
 He died on a Coles County farm, owned in 
 
16 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 part by his son, in southern Illinois, on Janu- 
 ary 17, 1851, in debt and unnoticed save by a 
 few neighbors. His name would never have 
 been known beyond his limited immediate 
 circle and would now have long been for- 
 gotten if fate had not given him a son destined 
 for immortality. Thousands of pilgrims visit 
 his grave annually in the secluded little ceme- 
 tery in Shiloh churchyard on Goose Nest 
 Prairie, there to stand in reverence because of 
 his one distinction— he was the father of 
 Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 And if Nancy Hanks had not been the 
 mother of Abraham Lincoln, she too would 
 have found no niche in history, and the record 
 of her brief life would now be lost entirely. 
 Even as it is, she is more a myth than a reality. 
 Very little is known about her. Biographers 
 do not even agree about her appearance; and 
 the ugly and painful assertion that she was an 
 illegitimate child is to this day a subject of 
 debate, despite the heroic efforts that have 
 been made to give her an honorable lineage. 
 The picture of Nancy reading the Bible to 
 little Abe and his sister Sarah by the light of 
 the fireplace in their Kentucky cabin home 
 has become familiar the world over by fre- 
 quent repetition. The claim that she taught 
 Thomas Lincoln to read and write after they 
 
The Wonder of the Child 17 
 
 were married has also been repeated many 
 times. It would be pleasant to believe these 
 things. Such writing as Thomas could do was 
 learned before his marriage. Proof of this 
 fact is to be found on his own marriage bond 
 which he signed on June 10, 1806. Diligent 
 search has never revealed anything but 
 Nancy's mark, which is to be found on a deed 
 executed by Thomas and Nancy on October 
 27, 1814, transferring a tract of land of some 
 two hundred acres known as the Mill Creek 
 farm to one Charles Melton. Thomas again 
 signed his name and Nancy affixed an "X" to 
 the document. Nancy's mark has come to 
 light on a second document. The will of her 
 uncle, Thomas Sparrow, executed on Septem- 
 ber 21, 1818, and probated on October 9 of 
 that year, four days after her death, has re- 
 cently been discovered in the courthouse at 
 Rockport, Spencer County, Indiana. It bears 
 the signature of David Casebier and the "X" 
 of Nancy Lincoln as witnesses. There is, 
 moreover, no proof that she could read and 
 none that the family even possessed a Bible 
 during their life in Kentucky. 
 
 Seeing that the sturdy Lincoln strain ran 
 thin in the blood of Thomas Lincoln, poster- 
 ity likes to believe that the unknown blood in 
 Nancy Hanks's veins was of a finer quality. 
 
18 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 Indeed, that was Lincoln's own view, if the 
 incident related by William H. Herndon may 
 be accepted at full face value. Relating a con- 
 versation he claimed to have had with Lincoln 
 in 1850 when they were riding together in a 
 one-horse buggy on the way to attend court 
 in Menard County, Illinois, Herndon said: 
 
 During the ride he spoke, for the first time in my 
 hearing, of his mother, dwelling on her characteris- 
 tics, and mentioning or enumerating what qualities 
 he inherited from her. He said, among other things, 
 that she was the illegitimate daughter of Lucy 
 Hanks and a well-bred Virginia farmer or planter; 
 and he argued from this last source came his power 
 of analysis, his logic, his mental activity, his ambi- 
 tion, and all the qualities that distinguished him 
 from the other members and descendents of the 
 Hanks family. 
 
 Herndon also reported that Lincoln said of 
 his mother upon this occasion: "God bless my 
 mother; all that I am or ever hope to be I owe 
 to her." 
 
 Biographers have long had the habit of de- 
 claring that little Abe lived in his first cabin 
 home on the Sinking Spring farm on the south 
 fork of Nolin Creek with his parents and his 
 sister Sarah until he was about four years old. 
 Recent research seems to indicate that the 
 move the family made to a new piece of land 
 
The Wonder of the Child 19 
 
 on Knob Creek seven or eight miles north and 
 east occurred when he was about two years old. 
 This finding is confirmed by the fact that his 
 earliest memories were of the Knob Creek 
 home. It was just about as meager and desti- 
 tute as the first one. 
 
 With his sister, he must have voiced in these 
 early days many of the eager and irrepressible 
 questions of childhood. Where does the wind 
 come from? What makes the sun shine? 
 Where does the road go? What makes the 
 seed come up out of the ground? Why can't 
 horses and cows and dogs talk? How does the 
 moon get up into the sky? What is Christmas? 
 These and a thousand other questions must 
 have come to the lips of these Kentucky chil- 
 dren and have remained partially unan- 
 swered, because neither father nor mother, 
 nor any of the neighbors could satisfactorily 
 answer them. It would be interesting to 
 know, if the science of education could tell us, 
 what superior educative and character-build- 
 ing values inhere in our modern methods and 
 devices, almost wholly lacking in the Lincoln 
 home, for satisfying the curiosity and for an- 
 swering the never-ending questions of child- 
 hood. Little Abe must often have been fairly 
 stifled with wonder at the unexplained things 
 about that Knob Creek cabin door. Nature 
 
20 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 gives up her secrets slowly to a child who is 
 mainly obliged to grope for them alone. 
 
 This second home was a little nearer to the 
 thing the boy later learned to know as civiliza- 
 tion. It was situated near a highway, one end 
 of which was said to reach to Louisville and 
 the other to Nashville. These places were 
 even then known as cities. His parents could 
 not tell little Abe about these far-off places, 
 for they knew little about them. A man called 
 a soldier appeared on the highway one day, so 
 the legend goes, on his way home from some- 
 thing called war. Who was a soldier and what 
 was war? The boy must certainly have asked 
 these questions. He was to find the answer for 
 himself in tragic years then long ahead of him. 
 He had been told that people were kind to sol- 
 diers. He gave the man a fish he had just 
 caught in Knob Creek. In later years he was 
 to warm the hearts of thousands of soldiers 
 who came to know him as ' 'Father Abraham/' 
 Where the war was in which the passer-by had 
 been engaged, what it was all about, who took 
 part in it and for what purpose, nobody he 
 knew could tell him. 
 
 A totally new and singularly strange wonder 
 came into his life at Knob Creek. A baby 
 brother came, named Thomas after its father, 
 and disappeared shortly as mysteriously as it 
 
The Wonder of the Child 21 
 
 had come. There is no record that this ex- 
 perience left a deep impression upon the mind 
 of Abraham Lincoln. He knew that a baby 
 brother came. He knew that the baby died. 
 He must have asked himself, if he did not ask 
 his father and mother, perplexing questions. 
 What is it to be born? What is it to die and to 
 be buried? He was to learn close at hand in 
 his mature years partial answer to these ques- 
 tions. So industriously have biographers 
 searched for facts surrounding the life of 
 Abraham Lincoln that this baby brother 
 Thomas has become a figure in history. 
 There is no record of the exact date of the 
 child's birth or death or place of burial, but 
 students of Lincoln still hunt for such rela- 
 tively insignificant facts. In the village bank 
 at Hodgenville, Kentucky, the officers upon 
 request will proudly bring forth from the vault 
 a small field stone with the letters "T. L." 
 carved upon it. The neighborhood believes 
 that this stone marked the grave of little 
 Thomas Lincoln. It was found, so the story 
 goes, by workmen who were clearing under- 
 brush in a private burying ground on the 
 Redmon farm about a mile distant from the 
 Knob Creek Lincoln home. 
 
 Civilization was feeling its way in Ken- 
 tucky in Abraham Lincoln's boyhood. Schools 
 
22 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 and seminaries and academies were develop- 
 ing in the larger centers. Books were finding 
 their way westward. A school came within the 
 reach of Sarah and Abe. It was no doubt a sub- 
 scription affair, common in those days. The 
 children attended school for perhaps three 
 months, all told, while the family lived on 
 Knob Creek. All we know for certain is that 
 the first teacher was named Zachariah Riney, 
 and the second Caleb Hazel. Their names go 
 down in history because they were Lincoln's 
 first teachers, not because we know what, if 
 anything worth while, they taught him. They 
 probably furnished his first glimpse, however, 
 through books of the great throbbing world 
 which was almost completely hidden from his 
 boyhood home. Even the crudest beginnings 
 of A B C's, the joining together of a few words 
 on a printed page to express an idea, and the 
 discovery of numbers must have been wel- 
 comed by his eager mind. However com- 
 petent those early teachers were in answering 
 the persistent questions of a growing boy, we 
 can well imagine he must have tested their 
 skill as soon as he overcame his awe of them 
 and his fright at the new and strange surround- 
 ings. Little did they or he realize that fifty 
 years later the whole civilized world would be 
 shocked at the news of his assassination and 
 
The Wonder of the Child 23 
 
 that a volume of nearly a thousand pages 
 would be required to record the messages of 
 sympathy that came from other lands to his 
 government upon his death. 
 
 One other stray incident finds its way 
 through the haze surrounding Lincoln's life 
 in his second childhood home. In the sum- 
 mer or early fall of 1816 Thomas and Nancy 
 Lincoln seem to have joined the Little Mount 
 Church, a few miles distant from their cabin, 
 a congregation known as "Separate" Baptists. 
 Tradition has it that Thomas was baptized in 
 Knob Creek by a preacher by the name of 
 William Downs. Baptizings in those days in 
 Kentucky were social as well as spiritual occa- 
 sions. Seven-year-old Abe could hardly have 
 been left at home when that great event took 
 place. It is easy to believe, in the light of his 
 later convictions, that this baptismal cere- 
 mony raised new questions in his boyish mind 
 to which he did not then find answer. He was 
 in later life, after he became a national figure, 
 to make very clear distinction between the 
 form and substance of faith and to practice a 
 Christianity wholly free from conventional 
 rites or the restraints of any particular church 
 membership. 
 
 What lasting influence, if any, the "Sepa- 
 rate" Baptist affiliation of his parents had 
 
24 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 upon this small Kentucky boy we do not know. 
 The Bible was literally the creed of this branch 
 of the church. The discipline of the church 
 was very severe. "Frolicking and dancing' ' 
 were forbidden, intoxication and profane 
 language were condemned and quarreling 
 with one's neighbors came under the ban. 
 There is no positive evidence of the degree of 
 the religious devotion of Thomas and Nancy 
 in these days, but diligent search by many stu- 
 dents has revealed no indication of a lack of 
 faithfulness to the tenets of the church of their 
 choice. They were simple-minded folk, un- 
 able to read, and responsive mainly to emo- 
 tional experiences. Any effort to invest this 
 period of Lincoln's boyhood with unusual reli- 
 gious training is pure supposition. His par- 
 ents were faithful church members. When 
 that is said, the dependable record is com- 
 plete. 
 
 It would almost seem as if Thomas Lincoln 
 felt that he needed spiritual support for a new 
 venture in his life. About the time he joined 
 the church he was planning to leave Kentucky 
 to make a new home in the wilderness of 
 Indiana. "This removal," Lincoln wrote 
 forty-four years later, after he had been nomi- 
 nated for the Presidency, "was partly on ac- 
 count of slavery, but chiefly on account of the 
 
The Wonder of the Child 25 
 
 difficulty in land titles in Kentucky." His 
 going was also part and parcel of his roving 
 disposition and of the primal urge of the pio- 
 neer to venture into new lands. The story 
 that whatever rights he had in the Knob Creek 
 farm were traded for a few barrels of whisky, 
 in those days the chief substitute for money, 
 has been challenged by recent research but has 
 long been accepted by the biographers. 
 
 It must have stirred Abraham Lincoln's 
 mind anew to watch his father build a flatboat 
 on the bank of the Rolling Fork, two and a 
 half miles from their cabin. It was enough 
 to make any observer ask questions. The Roll- 
 ing Fork found its way into the Salt River, 
 which in turn ran into a great stream known 
 as the Ohio River. This small boy must have 
 watched with strange emotions the departure 
 of that rude craft bound for the Ohio River 
 and the then distant land on the farther shore 
 known as Indiana. The barrels of whisky 
 tumbled into the water, so we are told, shortly 
 after the journey began, but were salvaged 
 by the dogged man who at least had resolution 
 enough, in this instance, to stick to his pur- 
 pose. 
 
 While Thomas Lincoln was landing his 
 household goods and his whisky— if he had any 
 —in Indiana and finding his way through the 
 
26 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 woods to the spot where he decided to stake a 
 claim, some fifteen miles from the Ohio River, 
 Nancy and Sarah and Abe were getting ready 
 to go with him, upon his return, into the new 
 land. Their getting ready was very simple. 
 There was little to take and little to leave 
 behind. It is believed that it was early in 
 December, 1816, that they set out, family and 
 all their belongings on horseback bound for 
 the ferry on the Ohio River, Abe perched 
 behind his father and Sarah behind her 
 mother. Historians do not agree as to the 
 route the family took from Knob Creek to the 
 Ohio. The simple fact is no one really knows. 
 For that matter, they may have traveled in a 
 wagon rather than on horseback. They could 
 hardly have dreamed that more than a hun- 
 dred years later men would be seriously con- 
 cerned in trying to discover the route they 
 took and their means of travel. What pangs 
 of regret, what thoughts of the future, passed 
 through the boy's mind as this eventful jour- 
 ney began we shall never know. He saw for 
 the first time the great broad Ohio. He must 
 have known boyish fear when the ferry set 
 out for Indiana. He must have wondered 
 what was to be found when they should reach 
 their destination in the thick woods which 
 they penetrated. 
 
The Wonder of the Child 27 
 
 Thomas Lincoln did not take the precau- 
 tion to stake his claim near a spring, as more 
 prudent early settlers were accustomed to do. 
 He just came to a halt in the woods and hur- 
 riedly set up a lean-to or open-faced camp in 
 which the family lived the first winter. It 
 must have been hard for the boy, and for his 
 sister and his mother as well, to understand 
 the wisdom of that change from a bit of till- 
 able soil and cabin with a roof and four walls 
 in Kentucky to an open camp in the heart of 
 the woods in Indiana at the beginning of 
 winter. Thomas Lincoln was looking for an- 
 other bend in the road. 
 
 The next three years were perhaps the hard- 
 est and bitterest in Abraham Lincoln's life, 
 though he was to face in manhood great sor- 
 row more than once and harder days than come 
 to most men. Thomas Lincoln's disposition 
 to let life find its way with the least possible 
 effort was abundantly demonstrated in this 
 period. In the summer of 1817 he did con- 
 trive to build a log cabin, said to have been 
 eighteen by twenty feet, with a loft overhead 
 reached by pegs fastened into the wall. But 
 when the second winter came the cabin had 
 no floor, no door, no window, and the roof was 
 not yet finished. Wild game was abundant 
 and Thomas spent more time with his gun 
 
28 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 than with his tools. He did manage to clear 
 a patch of ground in the woods for corn and 
 vegetables. 
 
 It was a rough, hard life and it soon began 
 to tell on Nancy Lincoln. In the autumn of 
 1818 a strange disease called "milk sick" came 
 into the neighborhood. It got its name from 
 the fact that it attacked cattle, particularly 
 milch cows, as well as human beings. The 
 mystery has now been solved by modern medi- 
 cal science. White snakeroot poisons animals 
 that eat it and human beings contract the dis- 
 ease by drinking milk from poisoned cows. 
 In those days the disease was usually fatal. In 
 October of that year Nancy Lincoln came 
 down with it. It was thirty-five miles to the 
 nearest doctor. In seven days she was gone. 
 The wonder of death with new and tragic 
 force came into the life of Abraham Lincoln. 
 He watched his father fashion a coffin for his 
 mother out of rough boards, and with his 
 sister Sarah followed their mother to her grave 
 as the coffin was drawn on a sled by Thomas 
 Lincoln to the burial place on a knoll not far 
 from the cabin. 
 
 Lincoln was now nearly ten years old. He 
 could understand the awful earthly finality of 
 death and feel the pangs of great sorrow. As 
 he watched his father fill the grave his boyish 
 
The Wonder of the Child 29 
 
 heart must have been stirred with inexpres- 
 sible anguish. The one retreat, the one com- 
 forting resource in his life was gone. A boy 
 of ten can have rebellion in his soul against 
 such a cruel experience. He undoubtedly 
 asked himself, without finding answer, why 
 the God in whom his mother believed had 
 taken her away from him and Sarah when they 
 so much needed her. 
 
 Some weeks or months after this pathetic 
 burial the Rev. David Elkin, who served the 
 church of which Thomas and Nancy were 
 members in Kentucky, on a visit to Indiana, 
 preached a funeral sermon at the grave of 
 Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Biographers and 
 churchmen vainly laboring to make the boy 
 appear to be something he was not have per- 
 petuated the unfounded story that Abraham's 
 first letter was written to the Rev. Elkin beg- 
 ging him to come to Indiana to conduct a 
 funeral service at his mother's grave. There 
 is no basis in fact for this story. It is not even 
 certain that he was yet able to write legibly. 
 Nothing is gained by any attempt to make him 
 out up to this period in his life as different 
 from any other boy reared in like conditions. 
 That he loved his mother deeply and felt her 
 loss keenly we have every reason to believe. 
 And yet it must be recorded, he grew to man- 
 
30 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 hood, rose to distinction, became President of 
 the United States, and it apparently never 
 occurred to him to mark his mother's grave. 
 It was not until long after his death that her 
 grave was marked by strangers who sought to 
 honor her memory because of her illustrious 
 son. Posterity finds a way to forgive Abraham 
 Lincoln for this oversight, as it now gener- 
 ously does for all the shortcomings of his char- 
 acter which were inherent in his brooding, 
 melancholy nature. The people of the Com- 
 monwealth of Indiana, atoning for him, have 
 pledged themselves forever in the mainte- 
 nance of the Nancy Hanks Lincoln Park to 
 keep fresh the memory of the fragile pioneer 
 woman who bore so great a son. Childhood 
 with its wonder and its unanswered questions 
 ended for Abraham Lincoln at his mother's 
 grave that afternoon in October, 1818, and his 
 eager, hungry, yearning youth began. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE HUNGER OF THE YOUTH 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN was older than his 
 XjL years at ten. He had already known 
 privation and great sorrow. His early experi- 
 ences had toughened and hardened him. 
 Nevertheless, he still had strong need for a 
 mother. He came to be a man who loved con- 
 tact with his fellow human beings. The death 
 of his mother left a great void in his life. He 
 wanted and greatly needed sympathy and com- 
 panionship and understanding. Thomas 
 Lincoln had little to give and no disposition 
 to sympathize with his son. He treated Abe 
 throughout his boyhood and youth roughly at 
 times and always with a strange indifference. 
 The barrenness and emptiness of that Indiana 
 home were borne in more heavily than ever 
 upon Abe and his sister Sarah the year after 
 Nancy Lincoln died. These uncared-for chil- 
 dren almost ran wild. Thomas Lincoln and 
 Dennis Hanks, who had come from Kentucky 
 to live with them, managed to provide wild 
 game for the larder and Sarah did the best she 
 could with the cooking. It was a hard, bitter 
 year, especially for children without the 
 31 
 
32 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 softening touch a mother could bring even in 
 such a wilderness home. The wisest thing 
 Thomas Lincoln ever did in his whole aimless 
 life was to go back to Kentucky and bring 
 home a stepmother for his children. 
 
 Sarah Bush Lincoln came with Thomas in 
 mid- winter of 1819-20 bringing what must 
 have seemed to Sarah and Abe very great 
 riches. She had pots and pans, a bureau, 
 blankets, a feather bed, and three children of 
 her own to add to the household. Overnight 
 the family was increased from four to eight. 
 Both adults and children must have practiced 
 the homely virtues of patience, restraint, and 
 unselfishness, for history records that this 
 family lived together in peace for several years. 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln brought more than material 
 wealth with her from Kentucky. She brought 
 a genius for making even a crude frontier 
 home comfortable. Thomas was set to work 
 at once to put a floor in the cabin, to fix up the 
 loft for comfortable sleeping quarters, and to 
 make some much-needed extra furniture. 
 She brought a passion for cleanliness, and the 
 squalor of the cabin promptly disappeared. 
 Sarah and Abe, no doubt, experienced a sea- 
 son of cleansing and blossomed out in new 
 clothes. She brought a cheerful disposition 
 and a heart big enough to find place for two 
 
Statue in Delaware Park 
 
 Baker, Sculptor. Gainsborough Studios, New York City 
 
 YOUNG LINCOLN 
 
 Buffalo, New York. Photo by courtesy of Bryant 
 
The Hunger of the Youth 33 
 
 lonesome children in addition to her own. 
 She brought healthy ideas of frugality and 
 industry, and Thomas Lincoln sharpened up 
 his tools and looked for carpenter work among 
 the neighbors. He also enlarged his patch of 
 land for a garden and for corn. Life took on a 
 more comfortable aspect for the whole family. 
 From the very day of her arrival Sarah Bush 
 Lincoln filled a need in the life of Abe. She 
 understood the boy, mothered him, and cared 
 for him exactly as if he were her own. His 
 hungry heart warmed under her ministra- 
 tions. There was always a sympathetic rela- 
 tion and a complete understanding between 
 them. Flat on his back on the cabin floor with 
 a book in his hand, even when he was needed 
 in the cornfield, as was often the case, he never 
 was disturbed. She served as an undefined 
 and perhaps unrealized spiritual anchorage 
 for him in his formative years whose value can 
 never be measured. 
 
 Forty years after she first comforted him, 
 Lincoln journeyed from Springfield to Coles 
 County, Illinois, to bid farewell to his step- 
 mother before leaving for Washington to be- 
 come President of the United States. On the 
 way he told a traveling companion of the com- 
 fort and encouragement she had brought to 
 him many years before and declared that she 
 
34 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 was the best friend he ever had. She outlived 
 her illustrious stepson nearly four years and 
 after his death paid tribute to his memory in 
 these familiar words: 
 
 Abe was a poor boy, and I can say what scarcely 
 one woman— a mother— can say in a thousand: Abe 
 never gave me a cross word or look, and never re- 
 fused, in fact or appearance, to do anything I 
 requested him. I never gave him a cross word in 
 all my life. . . . His mind and mine— what little I 
 had— seemed to run together. He was here after 
 he was elected President. He was dutiful to me 
 always. I think he loved me truly. I had a son, 
 John, who was raised with Abe. Both were good 
 boys; but I must say, both now being dead, that 
 Abe was the best boy I ever saw, or expect to see. 
 
 That she gave satisfying answer to the 
 hunger of his youth for human companion- 
 ship and understanding seems clearly estab- 
 lished by the record. Pilgrims to the spot 
 where she is buried by the side of Thomas 
 Lincoln in the churchyard on Goose Nest 
 Prairie and to the house near by, where Lin- 
 coln last visited her, pay tribute to a step- 
 mother who was mother to the utmost to the 
 boy who became President. 
 
 There was another hunger in the youth of 
 Abraham Lincoln. It was the burning desire 
 to know. Very early he developed a curiosity, 
 
The Hunger of the Youth 35 
 
 which soon became a passion, to discover the 
 secrets hidden between the covers of a book. 
 His formal schooling in Indiana was almost as 
 brief and as incidental as it had been in Ken- 
 tucky. Abe and Sarah trudged to a "blab" 
 school two or three miles from their cabin 
 home for a few weeks in the winter of 1818-19. 
 Lincoln was then in his tenth year. He did 
 not go to school again until he was about four- 
 teen, when he went for a short time. 
 
 In his autobiography, written for campaign 
 purposes in 1860, Lincoln gives us this pic- 
 ture of his schooling in Indiana and of his 
 entire education: 
 
 While here Abraham went to A B C schools by 
 
 littles, kept successively by Andrew Crawford, 
 
 Sweeney, and Azel W. Dorsey. He does not remem- 
 ber any other. The family of Mr. Dorsey now re- 
 sides in Schuyler County, Illinois. Abraham now 
 thinks that the aggregate of all his schooling did not 
 amount to one year. He was never in a college or 
 academy as a student, and never inside a college or 
 academy building till since he had a law license. 
 What he has in the way of education he has picked 
 up. After he was twenty-three and had separated 
 from his father, he studied English grammar— im- 
 perfectly, of course, but so to speak and write as 
 well as he now does. He studied and nearly mas- 
 tered the six books of Euclid since he was a member 
 of Congress. He regrets his want of education, and 
 does what he can to supply the want. 
 
36 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 Despite this meager period of formal in- 
 struction he did somehow early learn to read 
 and write. The books that fell into his hands 
 were well calculated to satisfy his intellectual 
 hunger. The list of books the youth literally 
 devoured has been made familiar by frequent 
 repetition. He read repeatedly the Revised 
 Laws of Indiana, which he borrowed from a 
 neighbor, a volume of nearly five hundred 
 pages containing the constitution and the cur- 
 rent statutes of the state, the Act admitting 
 Indiana, the Declaration of Independence, 
 the Constitution of the United States with the 
 first twelve Amendments and the Ordinance 
 of 1787. 
 
 Sarah Bush Lincoln could not read, but she 
 sensed the value of books and brought what 
 was then regarded as a "library" with her from 
 Kentucky. In this small library were Robin- 
 son Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, Sinbad the 
 Sailor, and Aesop's Fables. About this time 
 also Thomas Lincoln seems to have acquired 
 a Bible, the first that he had ever owned. 
 There is every evidence in Lincoln's mature 
 literary style and in the allusions in his public 
 papers and addresses that he was strongly influ- 
 enced by Aesop's Fables and the Bible. There 
 is no evidence, however, it may be said in this 
 connection, that he was stirred in any spiritual 
 
The Hunger of the Youth 37 
 
 sense by his intensive reading of the Bible in 
 this period. The great soul of him was as yet 
 unconsciously unfolding. 
 
 Another book which made a profound im- 
 pression upon him was Weems's Life of Wash- 
 ington. On his way to Washington to assume 
 the Presidency in 1861, he recalled the book 
 in an address before the Senate of New Jersey 
 and said: 
 
 May I be pardoned if, upon this occasion, I men- 
 tion that away back in my childhood, the earliest 
 days of my being able to read, I got hold of a small 
 book, such a one as few of the younger members 
 have ever seen— Weems's Life of Washington. I re- 
 member all the accounts there given of the battle- 
 fields and struggles for the liberties of the country, 
 and none fixed themselves upon my imagination so 
 deeply as the struggle here at Trenton, New Jersey. 
 The crossing of the river, the contest with the Hes- 
 sians, the great hardships endured at that time, all 
 fixed themselves on my memory more than any 
 single Revolutionary event; and you all know, for 
 you have all been boys, how these early impressions 
 last longer than any others. I recollect thinking 
 then, boy even though I was, that there must have 
 been something more than common that these men 
 struggled for. I am exceedingly anxious that that 
 thing— that something even more than national in- 
 dependence; that something that held out a great 
 promise to all the people of the world to all time to 
 come— I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, 
 the Constitution, and the liberties of the people 
 
38 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 shall be perpetuated in accordance with the original 
 idea for which that struggle was made, and I shall 
 be most happy indeed if I shall be a humble instru- 
 ment in the hands of the Almighty and of this, his 
 almost chosen people, for perpetuating the object 
 of that great struggle. 
 
 Other books we now know he almost liter- 
 ally made a part of himself were Bailey's Ety- 
 mological Dictionary, Grimshaw's History of 
 the United States, Scott's Lessons in Elocu- 
 tion, or Selections of Pieces in Prose and Verse 
 for the Improvement of Youth in Reading and 
 Speaking, the Kentucky Preceptor, by an un- 
 known compiler, containing essays on Credu- 
 lity, Haughtiness, Industry, and Indulgence 
 and other like topics. 
 
 We are apt, in what we believe to be a more 
 enlightened age, to regret, as Lincoln did him- 
 self, that he did not receive in his formative 
 years a more thorough education in a formal 
 way. In the light of his subsequent accom- 
 plishments, who can say the books he fortu- 
 nately devoured in his youth did not provide 
 adequate intellectual discipline for his eager, 
 acquisitive mind? What better library could 
 he have had for that period in his life? He 
 wanted almost fiercely to know and the means 
 of knowing, through fortunate Providence, 
 came into his hands. 
 
The Hunger of the Youth 39 
 
 Looking back now with our intimate knowl- 
 edge of Lincoln's subsequent accomplish- 
 ments and his place in world history to those 
 early days of his struggle for an education in 
 the wilds of Indiana, we can well believe that 
 a kindly Providence hovered over him. There 
 was an inescapable orderly logic, as we now 
 see it, about the eagerness of this rawboned 
 youth to find answer to the riddle of life which 
 confronted him. He wanted, as we have seen, 
 to know. He wanted also— and it was a fortu- 
 nate characteristic of his entire life— to express 
 himself to others. This urge for self-expres- 
 sion and for being understood by others was 
 manifested very early. Speaking upon an- 
 other occasion about his schooling and about 
 his desire to understand what he heard and to 
 be understood in what he said, he remarked to 
 a friend: 
 
 I never went to school more than six months in 
 my life, but I can say this: that among my earliest 
 recollections I remember how, when a mere child, 
 I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me 
 in a way I could not understand. I do not think I 
 ever got angry at anything else in my life; but that 
 always disturbed my temper, and has ever since. I 
 can remember going to my little bedroom, after 
 hearing the neighbors talk of an evening with my 
 father, and spending no small part of the night 
 walking up and down and trying to make out what 
 
40 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 was the exact meaning of some of their, to me, dark 
 sayings. 
 
 I could not sleep, although I tried to, when I got 
 on such a hunt for an idea until I had caught it; 
 and when I thought I had got it, I was not satisfied 
 until I had repeated it over and over; until I had 
 put it in language plain enough, as I thought, for 
 any boy I knew to comprehend. This was a kind 
 of passion with me, and it has stuck by me; for I am 
 never easy now, when I am handling a thought, till 
 I have bounded it north and bounded it south, and 
 bounded it east and bounded it west. 
 
 There was opportunity even in those early 
 pioneering days in Indiana for an ambitious 
 youth to "bound" his ideas in the presence of 
 others. By his fifteenth year he was under- 
 taking to make speeches or to tell stories to 
 hold the attention of the neighbors or any 
 audience he could get together. A tree stump 
 or a rail fence was platform enough at first to 
 induce him to draw his fellow workers in the 
 fields or woods together to enable him to prac- 
 tice oratory upon them. Later the grist mill 
 or the blacksmith shop and the general store 
 at Gentryville furnished larger and more ap- 
 preciative audiences. He formed the habit 
 early also of "bounding" his ideas on paper as 
 well as before his friends and neighbors. We 
 are told that he wrote a weighty essay in 1827 
 
The Hunger of the Youth 41 
 
 or 1828 on national politics which was printed 
 in a Spencer County newspaper. It is signifi- 
 cant that this 'long, thin, leggy, gawky boy 
 dried up and shriveled/ ' with less than a year 
 of schooling to his credit, should at eighteen 
 or nineteen be writing an essay on government 
 and recording his views, as reported, that— 
 
 The American Government was the best form of 
 Government in the world for an intelligent people, 
 that it ought to be kept sacred and preserved for- 
 ever; that general education should [be] fostered 
 and carried all over the country; that the Constitu- 
 tion should be [held] sacred, the Union perpetuated, 
 and the laws revered, respected, and enforced. 
 
 About thirty-five years later as President of 
 the United States he was to sign the famous 
 Land Grant Act enacted by Congress, which 
 was the initial impetus, for our present far- 
 flung system of state universities and to be at 
 that time the chief instrumentality of his gov- 
 ernment for the enforcement of its laws and 
 for the perpetuation of the Union. 
 
 His youthful hunger for human compan- 
 ionship, his eagerness to learn, and his passion 
 for accurate and forceful self-expression, nat- 
 urally led to another quest in this period of 
 his life. The primal urge of the pioneer in his 
 blood made him want to discover something 
 
42 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 about the world beyond the confines of Gen- 
 tryville, or even of Spencer County. Wood- 
 chopping and hoeing corn were never wel- 
 come tasks to him. He got away from this 
 work for the first time in his seventeenth year 
 and enlarged his knowledge of local geog- 
 raphy by hiring himself as an assistant to James 
 Taylor, who operated a ferryboat across the 
 Ohio River near the mouth of Anderson's 
 Creek. For this labor he got the munificent 
 sum of thirty cents a day. 
 
 About this time, having visions of a business 
 venture of his own, he built himself a scow, in 
 which he proposed to take travelers out to 
 board passing steamers in midstream. Many 
 years afterward he told his Cabinet in Wash- 
 ington how he earned his first dollar in less 
 than a day. The story comes down to us 
 through Secretary Seward, who gave the fol- 
 lowing account of it: 
 
 "I was contemplating my new flatboat," Lincoln 
 said, "and wondering whether I could make it 
 stronger or improve it in any particular, when two 
 men came down to the shore in carriages with 
 trunks, and looking at the different boats singled 
 out mine and asked, 'Who owns this?' I answered 
 somewhat modestly, 'I do/ 'Will you/ said one of 
 them, 'take us and our trunks out to the steamer?' 
 'Certainly/ said I. I was glad to have the chance of 
 
The Hunger of the Youth 43 
 
 earning something. I supposed that each of them 
 would give me two or three bits. The trunks were 
 put on my flatboat, and the passengers seated them- 
 selves on the trunks, and I sculled them out to the 
 steamer. 
 
 "They got on board, and I lifted up their heavy 
 trunks and put them on deck. The steamer was 
 about to put on steam again, when I called out that 
 they had forgotten to pay me. Each of them took 
 from his pocket a silver half dollar and threw it on 
 the floor of my boat. I could scarcely believe my 
 eyes as I picked up the money. Gentlemen, you may 
 think it was a very little thing, and in these days it 
 seems to me a trifle; but it was the most important 
 incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, 
 a poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day— 
 that by honest work I had earned a dollar. The 
 world seemed fairer and wider before me. I was a 
 more hopeful and confident being from that time." 
 
 The operation of his own flatboat on the 
 Ohio gave Lincoln his first contact with the 
 force of the law. A ferryman from the Ken- 
 tucky side of the river, disturbed by the pros- 
 pect of competition in carrying passengers out 
 to passing steamers, brought Lincoln before a 
 Kentucky Justice of the Peace for operating a 
 ferry without a license. Lincoln claimed that 
 it was not against the law to take passengers 
 out to midstream to board steamers which did 
 not make a landing or wait for a ferry. His 
 competitor insisted that Kentucky jurisdiction 
 
44 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 extended to low-water mark on the Indiana 
 shore. The Justice of the Peace ruled that 
 taking passengers to passing steamers in mid- 
 stream was not "setting them over" the river 
 and that Lincoln was, therefore, not guilty of 
 violating the statute. 
 
 It was the river which gave young Lincoln 
 his first glimpse of a city. At nineteen he had 
 never been in larger places than Boonville and 
 Rockport, Indiana, and these centers were 
 then mere hamlets with perhaps twenty-five 
 or thirty families. James Gentry, the pro- 
 prietor of the general store at Gentryville, was 
 accustomed to send produce for sale or ex- 
 change by flatboat to New Orleans. In the 
 spring of 1828 Gentry hired Lincoln to go 
 with his son on a flatboat trip to New Orleans. 
 Lincoln acted as bow hand and was paid at the 
 rate of eight dollars per month for the entire 
 time of the round trip. The young adven- 
 turers put out from Gentry's landing on the 
 Ohio near Rockport and floated down the 
 Ohio and the Mississippi to the metropolis of 
 the South. Thus a new and larger world was 
 opened up to Lincoln. For the first time, he 
 saw a large city and the method of life of an 
 educated and well-to-do people. He saw large 
 river craft, seagoing vessels, stores and ware- 
 houses, and a mixture of strange people. Dis- 
 
The Hunger of the Youth 45 
 
 posing of the cargo and leaving the flatboat 
 behind, the two young navigators returned by 
 steamer. Lincoln must have seen slaves in 
 New Orleans, but there is no evidence that he 
 was impressed in any way by slavery at this 
 time. Years later he recalled what must have 
 been an eventful experience in these words: 
 
 When he was nineteen, still residing in Indiana, 
 he made his first trip upon a flatboat to New Or- 
 leans. He was a hired hand merely, and he and a 
 son of the owner, without other assistance, made 
 the trip. The nature of part of the "cargo-load," as 
 it was called, made it necessary for them to linger 
 and trade along the sugar coast; and one night they 
 were attacked by seven Negroes with intent to kill 
 and rob them. They were hurt some in the melee, 
 but succeeded in driving the Negroes from the boat, 
 and then "cut cable," "weighed anchor," and left. 
 
 For two or three generations in the pioneer- 
 ing days of the nineteenth century many of the 
 early settlers believed that there was better 
 land and easier life in the next state west. 
 Indeed, it was this persistent belief, coupled 
 with the courage to act upon it, that occupied, 
 settled, and peopled the whole of our country 
 beyond the Alleghanies. It was natural that 
 the migratory spirit of Thomas Lincoln should 
 lead him to believe in the stories that came 
 back to Indiana about the golden opportuni- 
 
46 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 ties in Illinois. He had a patent for half of 
 the hundred and sixty acres he had originally 
 entered in Indiana. He had purchased an ad- 
 joining tract of twenty acres. Thus he owned 
 one hundred acres. So far as is known he dis- 
 posed of his land holdings for a horse and one 
 hundred and twenty-five dollars in the winter 
 of 1829-30, and made ready to seek fortune 
 anew in Illinois. 
 
 In the spring of 1830, shortly after Abe had 
 passed his twenty-first birthday, a little caval- 
 cade of wagons drawn by oxen set out from 
 Gentryville for Illinois. The two daughters 
 of Sarah Bush Lincoln had been married in 
 the meantime and they, with their families, 
 joined the trek westward. Lincoln's sister 
 Sarah, who had also married, had previously 
 died in childbirth. There were thirteen in 
 the party. Lincoln drove one of the teams of 
 oxen, and peddled along the way needles, pins, 
 thread, buttons, and other notions in which 
 he had invested the thirty-six dollars he pos- 
 sessed in his own right at the age of twenty-one. 
 More than a hundred years later communities 
 both in Indiana and in Illinois contested for 
 the honor of announcing that "Lincoln passed 
 this way." 
 
 Thomas Lincoln and his family spent the 
 first year in Illinois on a bit of land overlook- 
 
The Hunger of the Youth 47 
 
 ing the Sangamon River, a few miles from 
 Decatur, Illinois. Abraham helped to break 
 up fifteen acres of land and cut trees and split 
 rails to fence it. He soon began, however, to 
 think of leaving the home circle and looked 
 for odd jobs in the neighborhood. In the 
 spring of 1831 he was hired by one Denton 
 Offut to help pilot a flatboat load of merchan- 
 dise from a point on the Sangamon River, near 
 the village of Springfield, down the Sangamon, 
 the Illinois and the Mississippi to New 
 Orleans. Thus he made a second trip to the 
 great Southern trading center. Biographers 
 have labored to show that Lincoln was greatly 
 impressed with the evidences of slavery he saw 
 on this second trip to New Orleans, but there 
 is little in the record to prove that he then 
 made the high resolutions attributed to him 
 to hit slavery hard if he ever got the chance. 
 In July, 1831, Lincoln bade good-by to 
 Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln, then estab- 
 lished on another bend in the road in Coles 
 County, Illinois, and made his way to New 
 Salem, a little hamlet on the Sangamon near 
 Springfield, where he expected to get work in 
 a store about to be opened by Denton Offut. 
 The avowed purpose and possible justifica- 
 tion of this little book is to present the evolu- 
 tion of Lincoln's faith and his final depend- 
 
48 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 ence upon Divine Providence. The wonder 
 of the child and the hunger of the youth reveal 
 no evidence of significant spiritual awaken- 
 ing. The inner soul of him yet slumbered. 
 He had had contact, after a fashion, with reli- 
 gious teaching. Thomas and Nancy Lincoln 
 carried their letters of dismissal from the Little 
 Mount Church in Kentucky with them to 
 Indiana, but there was no church within reach 
 of their new home. The Little Pigeon 
 Church, a congregation of Primitive Baptists, 
 was established in the neighborhood the year 
 after Nancy Lincoln died. The early records 
 of this church have been preserved. They 
 show that Thomas was received "by letter" 
 and his second wife, Sarah Bush Lincoln, "by 
 experience' ' on June 7, 1823. Thomas be- 
 came an officer in the church and was active in 
 its affairs until he migrated to Illinois. 
 Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln carried let- 
 ters with them to Illinois from the Little 
 Pigeon Church commending them to any 
 other Primitive Baptist Church. 
 
 Abe attended services with the family but 
 did not join the church. The distinguishing 
 quality of the Primitive Baptist preachers in 
 those days was the volume of sound they could 
 produce in calling sinners to repentance. It 
 was natural that a youth of Lincoln's type 
 
The Hunger of the Youth 49 
 
 should regard the church service as an enter- 
 tainment. The story has come down that he 
 was an excellent mimic and that at fifteen he 
 could reproduce to the merriment of his hear- 
 ers any sermon he had heard. None of the 
 early witnesses were able to give definite ac- 
 count of his youthful religious views. "The 
 good old Two-Seed, Hardshell, Anti-Mission- 
 ary, Predestinarian Gospel/ ' thundered from 
 the pulpit of the Little Pigeon Church, 
 amused this lanky fun-loving youth but left 
 him spiritually unawakened. Youth, without 
 intelligent religious training and without 
 serious or settled religious views, ended for 
 Abraham Lincoln the day in July, 1831, he 
 reached New Salem to stop "indefinitely and 
 for the first time, as it were, by himself/ ' and 
 the doubting, drifting, melancholy period of 
 his young manhood began. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THE DOUBT OF THE MAN 
 
 THE period of greatest doubt and uncer- 
 tainty in Lincoln's life covers his New 
 Salem experience and his earlier years in 
 Springfield. This trying period continued 
 for eleven years, from his twenty-second to his 
 thirty-third year, or until he was married and 
 settled in a home of his own. These eleven 
 years brought him some failures, some suc- 
 cesses, great personal sorrow and, at times, 
 downright despair. 
 
 Getting ahead in the world was a difficult 
 task for him. His business ventures at New 
 Salem were uniformly unsuccessful. Denton 
 Offut established a general store in New 
 Salem and rented the sawmill and gristmill on 
 the Sangamon River near by. Lincoln clerked 
 in the store upon the bluff and rustled bags of 
 meal and sawlogs down at the mill on the river. 
 Offut's business "petered out" and Lincoln 
 was out of a job. 
 
 The famous Black Hawk War intervened 
 in the spring of 1832 and saved Lincoln for a 
 short time from utter destitution. He en- 
 listed on April 21 for thirty days, re-enlisted 
 50 
 
LINCOLN THE CAPTAIN 
 
 Statue on the Site of Old Fort Dixon, Dixon, Illinois. Sculptor, Leonard Crunelle. 
 Photo by Courtesy of Hintz Studio, Dixon, Illinois. 
 
The Doubt of the Man 51 
 
 on May 27 for twenty days, and again on June 
 16 for thirty days. He was elected captain of 
 his company upon his first enlistment and took 
 great pride in this first real distinction in his 
 life. His meager knowledge of military tactics 
 did not dismay him. Herndon tells a story 
 of Lincoln's experience in drilling his com- 
 pany. In marching one morning at the head 
 of his men in lines of twenty abreast, he sud- 
 denly found it necessary to lead his company 
 through a gateway which was much narrower 
 than the lines. Not knowing what order to 
 give to change the formation so that the com- 
 pany could march through the gateway in 
 orderly fashion, the captain faced his troops 
 and shouted: "Halt! This company will 
 break ranks for two minutes and form again 
 on the other side of the gate." 
 
 Lincoln was mustered out of the service on 
 July 16, 1832, at Black River, Wisconsin. His 
 horse was stolen and he returned in easy stages 
 on foot and by canoe to New Salem. Twenty 
 years later a generous government granted 
 him for military service two tracts of public 
 land in Iowa amounting to one hundred and 
 sixty acres. That Lincoln did not overesti- 
 mate the importance of his brief military ex- 
 perience is evidenced by his reference to it in 
 a speech he made in Congress in 1848 in dis- 
 
52 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 cussing the part General Cass played in the 
 Mexican War. Lincoln said: 
 
 By the way, Mr. Speaker, did you know I am a 
 military hero? Yes, sir; in the days of the Black 
 Hawk War I fought, bled, and came away. Speak- 
 ing of General Cass's career reminds me of my own. 
 I was not at Stillman's defeat, but I was about as 
 near it as Cass was to Hull's surrender; and, like 
 him, I saw the place very soon afterward. It is quite 
 certain I did not break my sword, for I had none to 
 break; but I bent a musket pretty badly on one 
 occasion. If Cass broke his sword, the idea is he 
 broke it in desperation; I bent the musket by acci- 
 dent. If General Cass went in advance of me in 
 picking huckleberries, I guess I surpassed him in 
 charges upon the wild onions. If he saw any live, 
 fighting Indians, it was more than I did; but I had 
 a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes, 
 and although I never fainted from the loss of blood, 
 I can truly say I was often very hungry. Mr. Speaker, 
 if I should ever conclude to doff whatever our Demo- 
 cratic friends may suppose there is of black-cockade 
 federalism about me, and therefore they shall take 
 me up as their candidate for the Presidency, I pro- 
 test that they shall not make fun of me, as they have 
 of General Cass, by attempting to write me into a 
 military hero. 
 
 Back from his efforts at being a soldier, Lin- 
 coln entered into partnership with one Wil- 
 liam Berry, and established a general store in 
 New Salem. Their ambition apparently ex- 
 ceeding their combined business judgment, 
 
The Doubt of the Man 53 
 
 Berry and Lincoln, with nothing much more 
 than promises to pay, bought out all their com- 
 petitors. All accounts seem to indicate that 
 Berry drank too much of the hard liquor the 
 firm offered for sale, and Lincoln spent too 
 much time out in front of the store reading, or 
 gossiping with the passers-by. In any event, 
 this infant monopoly in storekeeping did not 
 prosper and the partners sold out, taking a 
 note in payment. Before the note came due, 
 the new owners failed and fled the country. 
 Then Berry died and Lincoln came out of all 
 of these transactions with obligations of 
 $1,100. He called these accumulated burdens 
 his "national debt." This debt hung over 
 him for nearly twenty years before he finally 
 was able to pay the last penny of it. His ab- 
 solute honesty remained unquestioned. 
 
 Managing a business of his own not yield- 
 ing stable income, Lincoln turned again to 
 odd jobs. He husked corn and split rails for 
 neighboring farmers, clerked for a time in a 
 new store, and took whatever work came to 
 hand. A real godsend came his way when he 
 was made postmaster of New Salem on May 7, 
 1833. The slight compensation was very help- 
 ful to a hard-pressed young man, and the post- 
 master had the privilege, which Lincoln 
 greatly enjoyed, of reading the newspapers 
 
54 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 before delivering them to their owners. 
 Stories have been handed down of how he 
 went about the village carrying the mail in 
 his hat. Government records indicate that he 
 served until the office was closed on May 30, 
 1836. Government inspection of post offices 
 was not frequent in those days. Several years 
 later a postal inspector called on Lincoln in 
 his law office at Springfield and asked for an 
 accounting. From an old trunk in his office 
 Lincoln produced a package wrapped in rags 
 from which he counted out the exact amount 
 the government demanded, some seventeen 
 dollars. 
 
 Shortly after he became postmaster another 
 opportunity to add to his meager income came 
 Lincoln's way. There was great demand for 
 surveying in the new Illinois country. The 
 County Surveyor, John Calhoun, needed an 
 assistant and appointed Lincoln to the place. 
 The postmaster was wholly unacquainted 
 with the principles of surveying, but under 
 the tutelage of the local schoolmaster, at whose 
 house he was boarding, he went to work with 
 a will and was soon able to give good account 
 of himself in the field. The compensation de- 
 pended upon the amount of land to be sur- 
 veyed. A surveyor able to do independent 
 work was allowed two dollars a day for ex- 
 
The Doubt of the Man 55 
 
 penses and the fee for laying out a quarter 
 section of land was two dollars and a half. 
 
 But even the fees from the two official posi- 
 tions of postmaster and assistant surveyor, en- 
 hanced by the three dollars a day paid a repre- 
 sentative in the General Assembly of Illinois, 
 did not free Lincoln from his "national debt." 
 He had no capacity for saving in these days 
 and was careless about his obligations. One 
 of the notes he signed in his ill-fated transac- 
 tion with Berry fell due. Judgment was had 
 against him and his horse and surveying instru- 
 ments were taken. A friend came to his 
 rescue, paid the debt, and restored his prop- 
 erty. Several years later Lincoln met this obli- 
 gation in full. Throughout this period of his 
 young manhood his income was insufficient to 
 meet his simple needs. Indeed, when he set 
 out to take his seat in the Legislature in No- 
 vember, 1834, at Vandalia, then the capital of 
 the state, he had to borrow two hundred dol- 
 lars to get a new suit of clothes and to pay his 
 expenses. And when he finally left New 
 Salem in April, 1837, to take up his residence 
 in Springfield, he rode into the new capital 
 city of the state on a borrowed horse, his license 
 to practice law and his extra clothing, his sole 
 possessions, in his saddlebags. He was then 
 twenty-eight years of age. This familiar ac- 
 
56 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 count of his introduction to Springfield, given 
 by Joshua F. Speed, presents a vivid picture of 
 his status in life at this time: 
 
 He had ridden into town on a borrowed horse, 
 with no earthly property save a pair of saddlebags 
 containing a few clothes. I was a merchant at 
 Springfield, and kept a large country store, embrac- 
 ing drygoods, groceries, hardware, books, medicines, 
 bedclothes, mattresses— in fact, everything that the 
 country needed. Lincoln came into the store with 
 his saddlebags on his arm. He said he wanted to 
 buy the furniture for a single bed. The mattress, 
 blankets, sheets, coverlid, and pillow, according to 
 the figures made by me, would cost seventeen dol- 
 lars. He said that was perhaps cheap enough; but 
 small as the price was, he was unable to pay it. But 
 if I would credit him until Christmas, and his ex- 
 periment as a lawyer was a success, he would pay 
 then; saying in the saddest tone, "If I fail in this, 
 I do not know that I can ever pay you." As I looked 
 up at him, I thought then, and I think now, that I 
 never saw a sadder face. 
 
 I said to him, "You seem to be so much pained at 
 contracting so small a debt, I think I can suggest a 
 plan by which you can avoid the debt, and at the 
 same time attain your end. I have a large room 
 with a double bed upstairs, which you are very wel- 
 come to share with me." 
 
 "Where is your room?" said he. 
 
 "Upstairs," said I, pointing to a pair of winding 
 stairs which led from the store to my room. 
 
 He took his saddlebags on his arm, went up- 
 stairs, set them on the floor, and came down with 
 
The Doubt of the Man 57 
 
 the most changed expression of countenance. 
 Beaming with pleasure, he exclaimed: 
 "Well, Speed, I'm moved." 
 
 Lincoln was more successful in his young 
 manhood in politics than in business. Just 
 one month after his twenty-third birthday, on 
 March 9, 1832, a few weeks before he enlisted 
 in the Black Hawk War, he addressed a circu- 
 lar to the "People of Sangamon County" an- 
 nouncing his candidacy for representative in 
 the next General Assembly of the state. He 
 set forth his views upon public affairs, advo- 
 cated the building of highways and railroads, 
 the clearing and development of navigable 
 streams, and especially the Sangamon River, 
 condemned high rates of interest, and pro- 
 posed a law to fix the limits of usury. His com- 
 ment upon the subject of education is of espe- 
 cial significance. He said: 
 
 Upon the subject of education, not presuming 
 to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can 
 only say that I view it as the most important subject 
 which we as a people can be engaged in. That 
 every man may receive at least a moderate educa- 
 tion, and thereby be enabled to read the histories 
 of his own and other countries, by which he may 
 duly appreciate the value of our free institutions, 
 appears to be an object of vital importance, even 
 on this account alone, to say nothing of the advan- 
 
58 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 tages and satisfaction to be derived from all being 
 able to read the Scriptures, and other works both 
 of a religious and moral nature, for themselves. 
 
 For my part I desire to see the time when educa- 
 tion—and by its means, morality, sobriety, enter- 
 prise, and industry— shall become much more gen- 
 eral than at present, and should be gratified to have 
 it in my power to contribute something to the ad- 
 vancement of any measure which might have a ten- 
 dency to accelerate that happy period. 
 
 Returning from the Black Hawk War only 
 a few days before the election in August, 1832, 
 Lincoln as the Whig candidate for the Legis- 
 lature found himself pitted against the Rev. 
 Peter Cartwright, a famous itinerant Meth- 
 odist preacher, as the Democratic candidate. 
 Lincoln was defeated but was highly gratified 
 at the support of his neighbors in New Salem, 
 two hundred and seventy-seven of the two 
 hundred and ninety votes being in his favor. 
 This was the only political defeat he ever 
 experienced by direct vote of the people. 
 
 He was not discouraged by this initial de- 
 feat and came up for the same office again in 
 August, 1834. He was elected and took his 
 seat in the Legislature in the Capitol at Van- 
 dalia on December 1 of that year. He was re- 
 elected successively in 1836, in 1838, and in 
 1840, serving in all four full terms. 
 
The Doubt of the Man 59 
 
 Lincoln's record in the Legislature, while 
 it undoubtedly served to broaden his experi- 
 ence and to increase his confidence in himself, 
 was much like that of any other member of 
 that body. A few incidents got firmly recorded 
 in history. In 1836 there were nine repre- 
 sentatives in the General Assembly from 
 Sangamon County, the largest delegation in 
 the state. They were all over six feet in height 
 and were known as the "Long Nine." They 
 banded together to move the capital from Van- 
 dalia to Springfield. Lincoln got the chief 
 credit for their accomplishment when the capi- 
 tal was finally moved in 1837. There seems 
 no doubt that he did his full share in the log- 
 rolling that took place. 
 
 Lincoln took a stand on a vital issue of 
 public concern in 1837 which gave some inti- 
 mation of what was to be expected of him on 
 the slavery question in the future. Elijah P. 
 Lovejoy, publisher of an antislavery news- 
 paper, had been killed by a mob at Alton and 
 his press destroyed. The murder did not 
 excite great protest at the time, particularly in 
 political circles, because of the large and influ- 
 ential proslavery vote in Illinois. It was not 
 surprising, therefore, for the General Assem- 
 bly to pass resolutions condemning abolition 
 societies and by implication, at least, holding 
 
60 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 them responsible for such disturbances as the 
 murder of Love joy. The following resolu- 
 tions were passed on March 3, 1837: 
 
 Resolved by the General Assembly of the State 
 of Illinois: 
 
 That we highly disapprove of the formation of 
 Abolition societies, and of the doctrines promul- 
 gated by them. 
 
 That the right of property in slaves is sacred to 
 the slaveholding states by the Federal Constitution, 
 and that they cannot be deprived of that right with- 
 out their consent. 
 
 That the General Government cannot abolish 
 slavery in the District of Columbia against the con- 
 sent of the citizens of said district, without a mani- 
 fest breach of good faith. 
 
 That the governor be requested to transmit to 
 the states of Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, New 
 York and Connecticut a copy of the foregoing re- 
 port and resolutions. 
 
 Lincoln had the courage with one fellow 
 member of the General Assembly to place 
 upon the record the following protest against 
 these resolutions: 
 
 Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery 
 having passed both branches of the General Assem- 
 bly at its present session, the undersigned hereby 
 protest against the passage of the same. 
 
 They believe that the institution of slavery is 
 founded on both injustice and bad policy, but that 
 
The Doubt of the Man 61 
 
 the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather 
 to increase than abate its evils. 
 
 They believe that the Congress of the United 
 States has no power under the Constitution to inter- 
 fere with the institution of slavery in the different 
 states. 
 
 They believe that the Congress of the United 
 States has power under the Constitution to abolish 
 slavery in the District of Columbia, but that the 
 power ought not to be exercised unless at the request 
 of the people of the district. 
 
 The difference between these opinions and those 
 
 contained in the said resolutions is their reason 
 
 for entering this protest. 
 
 Dan Stone. 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 Representatives from the County of 
 
 Sangamon. 
 
 Thus at twenty-eight years of age Lincoln 
 recorded himself on the slavery issue. No 
 member of the General Assembly and no other 
 citizen of Illinois then dreamed that Lincoln 
 would stand resolutely by this policy for the 
 next quarter of a century and depart from it 
 only as President of the United States in the 
 issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation 
 on January 1, 1863, as a war measure to save 
 the Union. 
 
 Lincoln's experience in the Legislature 
 gave him his first real start in life. When his 
 meager training and equipment for public 
 
62 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 service is taken into account, his success was 
 phenomenal. When he took his seat in the 
 Capitol at Vandalia on December 1, 1834, he 
 was a bankrupt grocery keeper, postmaster of 
 a small river hamlet, surveyor's assistant, ex- 
 captain in the Black Hawk War, without prof- 
 itable business or profession and with very 
 uncertain prospects. He emerged from the 
 last session of the Legislature he attended as 
 a member on March 1, 1841, having been 
 four times elected to the office, having been 
 floor leader of the Whigs in the House and 
 twice their candidate for Speaker. In this 
 period he had located at Springfield, where he 
 was welcomed and honored for his services in 
 removing the capital from Vandalia to that 
 city. He had been admitted to the bar and 
 had entered into a partnership with one of the 
 leading lawyers of the state. In seven years 
 his fortunes had vastly changed. From a com- 
 paratively unknown roustabout opportunist 
 in a small river hamlet he had in these years 
 become a well-known resident of the capital 
 city of his state with a considerable reputation 
 in state politics with promise of wider recog- 
 nition. True, his income was still meager be- 
 cause his interest in politics was greater than 
 his interest in law. 
 
 Lincoln's greatest sorrow and his deepest 
 
The Doubt of the Man 63 
 
 despair in these formative years of his young 
 manhood came through his relations with 
 women. There is in the biographical record 
 a fragmentary story of a boyhood attachment 
 back in the Indiana days to a girl by the name 
 of Katie Roby. There is no record, however, 
 that Lincoln carried any lasting memory of 
 this relationship into his mature years. His 
 first love affair, which is now familiar to the 
 whole wide world, was with Ann Rutledge at 
 New Salem. When Ann and Abe first met, 
 she was nineteen and he was twenty-three. 
 Their first attachment sprang out of the fact 
 that Ann was disconsolate because one John 
 McNamar, with whom she fell in love at seven- 
 teen, had gone back to New York state, his 
 earlier home, to visit his people and had appar- 
 ently forgotten her. Living at her father's 
 tavern and seeing her discomfiture, Lincoln 
 sympathized with her. That they came at 
 length to love each other truly all biographers 
 seem to agree. The untimely death of Ann 
 Rutledge on August 25, 1835, brought Lin- 
 coln the second great sorrow of his life. The 
 death of his mother at nine years of age had 
 been a great blow. The death of his sweet- 
 heart at twenty-six was almost more than one 
 of his impressionable temperament could 
 bear. The love story of Ann and Abe has 
 
64 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 been magnified by many writers beyond its 
 due proportions and the effort to attribute 
 Lincoln's lifelong melancholy moods to this 
 experience in his life has not been sustained. 
 That he loved the girl, that he was well-nigh 
 prostrated at her death, seem true. The 
 record is equally clear that he took up anew 
 his duties as postmaster, surveyor, and handy 
 man at New Salem just as any other normal 
 person would have done after great misfor- 
 tune. 
 
 In less than a year he was involved in an- 
 other love affair. This time it was with Mary 
 Owens, who came from Kentucky to visit her 
 sister at New Salem. His heart was not really 
 enlisted. He got himself involved, felt that he 
 was under moral obligation to keep his en- 
 gagement, and was so crude and awkward a 
 lover as to advise the lady of his choice not 
 to have him. Lincoln was at his worst in this 
 incident. He did, indeed, as he said, make a 
 fool of himself. In a letter to his friend, Mrs. 
 O. H. Browning, written after he was "out of 
 the scrape," he recounted all the circum- 
 stances. One could wish that this letter had 
 never been written or that it might never have 
 come to public notice. It is now firmly em- 
 bedded in history and is reproduced here only 
 because it shows clearly the state of mind 
 
The Doubt of the Man 65 
 
 through which Lincoln was passing at this 
 period in his life. 
 
 Springfield, April 1, 1838. 
 Dear Madam: 
 
 Without apologizing for being egotistical, I shall 
 make the history of so much of my life as has elapsed 
 since I saw you the subject of this letter. And, by 
 the way, I now discover that, in order to give a full 
 and intelligent account of the things I have done 
 and suffered since I saw you, I shall necessarily have 
 to relate some that happened before. 
 
 It was, then, in the autumn of 1836 that a married 
 lady of my acquaintance and who was a great friend 
 of mine, being about to pay a visit to her father and 
 other relatives residing in Kentucky, proposed to 
 me that on her return she would bring a sister of 
 hers with her on condition that I would engage to 
 become her brother-in-law with all convenient des- 
 patch. I, of course, accepted the proposal, for you 
 know I could not have done otherwise, had I really 
 been averse to it; but privately, between you and 
 me, I was most confoundedly well pleased with the 
 project. I had seen the said sister some three years 
 before, thought her intelligent and agreeable, and I 
 saw no good objection to plodding life through 
 hand in hand with her. Time passed on, the lady 
 took her journey, and in due time returned, sister 
 in company sure enough. This stomached me a 
 little; for it appeared to me that her coming so read- 
 ily showed that she was a trifle too willing; but, on 
 reflection, it occurred to me that she might have 
 been prevailed on by her married sister to come, 
 without anything concerning me ever having been 
 
66 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 mentioned to her; and so I concluded that, if no 
 other objection presented itself, I would consent to 
 waive this. All this occurred to me on hearing of 
 her arrival in the neighborhood; for, be it remem- 
 bered, I had not yet seen her, except about three 
 years previous, as above mentioned. In a few days 
 we had an interview; and, although I had seen her 
 before, she did not look as my imagination had pic- 
 tured her. I knew she was oversize, but she now 
 appeared a fair match for Falstaff. I knew she was 
 called an "old maid," and I felt no doubt of the 
 truth of at least half of the appellation; but now, 
 when I beheld her, I could not for my life avoid 
 thinking of my mother; and this, not from withered 
 features, for her skin was too full of fat to permit 
 of its contracting into wrinkles, but from her want 
 of teeth, weather-beaten appearance in general, 
 and from a kind of notion that ran in my head that 
 nothing could have commenced at the size of in- 
 fancy and reached her present bulk in less than 
 thirty-five or forty years; and, in short, I was not at 
 all pleased with her. But what could I do? I had 
 told her sister I would take her for better or for 
 worse; and I made a point of honor and conscience 
 in all things to stick to my word, especially if others 
 had been induced to act on it, which in this case I 
 had no doubt they had; for I was now fairly con- 
 vinced that no other man on earth would have her, 
 and hence the conclusion that they were bent on 
 holding me to my bargain. "Well," thought I, "I 
 have said it, and, be the consequences what they 
 may, it shall not be my fault if I fail to do it." At 
 once I determined to consider her my wife; and, this 
 done, all my powers of discovery were put to work in 
 
The Doubt of the Man 67 
 
 search of perfections in her which might be fairly 
 set off against her defects. I tried to imagine her 
 handsome, which, but for her unfortunate corpu- 
 lency, was actually true. Exclusive of this, no 
 woman that I have ever seen has a finer face. I also 
 tried to convince myself that the mind was much 
 more to be valued than the person; and in this she 
 was not inferior, as I could discover, to any with 
 whom I had been acquainted. 
 
 Shortly after this, without coming to any positive 
 understanding with her, I set out for Vandalia, 
 when and where you first saw me. During my stay 
 there I had letters from her which did not change 
 my opinion of either her intellect or intention, but 
 on the contrary, confirmed it in both. 
 
 All this while, although I was fixed, "firm as the 
 surge-repelling rock/' in my resolution, I found I 
 was continually repenting the rashness which had 
 led me to make it. Through life, I have been in no 
 bondage, either real or imaginary, from the thrall- 
 dom of which I so much desired to be free. After 
 my return home, I saw nothing to change my 
 opinion of her in any particular. She was the same, 
 and so was I. I now spent my time in planning how 
 I might get along through life after my contem- 
 plated change of circumstances should have taken 
 place, and how I might procrastinate the evil day for 
 a time, which I really dreaded as much, perhaps 
 more, than an Irishman does the halter. 
 
 After all my suffering upon this deeply interesting 
 subject, here I am, wholly, unexpectedly, com- 
 pletely, out of the "scrape"; and now I want to 
 know if you can guess how I got out of it— out, 
 clear, in every sense of the term; no violation of 
 
68 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 word, honor or conscience. I don't believe you 
 can guess, and so I might as well tell you at once. As 
 the lawyer says, it was done in the manner follow- 
 ing, to-wit: After I had delayed the matter as long 
 as I thought I could in honor do (which, by the way, 
 had brought me around into the last fall), I con- 
 cluded I might as well bring it to a consummation 
 without further delay; and so I mustered my resolu- 
 tion, and made the proposal to her direct; but, 
 shocking to relate, she answered, No. At first I 
 supposed she did it through an affectation of mod- 
 esty, which I thought but ill became her under the 
 peculiar circumstances of her case; but on my re- 
 newal of the charge, I found she repelled it with 
 greater firmness than before. I tried again and 
 again, but with the same success, or rather with 
 the same want of success. 
 
 I finally was forced to give it up; at which I very 
 unexpectedly found myself mortified almost beyond 
 endurance. I was mortified, it seemed to me, in a 
 hundred different ways. My vanity was deeply 
 wounded by the reflection that I had been too stupid 
 to discover her intentions, and at the same time 
 never doubting that I understood them perfectly; 
 and also that she, whom I had taught myself to 
 believe nobody else would have, had actually re- 
 jected me with all my fancied greatness. And, to 
 cap the whole, I then for the first time began to 
 suspect that I was really a little in love with her. 
 But let it all go. I'll try and outlive it. Others 
 have been made fools of by the girls; but this can 
 never with truth be said of me. I most emphatically, 
 in this instance, made a fool of myself. I have now 
 come to the conclusion never again to think of 
 
The Doubt of the Man 69 
 
 marrying, and for this reason: I can never be satis- 
 fied with any one who would be blockhead enough 
 to have me. 
 
 When you receive this, write me a long yarn about 
 something to amuse me. Give my respects to Mr. 
 Browning. 
 
 Your sincere friend, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 Mrs. O. H. Browning. 
 
 Lincoln was once more to suffer humilia- 
 tion and great mental anguish before he finally 
 found himself at the altar. He was thirty and 
 Mary Todd was twenty-one when she came 
 to Springfield from Lexington, Kentucky, to 
 visit her sister, Mrs. Ninian W. Edwards. It 
 was a prompt but strange love affair. Lin- 
 coln, crude, uncouth, big, awkward, unaccus- 
 tomed to any of the niceties of social life, a 
 struggling young lawyer with scarcely a place 
 to hang his hat. Mary Todd from a well-to-do, 
 aristocratic Kentucky family, graduate of a 
 finishing school, an excellent French scholar, 
 at home in the ballroom, small, plump, viva- 
 cious, ambitious, stubborn, determined. 
 There is no accounting for cupid's behavior. 
 In a little over a year from the time of their 
 first meeting they had become engaged, had 
 quarreled, had made up and had quarreled 
 again. It was a stormy courtship. 
 
70 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 Finally, so one story goes, the wedding day 
 was set for January 1 , 1841. The time arrived, 
 the guests assembled at the Edwards home in 
 Springfield, and the bridegroom did not 
 appear. The authorities do not agree upon 
 what actually happened. There is no positive 
 evidence that the wedding day was fixed. 
 Lincoln himself was responsible for calling 
 the day in question, "the fatal first of Janu- 
 ary, 1841." The whole affair will always be 
 shrouded in mystery. It was nothing short of 
 a brain storm on Lincoln's part. A character- 
 istic period of depression followed the abrupt 
 breaking off of his engagement. The depth of 
 his despair— perhaps the blackest time in his 
 whole career— was voiced in a letter to John 
 T. Stuart, his first law partner, on January 23, 
 1841, which read in part: 
 
 For not giving you a general summary of news, 
 you must pardon me; it is not in my power to do so. 
 I am now the most miserable man living. If what. I 
 feel were equally distributed to the whole human 
 family, there would not be one cheerful face on the 
 earth. Whether I shall ever be better, I cannot tell; 
 I awfully forbode I shall not. To remain as I am 
 is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears 
 to me. The matter you speak of on my account you 
 may attend to as you say, unless you shall hear of 
 my condition forbidding it. I say this because I 
 fear I shall be unable to attend to any business here, 
 
The Doubt of the Man 71 
 
 and a change of scene might help me. If I could 
 be myself, I would rather remain at home with 
 Judge Logan. I can write no more. Your friend, 
 as ever, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 It is hard to believe but in a few weeks after 
 the "fatal first of January, 1841," this "most 
 miserable man living" was actually courting 
 Sarah Rickard, the seventeen-year-old sister of 
 his landlady. For several months Sarah was 
 beguiled by the attentions of a man almost 
 twice her age. It is believed that there was an 
 engagement between them. It only goes to 
 show that Abraham Lincoln was quite hu- 
 man, and oftentimes as foolish as he was inept 
 in dealing with women. 
 
 But he did not put Mary Todd out of his 
 mind. They were brought together again in 
 strange fashion. On August 27, 1842, Lin- 
 coln wrote a letter to the Sangamo Journal 
 lampooning a political opponent by the name 
 of James Shields. The letter was signed 
 "Aunt Rebecca." Shortly thereafter a second 
 letter holding Shields up to ridicule appeared 
 in the Journal. It also was signed "Aunt 
 Rebecca," but had been written in a spirit of 
 mirth by Mary Todd and a friend. Shields 
 was outraged and demanded the name of the 
 
72 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 author. Lincoln gallantly assumed author- 
 ship of both letters and Shields challenged 
 him to a duel. Lincoln accepted the chal- 
 lenge but wise friends managed to call off the 
 duel. The incident served to break the ice 
 between Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln. 
 Once their relations were resumed, they 
 moved promptly as the following notice, ap- 
 pearing in the Sangamo Journal on Novem- 
 ber 11, 1842, will indicate: 
 
 MARRIED: in this city, on the 4th., instant, at 
 the home of N. W. Edwards, Esq., by the Rev. 
 Charles Dresser, Abraham Lincoln to Miss Mary 
 Todd, daughter of Robert S. Todd, Esq., of Lex- 
 ington, Ky. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was anchored at last. 
 The uncertainty, the emotional ups and 
 downs of eleven years of his young manhood 
 came to an end. There is no evidence what- 
 ever that in all the depression and anguish of 
 these troubled years he resorted to religion 
 for solace or put any reliance upon a Power 
 beyond himself. Indeed, Herndon and 
 Lamon, two of the earlier biographers, make 
 him out as an infidel. It is commonly agreed 
 that he did read during the New Salem days 
 Paine's The Age of Reason and Volney's 
 Ruins. It is even alleged that Lincoln wrote 
 
The Doubt of the Man 73 
 
 an essay as a result of his reading of Paine and 
 Volney in which he demonstrated: 
 
 "First, that the Bible was not God's revela- 
 tion; and 
 
 "Secondly, that Jesus was not the Son of 
 God." 
 
 The story goes that Lincoln's friend, Sam- 
 uel Hill, snatched the essay away from him 
 and burned it. No tangible evidence of its 
 existence is available. Dr. William E. Barton 
 gallantly assails Herndon and Lamon and 
 offers in rebuttal, through a letter written by 
 Mentor Graham, the New Salem schoolmas- 
 ter, evidence that Lincoln wrote a little treatise 
 in defense of universal salvation. Since 
 neither document can be produced the debate 
 might as well end. It is not inconceivable that 
 Lincoln wrote both documents. He was fond 
 of polemics. He had a habit of bounding ideas 
 in writing. Certainly he produced nothing 
 profound in this period. Whether he was 
 infidel or Christian, since we do not have his 
 testimony, we do not know. Intolerance 
 thrived on the frontier. An infidel, accord- 
 ing to many of the itinerant preachers in Lin- 
 coln's New Salem days, was one who believed 
 that the earth was round. To satisfy their 
 
74 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 dogma one had to believe it was flat. A Chris- 
 tian was one who accepted every word in the 
 Bible as literal truth. One could almost 
 prove by the intolerant attitudes of both be- 
 lievers and unbelievers that Lincoln was 
 neither infidel nor Christian. 
 
 Too much significance should not be at- 
 tached to references of a young man to the 
 Deity in his letters, public papers, and ad- 
 dresses. The charge that Lincoln was an 
 infidel, however, should be viewed in the light 
 of the following statements made by him dur- 
 ing the period under discussion: 
 
 Let those materials be molded into general in- 
 telligence, sound morality, and, in particular, a 
 reverence for the Constitution and laws; and that we 
 improved to the last, that we remained free to the 
 last, that we revered his name to the last, that dur- 
 ing his long sleep we permitted no hostile foot to 
 pass over or to desecrate his resting place, shall be 
 that which to learn the last trump shall awaken our 
 Washington. 
 
 Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, 
 as the rock of its basis; and as truly as has been said 
 of the only greater institution, "The gates of hell 
 shall not prevail against it" (Lyceum Address, Janu- 
 ary 27, 1838). 
 
 We further say that with however much care 
 selections may be made, there will be some unfaitlv 
 
The Doubt of the Man 75 
 
 ful and dishonest in both classes. The experience 
 of the whole world, in all begone times, proves this 
 true. The Saviour of the world chose twelve dis- 
 ciples, and even one of that small number, selected 
 by superhuman wisdom, turned out a traitor and a 
 devil. And it may not be improper here to add that 
 Judas carried the bag— was the subtreasurer of the 
 Saviour and his disciples. . . . 
 
 If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and ex- 
 pand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of 
 its almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the 
 cause of my country, deserted by all the world be- 
 side, and I standing up boldly and alone, and hurl- 
 ing defiance at her victorious oppressors (Speech on 
 Sub treasury, December 20, 1839). 
 
 How true it is that "God tempers the wind to 
 the shorn lamb/' or in other words, that he renders 
 the worst of human conditions tolerable, while he 
 permits the best to be nothing better than tolerable. 
 
 Tell your mother I have not got her "present" 
 [an "Oxford" Bible] with me, but I intend to read 
 it regularly when I return home. I doubt not that 
 it is really, as she says, the best cure for the blues, 
 could one but take it according to the truth {Letter 
 to Mary Speed, September 27, 1841). 
 
 In very truth he was, the noblest work of God— 
 an honest man. . . . 
 
 To Almighty God we commend him; and, in His 
 name, implore the aid and protection, of His om- 
 nipotent right arm, for his bereaved and disconso- 
 
76 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 late family (Eulogy on Benjamin Ferguson, Febru- 
 ary 8, 1842). 
 
 To have expected them to do otherwise than they 
 did— to have expected them not to meet denuncia- 
 tion with denunciation, crimination with crimina- 
 tion, and anathema with anathema— was to expect a 
 reversal of human nature, which is God's decree 
 and can never be reversed. . . . 
 
 The universal sense of mankind on any subject is 
 an argument, or at least an influence, not easily 
 overcome. The success of the argument in favor of 
 the existence of an overruling Providence mainly 
 depends upon that sense. . . . 
 
 As applying to their cause, they deny the doctrine 
 of unpardonable sin; as in Christianity it is taught, 
 so in this they teach— "While the lamp holds out to 
 burn, the vilest sinner may return" {Temperance 
 Address, February 22, 1842). 
 
 I was always superstitious; I believe God made me 
 one of the instruments of bringing your Fanny and 
 you together, which union I have no doubt he had 
 foreordained. Whatever he designs he will do for 
 me yet. "Stand still and see the salvation of the 
 Lord," is my text just now (Letter to J. F. Speed, 
 July 4, 1842). 
 
 These utterances of Abraham Lincoln dur- 
 ing his young manhood, crude as some of them 
 are, and little as they reveal the literary style 
 of which he later became master, give evi- 
 
The Doubt of the Man 77 
 
 dence of his knowledge of the Bible and his 
 disposition to rely upon its fundamental 
 truths in illuminating his discussion of worldly 
 subjects. They do not strengthen the charge 
 that he was an infidel; neither do they give the 
 slightest revelation of a personal faith or of an 
 individual religious fervor. The debate 
 about his faith or his religion, if religion is to 
 be distinguished from faith, at this period in 
 his life is pointless. The undisputed fact re- 
 mains that he came to his thirty-third year 
 without spiritual awakening, without having 
 experienced "conversion," without public 
 declaration of faith, without church member- 
 ship and without regular attendance upon 
 religious services. 
 
 It is to be observed, however, that he came 
 to his thirty-third year, through a period of 
 successes and failures and great emotional dis- 
 turbances, with certain assured attributes of 
 personality and character. He had a reputa- 
 tion for absolute honesty. He had an irrepres- 
 sible urge to give decent account of himself 
 among his fellows. He was a great awkward 
 hulk of a man possessed of unusual physical 
 strength in which he took pride and which he 
 was never known to employ for mean or un- 
 worthy ends. Kindness, gentleness, fairness 
 were withal among his outstanding character- 
 
78 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 istics. He had the genuine affection, honestly 
 won, of a growing host of friends. His char- 
 acter was unassailed, and his combined quali- 
 ties of mind and heart and impulse had al- 
 ready singled him out as a young man of 
 greater than ordinary promise. In short, de- 
 bate about his infidelity or his belief aside, all 
 the positive attributes of the man at thirty- 
 three could be called "Christian. " 
 
 With all these qualities he had by no means 
 come to the full stature of the man he was to 
 be. He matured slowly. His literary style, as 
 Professor Daniel Kilham Dodge so admirably 
 demonstrated, was an evolution. So were his 
 character, his convictions, his power, his faith. 
 If he had died at thirty-three, he would long 
 since have been forgotten save perhaps for the 
 courage and vision he displayed in recording 
 himself on the slavery question in the General 
 Assembly of Illinois in 1837. 
 
 America owes much to Mary Todd Lincoln. 
 Her fiery temperament, her disordered mind, 
 her tragic life and death have left a pathetic 
 picture. Nevertheless, she brought Abraham 
 Lincoln to earth. The doubting, uncertain 
 period of his young manhood came to an end 
 as he stood at the altar with her on November 
 4, 1842. Henceforth a developing purpose 
 in his life is to be discerned. The full part 
 
The Doubt of the Man 79 
 
 her ambition for him played in keeping his 
 own zeal alive and in holding him to a steady 
 course, in spite of defeats and disappoint- 
 ments, can never be known. The enduring 
 convictions of the lawyer and politician, estab- 
 lished in the eighteen years they lived together 
 and reared a family in Springfield, date from 
 their wedding day. Those convictions were 
 destined to stand the nation in good stead in 
 its time of greatest need. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE CONVICTIONS OF THE LAWYER 
 AND POLITICIAN 
 
 THE productive period of Lincoln's life 
 may be said to fall chiefly within the 
 eighteen years intervening between his mar- 
 riage in 1 842 and his election to the Presidency 
 in 1860. During that time he established a 
 home of his own, reared a family, became a 
 successful and highly respected leader at the 
 bar in Illinois, steadily interested himself in 
 state and national politics, served a term in 
 Congress, and gradually won distinction in 
 discussion of the public questions of his time 
 centering in the slavery issue. These eighteen 
 years were indispensable in his career in his 
 preparation for the great task that awaited 
 him. They gave him balance, poise, steadi- 
 ness of purpose, confidence in himself and 
 knowledge of his own powers and the courage 
 to express his irrevocable convictions on vital 
 public issues. These years also brought him a 
 constantly widening acquaintance among the 
 political leaders of the day in his own state and 
 in the nation and won for him wide reputa- 
 80 
 

 LINCOLN THE CIRCUIT RIDER 
 
 Statue in Carle Park, Urbana, Illinois. Photo used by courtesy of Lorado Taft, 
 Sculptor. Chicago, Illinois. 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 81 
 
 tion as man of absolute honesty, keen intelli- 
 gence, and fitness for leadership. 
 
 No rosy picture can be painted of Lincoln's 
 home and family life. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln 
 took up residence immediately after their mar- 
 riage in the Globe Tavern in Springfield. 
 Here they lived for about a year, paying four 
 dollars a week for board and room for the two 
 of them. They then rented a one-story frame 
 house where they lived for several months. 
 In May, 1844, Lincoln bought a story-and-a- 
 half frame house located on the northeast 
 corner of Jackson and Eighth Streets in 
 Springfield. The purchase price was fifteen 
 hundred dollars. Here the Lincolns lived 
 for sixteen years. This was the only home 
 Lincoln ever owned. 
 
 On May 18, 1843, Lincoln wrote to his 
 friend, Joshua F. Speed, in Kentucky: 
 
 I reckon it will scarcely be in our power to visit 
 Kentucky this year. Besides poverty and the neces- 
 sity of attending to business, those "coming events," 
 I suspect, would be somewhat in the way. 
 
 Their first son, Robert Todd, came to the 
 Lincolns at the Globe Tavern on August 1, 
 1843. He was the only child to grow to man- 
 hood. He died in Manchester, Vermont, on 
 July 26, 1926. Three other sons were born to 
 
82 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 them at their permanent home in Springfield: 
 Edward Baker, March 10, 1846, who died in 
 the house in which he was born on February 
 1, 1850; William Wallace, December 21, 1850, 
 who died in the White House on February 20, 
 1862; Thomas, known as "Tad," April 4, 
 1853, who died in Chicago on July 15, 1871. 
 
 There is abundant evidence of Lincoln's 
 devotion to his children and of his deep grief 
 at the death of his second son in 1850 and of 
 "Willie" at the White House in 1862. The 
 record also clearly reveals his unwavering loy- 
 alty and faithfulness to Mary Todd. His home 
 was and was not his castle, however. He loved 
 his wife and children and cherished his home, 
 but he had little peace in the family circle. 
 Mary Todd had a temper and was tempera- 
 mental. Lincoln retreated to the office or 
 to the law circuit with relief. His easygoing 
 habits and his total lack of interest in formal 
 social affairs must have vexed Mary as much 
 as her excitable nature and social ambitions 
 troubled him. No evidence of his ever having 
 "talked back" to his wife in any unseemly way 
 has ever been produced. He seems to have 
 had the wisdom to keep out of the way dur- 
 ing her most violent fits of temper. The 
 inherent relation he bore to her throughout 
 their life together was demonstrated when the 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 83 
 
 news came from Chicago to Springfield on 
 May 18, 1860, that he had been nominated by 
 the Republican party for the Presidency. He 
 was in the office of the Illinois State Journal 
 in Springfield when the news of the third and 
 final ballot was received. He did not wait 
 long for the congratulations of his friends and 
 is reported to have said: ' 'There is a little 
 woman over on Eighth Street that will be glad 
 to hear the news; if you'll excuse me, I'll go 
 and tell her." 
 
 Considering his fragmentary preparation 
 for the practice of law, Lincoln's reputation 
 as a lawyer developed rapidly. Indeed, his 
 early ability at the bar and the extent of his 
 practice far exceeded his skill at acquiring a 
 competence. On April 15, 1837, the Sangamo 
 Journal published the following notice: 
 
 J. T. Stuart and A. Lincoln, Attorneys and Coun- 
 selors at law, will practice, conjointly, in the Courts 
 of this Judicial Circuit. Office No. 4, Hoffman's 
 Row, upstairs, Springfield, April 12, 1837. 
 
 This partnership marked the beginning of 
 Lincoln's law practice. It was a most fortu- 
 nate arrangement for him. Lincoln had 
 known Stuart in the Black Hawk War and in 
 the Illinois Legislature. Stuart was about Lin- 
 coln's age but had graduated from college 
 
84 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 before coming from Kentucky to Springfield 
 and had already established himself as a 
 lawyer. Stuart was interested in politics and 
 was anxious to go to Congress. His ambition 
 was realized in August, 1838, when he was 
 elected to Congress over Stephen A. Douglas. 
 Stuart was re-elected to Congress in 1 840. The 
 management of the office of the firm, and even 
 the conduct of many of its cases, fell rather 
 promptly upon the junior partner. 
 
 The practice of the firm was extensive from 
 the beginning. The cases were mainly made 
 up of petty differences and were not especially 
 lucrative. It is said that the income of the 
 partnership never exceeded sixteen hundred 
 dollars a year. The four years he spent with 
 Stuart constituted a sort of practical law course 
 for Lincoln by the case system. He had the 
 benefit of the reputation of his partner, and 
 at the same time he had to stand on his own 
 feet. The partnership was dissolved in 1841 
 when Stuart returned to Congress for a second 
 term. 
 
 There was something almost providential 
 in Lincoln's association with the outstanding 
 men of Illinois in his early years. His associa- 
 tion with Stuart had given him a start. On 
 April 14, 1841, Lincoln entered into partner- 
 ship with Judge Stephen T. Logan under the 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 85 
 
 firm name of Logan and Lincoln. Logan also 
 hailed from Kentucky. He was about ten 
 years older than Lincoln and had already 
 served two years as Circuit Judge. He stood 
 at the head of the Illinois bar. His office was 
 a veritable training school for young lawyers. 
 Systematic, painstaking, thorough, he insisted 
 that briefs for all cases should be carefully 
 prepared. Lincoln needed and profited by 
 the discipline he got from contact with Logan. 
 He was compelled to give up his disorderly 
 ways for reasoned, methodical procedures. 
 Logan and Lincoln soon became known as 
 one of the leading law firms in Illinois. Lin- 
 coln participated personally in thirty-nine Su- 
 preme Court cases during this partnership. 
 Logan, as the senior member of the firm, took 
 the lion's share of their income, but Lincoln's 
 earnings for the first time in his career now 
 furnished him with more than the bare neces- 
 sities of life. The partnership continued for 
 over three years. The exact date of its dissolu- 
 tion seems not to be known but it was late in 
 1844 or early in 1845. The reason later given 
 by Judge Logan was that he wished to take his 
 son in with him. The fact that the partners 
 were each experiencing the itch to go to Con- 
 gress may have had something to do with the 
 matter. In any event, they terminated their 
 
86 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 relationship amicably. If Lincoln's four years 
 with Stuart were equivalent to a college course 
 in law, surely his three or more years with 
 Judge Logan constituted a splendid postgradu- 
 ate course. In seven years of tutelage under 
 his well-recognized superiors he had himself 
 become an outstanding member of the Illinois 
 bar. 
 
 It is not surprising that he now wished to be 
 his own master. He took as his partner a 
 young, inexperienced man, William H. Hern- 
 don, who had studied law in the office of 
 Logan and Lincoln. The firm of Lincoln 
 and Herndon was dissolved by the death of 
 the senior partner at Washington, D. C, on 
 April 15, 1865. Throughout the more than 
 twenty years of their association, Herndon was 
 "Billy" to Lincoln and the senior partner was 
 "Mr. Lincoln" to Herndon. Lincoln divided 
 all the fees equally with Herndon. The firm 
 had plenty of work to do and made a modest 
 living. Herndon was office man and Lincoln 
 the special pleader and circuit rider. He was 
 a familiar figure in court proceedings in the 
 Eighth Judicial Circuit of Illinois, which for 
 the major portion of his circuit-riding days in- 
 cluded fourteen counties. His life on the cir- 
 cuit makes up one of the most dramatic phases 
 of his career at the bar and was largely instru- 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 87 
 
 mental in shaping his character and in de- 
 veloping his rare capacity to deal with all man- 
 ners of men. It also constituted, perhaps, his 
 happiest professional experience. 
 
 Disillusioned in politics, Lincoln's fame as a 
 lawyer really dates from his return in 1849 
 from his one term in Congress with renewed 
 determination to stick to the law. The prac- 
 tice of the firm was greatly widened and many 
 large business concerns put their legal affairs 
 in Lincoln's hands. The most profitable re- 
 tainer came from the Illinois Central Rail- 
 road. During his most prosperous years Lin- 
 coln's income averaged from two to three 
 thousand dollars a year. When he was elected 
 to the Presidency he was worth from ten to 
 fifteen thousand dollars. 
 
 Perhaps the most discriminating judgment 
 of Lincoln as a lawyer from one of his con- 
 temporaries was made by Justice David Davis, 
 of the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 Justice Davis said: 
 
 I enjoyed for over twenty years the personal 
 friendship of Mr. Lincoln. We were admitted to 
 the bar about the same time and traveled for many 
 years what is known in Illinois as the Eighth Judi- 
 cial Circuit. In 1848, when I first went on the 
 bench, the circuit embraced fourteen counties, and 
 Mr. Lincoln went with the Court to every county. 
 
88 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 Railroads were not then in use, and our mode of 
 travel was either on horseback or in buggies. 
 
 This simple life he loved, preferring it to the 
 practice of the law in a city, where, although the 
 remuneration would be greater, the opportunity 
 would be less for mixing with the great body of the 
 people, who loved him, and whom he loved. Mr. 
 Lincoln was transferred from the bar of that circuit 
 to the office of President of the United States, 
 having been without official position since he left 
 Congress in 1849. In all the elements that con- 
 stitute the great lawyer he had few equals. He was 
 great both at nisi prius and before an appellate 
 tribunal. He seized the strong points of a cause, 
 and presented them with clearness and great com- 
 pactness. His mind was logical and direct, and he 
 did not indulge in extraneous discussion. Generali- 
 ties and platitudes had no charms for him. An un- 
 failing vein of humor never deserted him; and he 
 was always able to chain the attention of court and 
 jury, when the cause was the most uninteresting, by 
 the appropriateness of his anecdotes. 
 
 His power of comparison was large, and he rarely 
 failed in a legal discussion to use that mode of rea- 
 soning. The framework of his mental and moral 
 being was honesty, and a wrong cause was poorly 
 defended by him. The ability which some eminent 
 lawyers possess, of explaining away the bad points 
 of a cause by ingenious sophistry, was denied him. 
 In order to bring into full activity his great powers 
 it was necessary that he should be convinced of the 
 right and justice of the matter which he advocated. 
 When so convinced, whether the cause was great 
 or small, he was usually successful. He read law- 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 89 
 
 books but little, except when the cause in hand 
 made it necessary; yet he was usually self-reliant, 
 depending on his own resources, and rarely consult- 
 ing his brother lawyers, either on the management 
 of his case or on the legal questions involved. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was the fairest and most accommodat- 
 ing of practitioners, granting all favors which he 
 could do consistently with his duty to his client, and 
 rarely availing himself of an unwary oversight of 
 his adversary. 
 
 He hated wrong and oppression everywhere; and 
 many a man whose fraudulent conduct was under- 
 going review in a court of justice has writhed under 
 his terrific indignation and rebukes. He was the 
 most simple and unostentatious of men in his habits, 
 having few wants, and those easily supplied. To 
 his honor be it said, that he never took from a client, 
 even when the cause was gained, more than he 
 thought the service was worth and the client could 
 reasonably afford to pay. The people where he 
 practiced law were not rich, and his charges were 
 always small. When he was elected President, I 
 question whether there was a lawyer in the circuit, 
 who had been at the bar as long a time, whose 
 means were not larger. It did not seem to be one 
 of the purposes of his life to accumulate a fortune. 
 In fact, outside of his profession, he had no knowl- 
 edge of the way to make money, and he never even 
 attempted it. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was loved by his brethren of the bar; 
 and no body of men will grieve more at his death, 
 or pay more sincere tributes to his memory. His 
 presence on the circuit was watched for with inter- 
 est, and never failed to produce joy and hilarity. 
 
90 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 When casually absent, the spirits of both bar and 
 people were depressed. He was not fond of con- 
 troversy, and would compromise a lawsuit whenever 
 practicable. 
 
 Lincoln always had a yen for public office. 
 When he quit the Illinois Legislature in 1841, 
 he did not lose his interest in politics. From 
 time to time he tried to make himself believe 
 he was out of politics, but he never wholly suc- 
 ceeded. He was no sooner out of the Legis- 
 lature than he began thinking about going to 
 Congress, and within six months after his mar- 
 riage he was actually seeking the Whig nomi- 
 nation for Congress. Failing in this attempt, 
 he patiently stayed in Whig party harness and 
 became a Presidential elector in the campaign 
 of 1844. He campaigned vigorously for his 
 idol on the Whig ticket, Henry Clay, and with 
 great regret saw Clay defeated by Polk. 
 
 Nothing daunted at the failure of the Whig 
 national ticket, Lincoln continued to work 
 steadily to get the Whig nomination for Con- 
 gress in 1846. He showered his many 
 acquaintances in the Seventh Congressional 
 District with letters and took the stump when- 
 ever opportunity offered. He frightened off 
 all other candidates and was nominated for 
 Congress by acclamation at the Whig Con- 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 91 
 
 vention at Petersburg on May 1, 1846. He 
 had even taken care that his law partner, 
 Herndon, should be secretary of the Conven- 
 tion. In the midst of his campaign he found 
 the country deeply involved in the War with 
 Mexico. He was elected to Congress on 
 August 3, 1846, by the unprecedented major- 
 ity of fifteen hundred and eleven votes over 
 his Democratic rival, the Rev. Peter Cart- 
 wright, the famous Methodist revivalist, who 
 had defeated him in his first effort to go to the 
 state Legislature fourteen years earlier. 
 
 He had plenty of time to meditate upon 
 his victory. The Congress for which he was 
 chosen would not have its first session for 
 more than a year. "Being elected to Con- 
 gress/' he wrote his old friend Speed, "though 
 I am very grateful to our friends for having 
 done it, has not pleased me as much as I ex- 
 pected." While Lincoln was marking time, 
 Stephen A. Douglas was elevated from the 
 House to the United States Senate by the 
 Illinois Legislature on December 14, 1846. 
 
 In July, 1847, Lincoln was one of the three 
 delegates from Sangamon County to a monster 
 River and Harbor Convention in Chicago. 
 He thus made his first trip to Chicago by stage 
 at the age of thirty-eight. This is how his per- 
 sonal appearance was then described: 
 
92 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 Tall, angular and awkward, he had on a short- 
 waisted, thin swallowtail coat, a short vest of same 
 material, thin pantaloons, scarcely coming down to 
 his ankles, a straw hat and a pair of brogans with 
 woolen socks. 
 
 Lincoln took his seat in Congress on Decem- 
 ber 6, 1847, and sat through two sessions, the 
 first session ending on August 14, 1848, and 
 the short session opening on December 4, 
 1848, and ending on March 3, 1849. In the 
 meantime Lincoln had participated in the 
 Whig National Convention held in Philadel- 
 phia in June, 1848, had worked industriously 
 for the nomination of Zachary Taylor for the 
 Presidency and had campaigned in New Eng- 
 land and in Illinois for Taylor and Fillmore, 
 who were nominated at Philadelphia and who 
 were successful at the polls in November, 
 1848. Lincoln's term in Congress by all 
 methods of reckoning was a flat failure. His 
 principal speech, opposing President Polk's 
 conduct of the Mexican War, undid him com- 
 pletely with his home constituency and re- 
 sulted in the defeat of his old law partner, 
 Logan, who sought to succeed him in Con- 
 gress. 
 
 Back home in Springfield in April, 1849, 
 Lincoln was indeed a disconsolate ex-congress- 
 man. He stubbornly persisted in his desire 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 93 
 
 for office. Feeling, perhaps justly, that "Old 
 Zack" owed him something, he employed his 
 genius at letterwriting and all the adroit po- 
 litical maneuvering of which he was master to 
 secure appointment as Commissioner of the 
 General Land Office and was ignominiously 
 turned down. There was some talk later of 
 his being given a consolation prize as Gov- 
 ernor of the Oregon Territory, but there is no 
 record that he was ever offered the place. He 
 was offered the office of Secretary of Oregon, 
 which he promptly declined. 
 
 Thus at forty years of age, deeply depressed 
 and humiliated, he thought his political 
 career was ended. And yet, he kept an eye 
 out for political signals. He wrote and was 
 the first signer of a call to the Whigs of Illinois 
 for a State Convention to be held in Spring- 
 field on December 4, 1851, "to take into con- 
 sideration such action as upon consultation 
 and deliberation may be deemed necessary, 
 proper, and effective for the best interests of 
 the party. . . ." He was a Presidential 
 elector in 1852 and saw the virtual elimina- 
 tion of the Whig party in the defeat of Win- 
 field Scott by Franklin Pierce. 
 
 It was not long until Lincoln's perennial 
 desire for office put him on a new trail, as the 
 following letters testify: 
 
94 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 Letter to Charles Hoyt 
 
 Clinton, De Witt Co., November 10, 1854. 
 
 Dear Sir: You used to express a good deal of 
 partiality for me, and if you are still so, now is the 
 time. Some friends here are really for me, for the 
 U. S. Senate, and I should be very grateful if you 
 could make a mark for me among your members. 
 Please write me at all events giving me the names, 
 post offices, and "political position" of members 
 round about you. Direct to Springfield. 
 
 Let this be confidential. Yours truly, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 Letter to T. J. Henderson 
 
 Springfield, November 27, 1854. 
 My Dear Sir: It has come round that a Whig 
 may, by possibility, be elected to the United States 
 Senate; and I want the chance of being the man. 
 You are a member of the legislature, and have a vote 
 to give. Think it over, and see whether you can 
 do better than go for me. Write me at all events, 
 and let this be confidential. Yours truly, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 Quite unexpectedly and really contrary to 
 his wishes, Lincoln was elected on November 
 7, 1854, to the very Legislature which was to 
 choose a United States Senator. Feeling that 
 membership in the Legislature would inter- 
 fere with his senatorial ambitions, he promptly 
 resigned. A bitter contest ensued in the 
 Legislature and Lincoln was obliged to yield 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 95 
 
 finally in favor of his friend, Lyman Trum- 
 bull, who was elected to the Senate, after sev- 
 eral sessions and ten ballots, on February 8, 
 1855. 
 
 Lincoln was greatly depressed at this fail- 
 ure and on the surface, at least, put his law 
 practice above his political ambitions. Events 
 moved rapidly for him thereafter, however. 
 Persuaded by his law partner, Herndon, he 
 now gradually eased himself out of his old 
 Whig associations and over into the newly 
 formed Republican party. He was a bit sur- 
 prised but not distressed when word came 
 back from the first National Republican Con- 
 vention, held in Philadelphia in June, 1856, 
 that one hundred and ten votes had been cast 
 for him as the Vice-Presidential nominee. 
 John C. Fremont, the Pathfinder, was named 
 to head the ticket and William L. Dayton, of 
 New Jersey, as his running mate. Lincoln 
 threw himself vigorously into the campaign 
 and endeavored to swing the Illinois Whigs 
 over to the support of the Republican ticket. 
 In the famous three-cornered fight which en- 
 sued Fremont and Dayton represented the 
 new party, Buchanan and Breckenridge, the 
 Democrats; and Fillmore and Donelson, the 
 American party. Lincoln and many other 
 orators for the new party failed signally in 
 
96 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 their chief campaign objectives, for it was 
 really the Whigs who elected Buchanan by 
 dividing their votes largely between him and 
 Fillmore. Lincoln emerged from the cam- 
 paign well disciplined in defeat but recalling 
 the complimentary vote he had received for 
 the Vice-Presidential nomination at Philadel- 
 phia and with an awakening consciousness 
 that there would be chance for him to head 
 the ticket four years hence. 
 
 The next step was the inevitable contest 
 with Douglas for the U. S. senatorship in 1858. 
 At the Republican State Convention, held in 
 Springfield on June 16, 1858, this resolution 
 was unanimously and enthusiastically 
 adopted: 
 
 Resolved, That Abraham Lincoln is the first and 
 only choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the 
 United States Senate, as the successor of Stephen A. 
 Douglas. 
 
 Douglas had been named by the Democrats 
 as their candidate at the State Convention 
 held in Springfield on April 21, though not 
 without a factional fight and a bolt of the 
 Buchanan postmasters and other Federal 
 officeholders. 
 
 Thus began the most noteworthy political 
 campaign in American history. Lincoln chal- 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 97 
 
 lenged Douglas in the great debates that fol- 
 lowed. It is now the common judgment of 
 mankind that Lincoln won the debates; but 
 Douglas won the senatorship. On January 6, 
 1859, the joint ballot of the Legislature gave 
 Douglas fifty-four votes and Lincoln forty-one. 
 It was a strict party vote and the conclusion 
 was known when the November, 1858, elec- 
 tion for members of the Legislature was held. 
 
 The debates over and the current issue de- 
 termined, Lincoln had high need of getting 
 back to the law. The situation in which he 
 now found himself is almost pathetically re- 
 vealed in his response to a request from Nor- 
 man B. Judd, chairman of the Republican 
 State Committee, for a contribution to help 
 make up the postelection deficit. This is the 
 letter written by the man who was elected 
 President two years later: 
 
 Springfield, November 16, 1858. 
 
 Dear Sir: Yours of the 15th is just received. I 
 wrote you the same day. As to the pecuniary mat- 
 ter, I am willing to pay according to my ability; 
 but I am the poorest hand living to get others to 
 pay. 
 
 I have been on expenses so long without earning 
 anything that I am absolutely without money now 
 for even household purposes. Still, if you can put in 
 two hundred and fifty dollars for me toward dis- 
 charging the debt of the committee, I will allow it 
 
98 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 when you and I settle the private matter between 
 us. 
 
 This, with what I have already paid, and with an 
 outstanding note of mine, will exceed my sub- 
 scription of five hundred dollars. This, too, is ex- 
 clusive of my ordinary expenses during the cam- 
 paign, all of which being added to my loss of time 
 and business, bears pretty heavily upon one no 
 better off in [this] world's goods than I; but as I 
 had the post of honor, it is not for me to be over- 
 nice. You are feeling badly,—" And this too shall 
 pass away," never fear. 
 
 Yours as ever, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 On November 19, 1858, in a letter to A. G. 
 Henry, Lincoln said in part: 
 
 I am glad I made the late race. It gave me a 
 hearing on the great and durable question of the 
 age, which I could have had in no other way; and 
 though I now sink out of view, and shall be for- 
 gotten, I believe I have made some marks which 
 will tell for the cause of civil liberty long after I 
 am gone. 
 
 This was a very humble statement; but the 
 plain truth was, whatever his casual utter- 
 ances, Lincoln had no intention of sinking out 
 of view. The Presidential bee was already 
 snugly tucked away in his bonnet. The law 
 never again claimed his undivided time. 
 Speeches and letter writing to keep his politi- 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 99 
 
 cal fences in repair occupied much of his time 
 in ensuing months. The celebrated address 
 at the Cooper Institute on February 27, 1860, 
 introduced him anew to the nation and clearly 
 paved the way for his nomination for the 
 Presidency on the Republican ticket at the 
 Wigwam Convention in Chicago on May 18, 
 1860. There were four tickets in the field. 
 Lincoln had forced a split in the Democratic 
 party in his debates with Douglas. The Rail- 
 splitter at last triumphed over the Little 
 Giant. When Lincoln stepped forward on 
 the portico of the Capitol to deliver his in- 
 augural address on March 4, 1861, he looked 
 about him in some embarrassment at what to 
 do with his hat. Douglas stepped forward, 
 took the President's hat and held it while he 
 delivered his address. 
 
 Lincoln held steadfastly to the slavery issue 
 as the "great and durable question of the age" 
 as he sought office all through these years. The 
 evolution of his thinking on the slavery ques- 
 tion may readily be discerned from his letters 
 and public addresses. Biographers and public 
 lecturers have striven to put words into his 
 mouth concerning his views of slavery upon 
 the occasion of his second visit to New Orleans 
 and his solemn vows of what he would some 
 day do to that institution. There is little evi- 
 
100 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 dence in support of these alleged utterances. 
 In his autobiographical sketch written in 1860 
 he refers to both trips to New Orleans and 
 does not mention slavery. In that same sketch 
 he refers to the resolutions on the question of 
 domestic slavery which he and Dan Stone 
 entered upon the Illinois House Journal on 
 March 3, 1837, to which reference has already 
 been made in these pages. It will be remem- 
 bered that these resolutions held that "slavery 
 is founded on both injustice and bad policy/' 
 that "the promulgation of Abolition doctrines 
 tends rather to increase than abate its evils," 
 that the "Congress of the United States has 
 no power under the Constitution to interfere 
 with the institution of slavery in the different 
 states/' and that the "Congress of the United 
 States has the power, under the Constitution, 
 to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, 
 but that the power ought not to be exercised 
 unless at the request of the people of the Dis- 
 trict." 
 
 This was Lincoln's position on the slavery 
 question in 1837. In his short autobiography 
 in referring to this position, he said, "and so 
 far as it goes, it was then the same that it is 
 now." 
 
 There is authentic record that as early as 
 1841 Lincoln had conceived a personal hatred 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 101 
 
 of slavery. On a steamboat journey from 
 Louisville to Saint Louis in that year in com- 
 pany with his friend, Joshua F. Speed, he had 
 the horrors of slavery ground into his soul. 
 Writing to Speed on August 24, 1855, he re- 
 called their experience together in these 
 words: 
 
 You know I dislike slavery, and you fully admit 
 the abstract wrong of it. So far there is no cause of 
 difference. But you say that sooner than yield your 
 legal right to the slave, especially at the bidding of 
 those who are not themselves interested, you would 
 see the Union dissolved. I am not aware that any 
 one is bidding you yield that right; very certainly 
 I am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. 
 I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations 
 under the Constitution in regard to your slaves. I 
 confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted 
 down and caught and carried back to their stripes 
 and unrequited toil; but I bite my lips and keep 
 quiet. In 1841 you and I had together a tedious 
 low-water trip on a steamboat from Louisville to 
 Saint Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that 
 from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there 
 were on board ten or a dozen slaves shackled to- 
 gether with irons. That sight was a continued 
 torment to me, and I see something like it every time 
 I touch the Ohio or any other slave border. It is 
 not fair for you to assume that I have no interest in 
 a thing which has, and continually exercises, the 
 power of making me miserable. 
 
102 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 In a letter to Williamson Durley on Octo- 
 ber 3, 1845, Lincoln held it to be the para- 
 mount duty of those in the free states to let the 
 slavery of the other states alone, but that, on 
 the other hand, the free states should never 
 lend themselves to prevent slavery from dying 
 a natural death. 
 
 Lincoln pondered much in this period on 
 the possibility of the colonization of the 
 Negroes and the annihilation of slavery 
 through this process. In his famous Eulogy 
 on Henry Clay, delivered in the State House 
 at Springfield on July 16, 1852, he referred to 
 Clay's affiliation with the American Coloniza- 
 tion Society and declared that it "was one of 
 the most cherished objects of his direct care 
 and consideration. " "If," said Lincoln, "as 
 the friends of colonization hope, the present 
 and coming generations of our countrymen 
 shall by any means succeed in freeing our 
 land from the dangerous presence of slavery, 
 and at the same time in restoring a captive 
 people to their long-lost fatherland with 
 bright prospects for the future, and this too so 
 gradually that neither races nor individuals 
 shall have suffered by the change, it will 
 indeed be a glorious consummation. " 
 
 In his now celebrated speech at Peoria in 
 reply to Senator Douglas on October 16, 1854, 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 103 
 
 Lincoln branded slavery as a monstrous in- 
 justice and said: 
 
 Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that 
 all men are created equal; but now from that be- 
 ginning we have run down to the other declaration, 
 that for some men to enslave others is a "sacred 
 right of self government. ,, These principles cannot 
 stand together. They are as opposite as God and 
 Mammon; and whoever holds to the one must 
 despise the other. 
 
 He was still satisfied, however, to abide the 
 institution of slavery, not on moral grounds, 
 but strictly on legal grounds. 
 
 By 1855 Lincoln had completely given up 
 hope of peaceful voluntary emancipation of 
 the slaves. In a letter to George Robertson on 
 August 15 of that year he declared that "The 
 Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his 
 crown and proclaim his subjects free republi- 
 cans sooner than will our American masters 
 voluntarily give up their slaves." In this letter 
 he voiced a note of despair and questioned 
 whether the nation could continue together 
 permanently half slave and half free. He con- 
 fessed that the question was "too mighty" for 
 him and said: "May God, in His mercy, super- 
 intend the solution." 
 
 A new note appears in the report of an ad- 
 dress by Lincoln at Galena, Illinois, on August 
 
104 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 1, 1856. He spoke of disunion and particu- 
 larly addressed himself to those who urged 
 that the election of a President and a Vice- 
 President, both from free states, would result 
 in a dissolution of the Union. "All this talk," 
 he said, "about the dissolution of the Union is 
 humbug, nothing but folly. We do not want 
 to dissolve the Union; you shall not." 
 
 In his speech delivered at Springfield, Illi- 
 nois, at the close of the Republican State Con- 
 vention which had unanimously named him 
 as the candidate of the Republican party for 
 United States senator, on June 16, 1858, Lin- 
 coln's thinking on the slavery question reached 
 a new stage in its evolutionary process. As 
 late as 1856, as has been noted, he questioned 
 whether the nation could endure perma- 
 nently half slave and half free and committed 
 the answer to his question to the Almighty. 
 Now he was ready to answer that question 
 himself. The Springfield speech marks a 
 milestone in his political career and in his 
 thinking. The courageous words he uttered 
 there against the advice of his friends are now 
 emblazoned in history. He fired the full blast 
 in his opening words, when he said: 
 
 We are now into the fifth year since a policy was 
 initiated with the avowed object and confident 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 105 
 
 promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. 
 Under the operation of that policy, that agitation 
 has not only not ceased but has constantly aug- 
 mented. 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 dissolved— I do not expect the house to fall— but 
 I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will be- 
 come all one thing, or all the other. Either the 
 opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of 
 it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in 
 the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinc- 
 tion; 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. 
 
 A month later, on July 10, 1858, in a speech 
 at Chicago he went one step further. He then 
 quoted the above extract from his Springfield 
 speech and designated it as a prediction only. 
 He insisted that he did not then say that he 
 desired that slavery should be put in course of 
 ultimate extinction. "I do say so, now, how- 
 ever," he said, "so there need no longer be any 
 difficulty about that." 
 
 It is significant in this connection to observe 
 that Lincoln never had occasion to recall any 
 basic views he ever advanced on the slavery 
 question. His viewpoint developed slowly 
 from his first public declaration in 1837, but 
 
106 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 is now seen to be cumulative with no trace of 
 confusion or inconsistency. The great de- 
 bates with Douglas in the senatorial campaign 
 of 1858 found him with his mind made up. 
 He said nothing in the debates which in sub- 
 stance he had not already said. 
 
 Douglas, dodging the moral issue involved 
 in the slavery question, took the position that 
 the people had the right to do as they pleased. 
 If they wanted slavery, they should have it. 
 If they did not want slavery, they were free 
 to refuse to encourage it. He urged that ob- 
 servance of this fundamental principle would 
 bring peace between the North and the South. 
 In the last debate in his rejoinder at Alton, 
 Illinois, on October 15, 1858, Douglas 
 summed up his position in these words: 
 
 Mr. Lincoln tries to avoid the main issue by at- 
 tacking the truth of my proposition, that our fathers 
 made this government divided into free and slave 
 states, recognizing the right of each to decide all its 
 local questions for itself. Did they not thus make 
 it? It is true that they did not establish slavery in 
 any of the states, or abolish it in any of them; but 
 finding thirteen states, twelve of which were slave 
 and one free, they agreed to form a government 
 uniting them together, as they stood, divided into 
 free and slave states, and to guarantee forever to 
 each state the right to do as it pleased on the slavery 
 question. Having thus made the government, and 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 107 
 
 conferred this right upon each state forever, I assert 
 that this government can exist as they made it, 
 divided into free and slave states, if any one state 
 chooses to retain slavery. He says that he looks for- 
 ward to a time when slavery shall be abolished 
 everywhere. I look forward to the time when each 
 state shall be allowed to do as it pleases. If it 
 chooses to keep slavery forever, it is not my business, 
 but its own; if it chooses to abolish slavery, it is its 
 own business, not mine. I care more for the great 
 principle of self-government, the right of the people 
 to rule, than I do for all the Negroes in Christen- 
 dom. I would not endanger the perpetuity of this 
 Union; I would not blot out the great inalienable 
 rights of the white men for all the Negroes that 
 ever existed. Hence, I say, let us maintain this gov- 
 ernment on the principles on which our fathers 
 made it, recognizing the right of each state to keep 
 slavery as long as its people determine, or to abolish 
 it when they please. 
 
 In his reply to the opening speech of Doug- 
 las at Alton Lincoln summed up the great 
 issue as he saw it, as follows: 
 
 The real issue in this controversy— the one press- 
 ing upon every mind— is the sentiment on the part 
 of one class that looks upon the institution of slav- 
 ery as a wrong, and of another class that does not 
 look upon it as a wrong. The sentiment that con- 
 templates the institution of slavery in this country 
 as a wrong is the sentiment of the Republican party. 
 It is the sentiment around which all their actions, 
 all their arguments, circle; from which all their 
 
108 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 propositions radiate. They look upon it as being a 
 moral, social, and political wrong; and while they 
 contemplate it as such, they nevertheless have due 
 regard for its actual existence among us, and the 
 difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory 
 way, and to all the constitutional obligations 
 thrown about it. Yet having a due regard for these, 
 they desire a policy in regard to it that looks to its 
 not creating any more danger. They insist that it, 
 as far as may be, be treated as a wrong, and one of 
 the methods of treating it as a wrong is to make 
 provision that it shall grow no larger. They also 
 desire a policy that looks to a peaceful end of slavery 
 some time, as being a wrong. These are the views 
 they entertain in regard to it, as I understand them; 
 and all their sentiments, all their arguments and 
 propositions, are brought within this range. . . . 
 That is the real issue. That is the issue that will 
 continue in this country when these poor tongues 
 of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is 
 the eternal struggle between these two principles- 
 right and wrong— throughout the world. They are 
 the two principles that have stood face to face from 
 the beginning of time; and will ever continue to 
 struggle. The one is the common right of human- 
 ity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the 
 same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. 
 It is the same spirit that says, "You toil and work 
 and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what 
 shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king 
 who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation 
 and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race 
 of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it 
 is the same tyrannical principle. 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 109 
 
 Lincoln made other great speeches after the 
 debates in which he still pursued Senator 
 Douglas, notably at Chicago on March 1, 
 1859; at Columbus, Ohio, on September 16; 
 at Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 17, and 
 several speeches in Kansas in early December. 
 The culmination of his public utterances on 
 the slavery issue, extending over a period of 
 more than twenty years, came in his Cooper 
 Institute Address in New York City on Feb- 
 ruary 27, 1860. Indeed, the Cooper Institute 
 Address may be regarded as the valedictory of 
 his long experience in the discussion of public 
 issues as a private citizen. The measure of 
 the man he had become is to be found in this 
 address. The mere language of it indicates 
 the skill he had acquired in clarity of state- 
 ment, in simplicity of style and in effective 
 straightforward use of his mother tongue. 
 The orderly, coherent, unassailable logic of it 
 gives evidence of the lawyer and politician at 
 his best. The careful research upon which it 
 was based, the knowledge of the Constitution 
 and the history of his country of which it re- 
 vealed him possessed, gave the debating lawyer 
 and politician the unmistakable rank of a 
 statesman, and the courage and unabashed 
 naturalness with which he addressed a dis- 
 
110 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 tinguished audience in the cultured East 
 singled him out as Presidential timber. 
 
 Again he pursued his old political rival and 
 used as his text a statement made by Senator 
 Douglas in a speech at Columbus, Ohio, some 
 months before in which he had said, "Our 
 fathers, when they framed the government 
 under which we live, understood this question 
 just as well, and even better, than we do now." 
 
 He summed up in this notable address, his 
 outstanding production as a private citizen, 
 the orderly thinking of a lifetime on the great- 
 est issue ever before the American people, in 
 these words: 
 
 If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and con- 
 stitutions against it are themselves wrong, and 
 should be silenced and swept away. If it is right, we 
 cannot justly object to its nationality— its universal- 
 ity; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its 
 extension— its enlargement. All they ask we could 
 readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we 
 ask they could as readily grant, if they thought it 
 wrong. Their thinking it right and our thinking it 
 wrong is the precise fact upon which depends the 
 whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, 
 they are not to blame for desiring its full recogni- 
 tion as being right; but thinking it wrong, as we 
 do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes 
 with their view, and against our own? In view of 
 our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can 
 we do this? 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 111 
 
 Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford 
 to let it alone where it is, because that much is due 
 to the necessity arising from its actual presence in 
 the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent 
 it, allow it to spread into the national territories, 
 and to overrun us here in these free states? If our 
 sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our 
 duty fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted 
 by none of those sophistical contrivances where- 
 with we are so industriously plied and belabored— 
 contrivances such as groping for some middle 
 ground between the right and the wrong: vain as 
 the search for a man who should be neither a living 
 man nor a dead man; such as a policy of "don't 
 care" on a question about which all true men do 
 care; such as Union appeals beseeching true Union 
 men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine 
 rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous 
 to repentance; such as invocations to Washington, 
 imploring men to unsay what Washington said and 
 undo what Washington did. 
 
 Neither let us be slandered from our duty by 
 false accusations against us, nor frightened from it 
 by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of 
 dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right 
 makes might, and in that faith let us to the end 
 dare to do our duty as we understand it. 
 
 Lincoln ended the wandering, uncertain 
 stage of his young manhood on November 4, 
 1842, when he was married to Mary Todd. 
 Eighteen years and two days later he was 
 elected President of the United States. These 
 
112 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 eighteen years were busy, crowded years. 
 Home, family, lawoffice, the judicial circuit, 
 politics, Congress, public debate, storytelling 
 and letter writing— for one who never hurried 
 and often just waited, the record of accom- 
 plishment is remarkable. There may have 
 been time for spiritual contemplation in these 
 busy years. There may have been time for 
 religious observances. There is little in the 
 record, however, to show that Lincoln relied 
 in any way upon any power beyond himself 
 or had any religious experience in any sense 
 orthodox according to the tenets of any 
 church. 
 
 In the early days of their marriage Mrs. 
 Lincoln was a member in good and regular 
 standing in the Episcopal Church in Spring- 
 field. Lincoln seldom accompanied her to 
 the services. On February 1, 1850, their 
 second son, Edward Baker, then aged about 
 four, died. The Episcopal minister was out 
 of town and the Rev. James Smith, pastor of 
 the First Presbyterian Church, was called in 
 to conduct the funeral service. A warm 
 friendship grew up between him and the 
 family. On April 13, 1852, Mrs. Lincoln 
 joined the First Presbyterian Church on con- 
 fession of faith. The records of the church 
 show that Thomas Lincoln, "Tad," was bap- 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 113 
 
 tized on April 4, 1855, and that Lincoln was 
 a pewholder from 1852 to 1861, with his pew- 
 rent paid up to the time he left for Washing- 
 ton. He attended services regularly during 
 this period. 
 
 Before becoming the pastor of the First 
 Presbyterian Church at Springfield the Rev. 
 James Smith had published a book entitled 
 The Christian s Defense, with a subtitle in 
 these words: " Containing a fair statement and 
 impartial examination of the leading objec- 
 tions urged by infidels against the antiquity, 
 genuineness, credibility, and inspiration of 
 the Holy Scriptures; enriched with copious 
 extracts from learned authors/ ' 
 
 This book the pastor put into Lincoln's 
 hands and claimed thereafter that Lincoln's 
 views were changed by his study of the book. 
 Writing to William H. Herndon from his na- 
 tive Scotland on January 24, 1867, Doctor 
 Smith said: 
 
 It was my honor to place before Mr. Lincoln argu- 
 ments designed to prove the divine authority and 
 inspiration of the Scriptures, accompanied by the 
 arguments of infidel objectors in their own lan- 
 guage. To the arguments on both sides Mr. Lin- 
 coln gave a most patient, impartial, and searching 
 investigation. To use his own language, he exam- 
 ined the arguments as a lawyer who is anxious to 
 reach the truth investigates testimony. The result 
 
114 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 was the announcement by himself that the argu- 
 ment in favor of the divine authority and inspira- 
 tion of the Scriptures was unanswerable. 
 
 One can readily understand how a lawyer 
 could reach such a conclusion and still not be 
 touched in any way by his own reasoning. 
 The fact remains that Lincoln made no public 
 acknowledgment of a personal faith and did 
 not join the church at any time thereafter. 
 His reason for never uniting with a church 
 was given to the Hon. Henry C. Deming, a 
 member of Congress from Connecticut. In a 
 memorial address given before the Legisla- 
 ture of Connecticut on June 8, 1 865, Mr. Dem- 
 ing said that in reply to his question as to why 
 he had never united with a church, Mr. Lin- 
 coln answered: 
 
 I have never united myself to any church, because 
 I have found difficulty in giving my assent, without 
 mental reservation, to the long, complicated state- 
 ments of Christian doctrine which characterize their 
 articles of belief and confessions of faith. When 
 any church will inscribe over its altars, as its sole 
 qualification for membership, the Saviour's con- 
 densed statement of the substance of both law and 
 gospel, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
 all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
 thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself/' that church 
 will I join with all my heart and all my soul. 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 115 
 
 Lincoln's letters, papers, and public ad- 
 dresses during these eighteen years of his set- 
 tled life in Springfield contain many allusions 
 to the Scriptures and to the Deity. An exami- 
 nation of these utterances, however, reveals 
 the fact that most, if indeed, not all of them, 
 were employed by way of illustration to en- 
 force his argument in a purely literary sense. 
 They do not prove anything about his per- 
 sonal beliefs or his inner spiritual experiences. 
 The following quotations, arranged in chrono- 
 logical order, while not complete, represent 
 mainly the allusions he made to the Bible, to 
 the Deity, and to spiritual things from 1842 to 
 1860. 
 
 That "union is strength" is a truth that has been 
 known, illustrated, and declared in various ways 
 and forms in all ages of the world. That great 
 fabulist and philosopher, iEsop, illustrated it by his 
 fable of the bundle of sticks; and He whose wisdom 
 surpasses that of all philosophers has declared that 
 "a house divided against itself cannot stand" (Whig 
 Circular, March 4, 1843). 
 
 In the early days of our race the Almighty said to 
 the first of our race, "In the sweat of thy face shalt 
 thou eat bread"; and since then, if we except the 
 light and the air of heaven, no good thing has been 
 or can be enjoyed by us without having first cost 
 labor (Tariff Discussion, December 1, 1847). 
 
116 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 As a nation should not, and the Almighty will 
 not, be evaded, so let him attempt no evasion— no 
 equivocation. . . . 
 
 But if he cannot or will not do this— if on any 
 pretense or no pretense he shall refuse or omit it- 
 then I shall be fully convinced of what I more than 
 suspect already— that he is deeply conscious of being 
 in the wrong; that he feels the blood of this war, 
 like the blood of Abel, is crying to Heaven against 
 him. . . . 
 
 God grant he may be able to show there is not 
 something about his conscience more painful than 
 all his mental perplexity (Mexican War Speech, 
 January 12, 1848). 
 
 Then I ask, Is the precept, "Whatsoever ye would 
 that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, ,, 
 obsolete? Of no force? Of no application? (Letter 
 to J. M. Peck, May 21, 1848). 
 
 When Columbus first sought this continent— when 
 Christ suffered on the cross— when Moses led Israel 
 through the Red Sea— nay, even when Adam first 
 came from the hand of his Maker: then, as now, 
 Niagara was roaring here (Notes on Niagara, July 
 1, 1850). 
 
 Such a man the times have demanded, and such 
 in the providence of God was given us. But he is 
 gone. Let us strive to deserve, as far as mortals 
 may, the continued care of Divine Providence, 
 trusting that in future national emergencies He 
 will not fail to provide us the instruments of safety 
 and security (Eulogy on Henry Clay, July 16, 1852). 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 117 
 
 As labor is the common burden of our race, so 
 the effort of some to shift their share of the burden 
 onto the shoulders of others is the great durable 
 curse of the race. Originally a curse for transgres- 
 sion upon the whole race, when, as by slavery, it is 
 concentrated on a part only, it becomes the double- 
 refined curse of God upon his creatures (Fragment 
 on Slavery, July 1, 1854). 
 
 In the course of my main argument, Judge Doug- 
 las interrupted me to say that the principle of the 
 Nebraska bill was very old; that it originated when 
 God made man and placed good and evil before 
 him, allowing him to choose for himself, being re- 
 sponsible for the choice he should make. At the 
 time I thought this was merely playful, and I an- 
 swered it accordingly. But in his reply to me he 
 renewed it as a serious argument. In seriousness, 
 then, the facts of this proposition are not true as 
 stated. God did not place good and evil before 
 man, telling him to make his choice. On the con- 
 trary, he did tell him there was one tree of the fruit of 
 which he should not eat, upon pain of certain 
 death. I should scarcely wish so strong a prohibi- 
 tion against slavery in Nebraska (Speech at Peoria, 
 October 16, 1854). 
 
 Our political problem now is, "Can we as a na- 
 tion continue together permanently— forever— half 
 slave and half free?" The problem is too mighty 
 for me— may God, in his mercy, superintend the 
 solution (Letter to George Robertson, August 15, 
 1855). 
 
 We can do it. The human heart is with us; God 
 
118 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 is with us (Chicago Banquet Speech, December 10, 
 1856). 
 
 If men choose to serve you, go with them; but as 
 you have made up your organization upon prin- 
 ciple, stand by it; for, as surely as God reigns over 
 you, and has inspired your mind, and given you a 
 sense of propriety, and continues to give you hope, 
 so surely will you still cling to these ideas, and you 
 will at last come back after your wanderings, merely 
 to do your work over again. . . . 
 
 I protest, now and forever, against that counter- 
 feit logic which presumes that because I do not 
 want a Negro woman for a slave, I do necessarily 
 want her for a wife. My understanding is that I 
 need not have her for either; but, as God made us 
 separate, we can leave one another alone, and do 
 one another much good thereby. . . . 
 
 It is said in one of the admonitions of our Lord, 
 "Be ye [therefore] perfect even as your Father which 
 is in heaven is perfect. ,, The Saviour, I suppose, 
 did not expect that any human creature could be 
 perfect as the Father in heaven; but he said, "As 
 your Father in heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect." 
 He set that up as a standard, and he who did most 
 toward reaching that standard attained the highest 
 degree of moral perfection (Chicago Speech, July 
 10, 1858). 
 
 He says I have a proneness for quoting Scripture. 
 If I should do so now, it occurs that perhaps he 
 places himself somewhat upon the ground of the 
 parable of the lost sheep which went astray upon 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 119 
 
 the mountains, and when the owner of the hun- 
 dred sheep found the one that was lost, and threw it 
 upon his shoulders, and came home rejoicing, it 
 was said that there was more rejoicing over the one 
 sheep that was lost and had been found, than over 
 the ninety and nine in the fold. The application is 
 made by the Saviour in this parable, thus: "Verily, 
 I say unto you, there is more rejoicing in heaven 
 over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and 
 nine just persons that need no repentance. ,, 
 
 And now if the judge claims the benefit of this 
 parable, let him repent. Let him not come up here 
 and say: "I am the only just person; and you are 
 the ninety-nine sinners!" Repentance before for- 
 giveness is a provision of the Christian system, and 
 on that condition alone will the Republicans grant 
 him forgiveness. . . . 
 
 All I ask for the Negro is that if you do not like 
 him, let him alone. If God gave him but little, 
 that little let him enjoy (Springfield Speech, July 
 17, 1858). 
 
 I do not suppose that in the most peaceful way 
 ultimate extinction [of slavery] would occur in less 
 than a hundred years at least; but that it will occur 
 in the best way for both races, in God's own good 
 time, I have no doubt (Rejoinder at Charleston, Sep- 
 tember 18, 1858). 
 
 The sum of proslavery theology seems to be this: 
 "Slavery is not universally right, nor yet universally 
 wrong; it is better for some people to be slaves; 
 and, in such cases, it is the will of God that they be 
 such." 
 
120 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 Certainly there is no contending against the will 
 of God; but still there is some difficulty in ascertain- 
 ing and applying it to particular cases. For in- 
 stance, we will suppose the Rev. Doctor Ross has a 
 slave named Sambo, and the question is, "Is it the 
 will of God that Sambo shall remain a slave, or be 
 set free?" The Almighty gives no audible answer 
 to the question, and his revelation, the Bible, gives 
 none— or at most none but such as admits of a 
 squabble as to its meaning; no one thinks of asking 
 Sambo's opinion on it {Fragment: Notes for 
 Speeches, October 1, 1858). 
 
 Accordingly, speech— articulate sounds rattled off 
 from the tongue— was used by our first parents, and 
 even by Adam before the creation of Eve. He gave 
 names to the animals while she was still a bone in 
 his side; and he broke out quite volubly when she 
 first stood before him, the best present of his Maker. 
 From this it would appear that speech was not an 
 invention of man, but rather the direct gift of his 
 Creator (Lecture, February 22, 1859). 
 
 Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not 
 for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long 
 retain it (Letter to H. L. Pierce and Others, April 
 6, 1859). 
 
 These quotations may all be interpreted as 
 impersonal and objective. One additional sig- 
 nificant utterance seems to come from the 
 heart and soul of the man rather than merely 
 from his intellect. It constitutes the chief evi- 
 dence we have down to the time of Lincoln's 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 121 
 
 election to the Presidency of a personal faith 
 and a belief in immortality. It is to be found 
 in a letter written by Lincoln on January 12, 
 1851, to his stepbrother, John D. Johnston, 
 upon learning that his father was seriously 
 ill. It read: 
 
 Springfield, January 12, 1851 
 Dear Brother: 
 
 On the day before yesterday I received a letter 
 from Harriet, written at Greenup. She says she has 
 just returned from your house, and that father is 
 very low and will hardly recover. She also says you 
 have written me two letters, and that although you 
 do not expect me to come now, you wonder that I 
 do not write. 
 
 I received both your letters, and although I have 
 not answered them, it is not because I have forgot- 
 ten them, or been uninterested about them, but 
 because it appeared to me that I could write nothing 
 which would do any good. You already know I 
 desire that neither father nor mother shall be in 
 want of any comfort, either in health or sickness, 
 while they live; and I feel sure you have not failed 
 to use my name, if necessary, to procure a doctor, or 
 anything else for father in his present sickness. My 
 business is such that I could hardly leave home now, 
 if it was not, as it is, that my own wife is sick-a-bed. 
 (It is a case of baby-sickness, and I suppose is not 
 dangerous.) I sincerely hope father may recover his 
 health, but at all events, tell him to remember to 
 call upon and confide in our great and good and 
 merciful Maker, who will not turn away from him 
 
122 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 in any extremity. He notes the fall of a sparrow, 
 and numbers the hairs of our heads, and He will not 
 forget the dying man who puts his trust in Him. 
 Say to him that if we could meet now, it is doubtful 
 whether it would not be more painful than pleasant, 
 but that if it be his lot to go now, he will soon 
 have a joyous meeting with many loved ones gone 
 before, and where the rest of us, through the help 
 of God, hope ere long to join them. 
 Write me again when you receive this. 
 Affectionately, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 A widely quoted statement attributed to 
 Lincoln is to be found in the now famous 
 interview with him reported by Newton Bate- 
 man, State Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
 tion in Illinois in 1860, and later President of 
 Knox College. The full account of the inter- 
 view was first published in Holland's Life of 
 Lincoln in 1866. As is well known, during 
 the Presidential campaign of 1860 Lincoln 
 was afforded the use of the Executive Cham- 
 ber in the State House at Springfield for hold- 
 ing conferences and receptions. Here he fre- 
 quently met and visited with Mr. Bateman, 
 whose office was next door. It seems that Lin- 
 coln was greatly distressed at the discovery 
 that only three of the twenty-three ministers 
 in Springfield expected to vote for him. He 
 talked at length with Mr. Bateman about the 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 123 
 
 situation and expressed his amazement that so 
 many of the ministers and also many of the 
 prominent church members of the city were 
 against him. Mr. Bateman was reluctant to 
 confirm the interview in all its details in later 
 years but did not hesitate in the version of it 
 first given currency by Holland, to quote Lin- 
 coln directly among other utterances as hav- 
 ing said: 
 
 I know there is a God, and that He hates injustice 
 and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know 
 that His hand is in it. If He has a place and work 
 for me— and I think He has— I believe I am ready. 
 I am nothing, but truth is everything. I know I am 
 right because I know that liberty is right, for Christ 
 teaches it, and Christ is God. I have told them that 
 a house divided against itself can not stand, and 
 Christ and reason say the same; and they will find it 
 so. Douglas doesn't care whether liberty is voted 
 up or voted down, but God cares, and humanity 
 cares, and I care; and with God's help I shall not 
 fail. I may not see the end; but it will come, and I 
 shall be vindicated; and these men will find that 
 they have not read their Bibles aright. 
 
 Dr. William E. Barton, in his book on The 
 Soul of Abraham Lincoln, after exhaustive in- 
 quiry and against his own wishes, reached the 
 conclusion that Lincoln never said what was 
 so dramatically attributed to him by Mr. Bate- 
 man. He might have used those very words 
 
124 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 without inconsistency or hypocrisy. It does 
 not now matter what he said. Herndon de- 
 clared that Lincoln was an infidel. Lamon 
 repeated the charge. Neither Herndon nor 
 Lamon took the trouble to define what they 
 meant by an infidel. Doctor Barton was well 
 aware that "too much of the effort to prove 
 that Abraham Lincoln was a Christian has 
 begun and ended in the effort to show that on 
 certain theological topics he cherished correct 
 opinions/ ' He avoided effort to prove Lin- 
 coln's strict orthodoxy and contented himself 
 with the declaration that: 
 
 In the sense which this chapter has endeavored 
 truthfully to set forth, Abraham Lincoln believed 
 in God, in Christ, in the Bible, in prayer, in duty, 
 and in immortality. 
 
 What the particular "sense" was which Doc- 
 tor Barton employed it is difficult to discover 
 even in his closely knit reasoning, and much 
 of the evidence he presents is based on the last 
 five years of Lincoln's life. 
 
 Past fifty-one years of age, elected President 
 of the United States, he had not joined a 
 church, he had not professed religion in any 
 public or private way, he had not been "con- 
 verted" in orthodox style. There is now no 
 serious debate on these points. Moreover, up 
 
The Lawyer and Politician 125 
 
 to this time there is little evidence that he 
 ever resorted to prayer. In short, at fifty-one 
 he was still self-sufficient, still meeting the try- 
 ing problems of his life without known reli- 
 ance upon his Maker. And yet, throughout 
 the eighteen years of his married life in Spring- 
 field, there was no day or hour, in his home, 
 in his office, in the courtroom, on the circuit, 
 on the platform, in contact with his fellows, 
 in which his personal life and conduct were 
 not fundamentally and essentially - 'Chris- 
 tian," as the whole world knows the term. No 
 convincing voice has been raised to the con- 
 trary. The convictions, the habits of life and 
 thought of the lawyer and politician were 
 likewise "Christian. " 
 
 Honesty with others, with himself, with 
 facts, with documents, with issues. 
 
 Loyalty and devotion to family, professional 
 associates, friends, state, and nation. 
 
 Fidelity to ideals with an independent will 
 and an inflexible purpose. 
 
 Simplicity, humility, magnanimity coupled 
 with the inborn capacity to say "No" and 
 stand by it, to say "Yes" and see it through. 
 
 Certainty of mind and heart upon what he 
 deemed "the great and durable question of 
 the age" that right made might, and that, slav- 
 ery being inherently wrong, the nation could 
 
126 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 not permanently endure half slave and half 
 free. 
 
 These convictions, these attributes of char- 
 acter, these casts of mind and thought, the 
 underlying philosophy of his life were all 
 gradual developments. In an interesting 
 interview reported in the New York Herald 
 Tribune on November 3, 1937, two days be- 
 fore her eightieth birthday, Ida M. Tarbell, 
 profound student of Lincoln's time and life, 
 said: 
 
 Lincoln is slow as molasses in making up his 
 mind, but when he has thought things out, his ideas 
 are always sound. He knows things have to be 
 worked out gradually and that you cannot bring 
 about reform by ukase. 
 
 Elected President of the United States in 
 1860, he was still making up his mind about 
 his individual relation with his Maker, still 
 undecided as to his personal need of reliance 
 upon Divine Power. The decision he made, 
 the substitution of the will of the Almighty 
 for self, prompts the title of the concluding 
 chapter of this little volume and is now the 
 common heritage of mankind. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SUBLIME FAITH OF THE 
 PRESIDENT 
 
 IT is not surprising that the solemn respon- 
 sibility of the Presidency of the United 
 States should change the demeanor of any 
 man. A new note appears in thedaily life and 
 conduct of Abraham Lincoln as President. 
 He was past fifty-two when he took office. 
 Throughout his life he had been self-reliant. 
 He was widely known as a man of many moods, 
 which even his closest friends and associates 
 at times could not penetrate. There are very 
 few acts or utterances in his whole career be- 
 fore his election which tend to show that he 
 felt the need of relying in any way upon a 
 Divine Power to meet the issues of the singu- 
 larly busy life he lived. He may have been 
 God-fearing through all these years; but he 
 certainly gave little evidence of being in per- 
 sonal need of God. 
 
 The unmistakable change in his attitude 
 and in his daily conduct came promptly. It 
 was voiced publicly in his letter of acceptance 
 on May 23, 1860, when he implored "the 
 assistance of Divine Providence/ ' and again 
 127 
 
128 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 in the now familiar, prophetic farewell address 
 to the people of Springfield from the rear of 
 the train upon which he was to begin his 
 memorable journey to Washington on Mon- 
 day morning, February 11, 1861, the day be- 
 fore his fifty-second birthday. He said: 
 
 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 
 may return, with a task before me greater than that 
 which rested upon Washington. Without the as- 
 sistance of that Divine Being who ever attended 
 him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I can- 
 not fail. Trusting in Him, who can go with me, and 
 remain with you, and be everywhere for good, 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. 
 
 This was the keynote of several of his short 
 addresses on the journey which ended at Wash- 
 ington on February 23. At Indianapolis he 
 said, "When the people rise in mass in behalf 
 of the Union and the liberties of this country, 
 truly may it be said, 'The gates of hell cannot 
 prevail against them/ M 
 
LINCOLN THE PRESIDENT 
 
 Statue in Front of the District of Columbia Court House, Washington, D. C. 
 Sculptor, Lot Flannery. Photo by courtesy of Henrietta Calhoun Horner. 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 129 
 
 At Cincinnati he said, "I take your response 
 as the most reliable evidence that it may be so, 
 trusting, through the good sense of the Ameri- 
 can people, on all sides of all rivers in America, 
 under the providence of God, who has never 
 deserted us, that we shall again be brethren, 
 forgetting all parties, ignoring all parties/' 
 
 At Columbus he said, "I turn, then, and 
 look to the American people, and to that God 
 who has never forsaken them." 
 
 At Steubenville he said, "Encompassed by 
 vast difficulties as I am, nothing shall be want- 
 ing on my part, if sustained by God and the 
 American people/ ' 
 
 At Buffalo he said, "I am sure I bring a 
 heart true to the work. For the ability to per- 
 form it, I must trust in that Supreme Being 
 who has never forsaken this favored land, 
 through the instrumentality of this great and 
 intelligent people. Without that assistance I 
 shall surely fail; with it, I cannot fail/' 
 
 At Albany he said, "In the meantime, if we 
 have patience, if we restrain ourselves, if we 
 allow ourselves not to run off in a passion, I 
 still have confidence that the Almighty, the 
 Maker of the universe, will, through the 
 instrumentality of this great and intelligent 
 people, bring us through this as he has through 
 all the other difficulties of our country/' 
 
130 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 At Trenton he said, "I shall be most happy 
 indeed if I shall be a humble instrument in 
 the hands of the Almighty and of this, His 
 almost chosen people, for perpetuating the 
 object of that great struggle/ ' 
 
 At Philadelphia he said, "But I have said 
 nothing but what I am willing to live by, and, 
 if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die 
 by." 
 
 At Harrisburg he said, "I feel that, under 
 God, in the strength of the arms and wisdom 
 of the heads of these masses, after all, must be 
 my support." 
 
 The pattern thus laid down for himself in 
 approaching the great task that lay before 
 him he followed unbrokenly for the remainder 
 of his days. The self-reliance of the man was 
 gone. Henceforth the President walked hand 
 in hand with his God. 
 
 The record is overflowing with uncon- 
 tested evidence of the sublime faith of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln in his Maker throughout the 
 four terrible years that marked the end of 
 his career. He learned to pray for himself, 
 for his people and at length for the enemies of 
 the Union he strove to save. He consistently 
 voiced in his inaugurals, in his annual mes- 
 sages to Congress, in official proclamations, 
 and in all his other great public documents his 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 131 
 
 personal trust in God and his unwavering 
 faith in Divine Providence. He constantly 
 revealed this trust and this faith in his daily 
 dealings with the hundreds of citizens who 
 sought his presence and with the many high 
 officials of the government, and the army and 
 the navy. The trials that were put upon him 
 were almost too much for any human being 
 to endure. Schooled in magnanimity and for- 
 bearance, he yet had need of the God upon 
 whom he relied every hour of his Presidency. 
 Let the record now speak largely for itself. 
 
 Lincoln exercised an almost uncanny care 
 in his public utterances after he became 
 President. Accustomed for twenty-five years 
 to public speaking and to rough and ready 
 participation in public political debates, he 
 frequently spoke without elaborate prepara- 
 tion and always without apparent hesitation 
 as to the effect of his words. As President he 
 was extremely careful in measuring the effect 
 his official words might bear upon the public 
 opinion of the time and upon the progress 
 and culmination of the great conflict between 
 the North and the South. He made only 
 three really notable addresses, the first in- 
 augural, the Gettysburg address, and the 
 second inaugural. The first inaugural dealt 
 entirely with the situation in which he found 
 
132 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 the country and the government on March 4, 
 1861. He did not fail to give evidence of his 
 reliance upon a Power beyond himself in this 
 address, as these words testify: 
 
 Why should there not be a patient confidence in 
 the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any bet- 
 ter or equal hope in the world? In our present dif- 
 ferences 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. 
 
 And before he voiced those familiar kindly 
 words in his conclusion, "I am loath to close. 
 We are not enemies, but friends/' he said: 
 
 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. 
 
 Edward Everett, the chosen orator for the 
 dedication of the Gettysburg National Ceme- 
 tery on November 19, 1863, spoke for one 
 hour and fifty-seven minutes in one of the 
 most carefully prepared addresses in his dis- 
 tinguished career upon the public platform. 
 Lincoln spoke for two minutes. Everett was 
 one of the first to discern the deep significance 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 133 
 
 of the President's brief address. The very 
 next day he wrote a kindly letter to the Presi- 
 dent in which he said: 
 
 I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I 
 came as near to the central idea of the occasion in 
 two hours as you did in two minutes. 
 
 That central idea, now engraved for all time 
 upon the minds of men, is bound up in the 
 phrase "that this nation, under God, shall 
 have a new birth of freedom/ ' 
 
 The London Times called the second in- 
 augural the most sublime state paper of the 
 century. 
 
 The London Standard, critical of Lincoln 
 at times, said of his second inaugural: 
 
 It is the most remarkable thing of the sort ever 
 pronounced by any President of the United States, 
 from the first day until now. Its Alpha and its 
 Omega is Almighty God, the God of Justice and the 
 Father of Mercies, who is working out the purpose 
 of his love. It is invested with a dignity and pathos 
 which lift it high above everything of the kind, 
 whether in the Old World or the New. The whole 
 thing puts us in mind of the best men of the English 
 Commonwealth; there is, in fact, much of the old 
 prophet in it. 
 
 The central idea in the second inaugural is 
 found in these impassioned utterances of the 
 President: 
 
134 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 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 Almighty has his own purposes. 
 
 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 cher- 
 ish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and 
 with all nations. 
 
 More than forty-eight years after Lincoln's 
 death, Lord Curzon, Earl of Kedleston, Chan- 
 cellor of the University of Oxford, delivered 
 on November 6, 1913, the Rede Lecture be- 
 fore the University of Cambridge on the sub- 
 ject of "Modern Parliamentary Eloquence." 
 He found what he called three "supreme mas- 
 terpieces' ' of English eloquence, the toast of 
 William Pitt after the victory of Trafalgar and 
 Lincoln's Gettysburg address and his second 
 inaugural. These two masterpieces, given 
 such high praise by Lord Curzon, mark the 
 heights of the President's intellectual and spir- 
 itual power. 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 135 
 
 There are other abundant evidences in 
 public documents of Lincoln's overwhelming 
 reliance upon Divine Providence. During 
 the four years of his first term Lincoln issued 
 eight official proclamations calling upon the 
 people of the United States to observe fast 
 days, days of prayer and thanksgiving. These 
 proclamations were more than conventional 
 documents couched in formal language. They 
 were human appeals bearing the unmistak- 
 able imprint of the President, who chiefly in- 
 spired and authorized them. They voiced the 
 personal belief of the individual who was 
 President in the kinship of the whole people 
 with the Almighty and his belief in the efficacy 
 of prayer for himself and for all his fellow 
 citizens. Here is a list of these proclamations 
 with their official titles and dates: 
 
 Proclamation of a National Fast Day, 
 August 12, 1861. 
 
 Proclamation Recommending Thanksgiv- 
 ing for Victories, April 10, 1862. 
 
 Proclamation Appointing a National Fast 
 Day, March 30, 1863. 
 
 Proclamation for Thanksgiving, July 15, 
 1863. 
 
 Proclamation for Thanksgiving, October 3, 
 1863. 
 
136 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 Proclamation for a Day of Prayer, July 7, 
 
 1864. 
 Proclamation of Thanksgiving, September 
 
 3, 1864. 
 Proclamation of Thanksgiving, October 20, 
 
 1864. 
 
 These were formal official proclamations 
 signed by the President and issued by his order 
 by the Secretary of State. Not all of them 
 bear evidence of Lincoln's own handiwork 
 and style. Some of them were undoubtedly 
 prepared for him. That he subscribed whole- 
 heartedly to the sentiments expressed in them 
 there is no question. One of these proclama- 
 tions, that appointing a national fast day, 
 issued on March 30, 1863, is here reproduced 
 in full. It is typical of all the others and has 
 the unmistakable touch of Lincoln in it. 
 
 PROCLAMATION APPOINTING A NA- 
 TIONAL FAST-DAY, March 30, 1863 
 
 By the President of the United States of 
 America 
 
 A Proclamation 
 
 Whereas, the Senate of the United States, de- 
 voutly recognizing the supreme authority and just 
 government of Almighty God in all the affairs of 
 meii and of nations, has by a resolution recjuesteci 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 137 
 
 the President to designate and set apart a day for 
 national prayer and humiliation: 
 
 And whereas, it is the duty of nations as well as 
 of men to own their dependence upon the overrul- 
 ing power of God; to confess their sins and trans- 
 gressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope 
 that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and par- 
 don; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced 
 in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, 
 that those nations only are blessed whose God is the 
 Lord: 
 
 And insomuch as we know that by his divine law 
 nations, like individuals, are subjected to punish- 
 ments and chastisements in this world, may we not 
 justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war 
 which now desolates the land may be but a punish- 
 ment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, 
 to the needful end of our national reformation as a 
 whole people? We have been the recipients of the 
 choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been pre- 
 served, these many years, in peace and prosperity. 
 We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as 
 no other nation has ever grown; but we have for- 
 gotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand 
 which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and 
 enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly 
 imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all 
 these blessings were produced by some superior wis- 
 dom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with un- 
 broken success, we have become too self-sufficient to 
 feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, 
 too proud to pray to the God that made us: 
 
 It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before 
 
138 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 the offended Power, to confess our national sins, 
 and to pray for clemency and forgiveness: 
 
 Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, 
 and fully concurring in the views, of the Senate, I 
 do by this my proclamation designate and set apart 
 Thursday the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of 
 national humiliation, fasting, and prayer. And 
 I do hereby request all the people to abstain on 
 that day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and 
 to unite at their several places of public worship and 
 their respective homes in keeping the day holy to the 
 Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the 
 religious duties proper to that solemn occasion. All 
 this being done in sincerity and truth, let us then 
 rest humbly in the hope authorized by the divine 
 teachings, that the united cry of the nation will 
 be heard on high, and answered with blessings no 
 less than the pardon of our national sins, and the 
 restoration of our now divided and suffering coun- 
 try to its former happy condition of unity and peace. 
 
 In witness "whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, 
 and caused the seal of the United States to be 
 affixed. 
 
 Done at the city of Washington, this thirtieth 
 day of March, in the year of our Lord one thou- 
 sand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the 
 independence of the United States the eighty- 
 seventh. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln. 
 By the President: 
 William H. Seward, Secretary of State. 
 
 That the personal convictions of the Presi- 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 139 
 
 dent were expressed in these official proclama- 
 tions is clearly demonstrated in his introduc- 
 tory remarks in his last public address. Lee 
 surrendered on April 9, 1865. On April 11, 
 three days before the President was shot at 
 Ford's Theater, a great celebration of the vic- 
 tory was held in Washington. The President 
 spoke from an upper window of the White 
 House overlooking the portico to a great mul- 
 titude. The principal theme of his last ad- 
 dress was the great problem of reconstruction 
 which faced the nation. He opened his last 
 public address with these words: 
 
 We meet this evening not in sorrow, but in glad- 
 ness of heart. The evacuation of Petersburg and 
 Richmond, and the surrender of the principal in- 
 surgent army, give hope of a righteous and speedy 
 peace, whose joyous expression cannot be restrained. 
 In the midst of this, however, He from whom all 
 blessings flow must not be forgotten. A call for a 
 national thanksgiving is being prepared, and will 
 be duly promulgated. 
 
 The call for a national thanksgiving was not 
 issued. John Wilkes Booth turned the con- 
 templated days of thanksgiving into the days 
 of the greatest anguish and sorrow that have 
 ever come to the American people. 
 
 If any further proof be needed to demon- 
 strate that these official proclamations ex- 
 
140 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 pressed the true inward feeling and sentiment 
 of the President, it may be found in a memo- 
 randum discovered among his papers, pre- 
 sumably written on September 30, 1862, en- 
 titled "Meditation on the Divine Will." It 
 clearly enunciates the view Lincoln held 
 throughout the Civil War that the hand and 
 will of God were in it. The Meditation reads: 
 
 The will of God prevails. In great contests each 
 party claims to act in accordance with the will of 
 God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God 
 cannot be for and against the same thing at the same 
 time. In the present civil war it is quite possible 
 that God's purpose is something different from the 
 purpose of either party; and yet the human instru- 
 mentalities, working just as they do, are of the best 
 adaptation to effect his purpose. I am almost ready 
 to say that this is probably true; that God wills this 
 contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his 
 mere great power on the minds of the now con- 
 testants, he could have either saved or destroyed the 
 Union without a human contest. Yet the contest 
 began. And, having begun, he could give the final 
 victory to either side any day. Yet the contest pro- 
 ceeds. 
 
 The President contemplated an Emancipa- 
 tion Proclamation as a war measure long be- 
 fore he mentioned it even to members of his 
 Cabinet. The sudden collapse of McClellan's 
 Richmond campaign in June, 1862, un- 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 141 
 
 doubtedly prompted Lincoln to carry out his 
 plan to free the slaves. He gave intimation 
 of what was in his mind to Secretary Seward 
 and Secretary Welles on July 13, and at a 
 Cabinet meeting on July 21 presented vari- 
 ous proposed war orders relating to authority 
 for the subsistence of troops in hostile terri- 
 tory, for the employment of Negroes as labor- 
 ers, for the keeping of accounts of property 
 taken and Negroes employed, and for the 
 colonization of Negroes in some tropical coun- 
 try. On the following day the first three 
 orders were approved and the colonization 
 scheme was dropped. On that day also the 
 President submitted the first draft of an 
 Emancipation Proclamation. This original 
 draft had been prepared without consultation 
 with the Cabinet and completely without its 
 knowledge. The proposed proclamation was 
 put aside on advice of the Cabinet, the sug- 
 gestion coming from Secretary Seward, until 
 it could be given to the country supported by 
 military success. 
 
 That the President took counsel of his 
 Maker in this momentous venture is abun- 
 dantly proven by the record. The diaries of 
 Secretary Chase and Secretary Welles are in 
 substantial agreement as to what happened at 
 
142 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 the Cabinet meeting on September 22, when 
 the emancipation was finally announced. 
 The President opened the meeting by read- 
 ing a chapter from Artemus Ward. He then 
 clearly indicated that he had brought the 
 Cabinet together not for consultation but to 
 hear what he had determined upon. He was 
 willing to consider suggestions as to minor 
 matters of form, but the main issue he had 
 settled for himself in solemn communion with 
 his God. Secretary Chase recorded his ver- 
 sion of the actual words the President used in 
 this connection as follows: 
 
 Gentlemen: I have, as you are aware, thought a 
 great deal about the relation of this war to slavery; 
 and you all remember that, several weeks ago, I 
 read to you an order I had prepared on this subject, 
 which, on account of objections made by some of 
 you, was not issued. Ever since then my mind has 
 been much occupied with this subject, and I have 
 thought all along that the time for acting on it 
 might very probably come. I think the time has 
 come now. I wish it was a better time. I wish that 
 we were in a better condition. The action of the 
 army against the rebels has not been quite what I 
 should have best liked. But they have been driven 
 out of Maryland, and Pennsylvania is no longer in 
 danger of invasion. When the rebel army was at 
 Frederick, I determined, as soon as it should be 
 driven out of Maryland, to issue a proclamation of 
 emancipation such as I thought most likely to be 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 143 
 
 useful. I said nothing to anyone; but I made the 
 promise to myself, and [hesitating a little] to my 
 Maker. The rebel army is now driven out, and I 
 am going to fulfill that promise. . . . 
 
 Secretary Welles does not quote the Presi- 
 dent directly in his diary, but he does confirm 
 the version given by Secretary Chase in this 
 statement: 
 
 In the course of the discussion on this paper, 
 which was long, earnest, and on the general prin- 
 ciple involved, harmonious, he [the President] re- 
 marked that he had made a vow, a covenant, that 
 if God gave us the victory in the approaching battle, 
 he would consider it an indication of divine will, 
 and that it was his duty to move forward in the 
 cause of emancipation. It might be thought strange, 
 he said, that he had in this way submitted the dis- 
 posal of matters when the way was not clear to his 
 mind what he should do. God had decided this 
 question in favor of the slaves. He was satisfied it 
 was right, was confirmed and strengthened in his 
 action by the vow and the results. 
 
 The preliminary Emancipation Proclama- 
 tion was accordingly issued on September 22, 
 1862, providing "that on the first day of Janu- 
 ary, 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 rebel- 
 
144 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 lion against the United States, shall be then, 
 thenceforward, and forever free. . . ." 
 
 Replying to a serenade at the White House 
 on September 24, Lincoln said: 
 
 What I did, I did after a very full deliberation, 
 and under a very heavy and solemn sense of respon- 
 sibility. I can only trust in God I have made no 
 mistake. 
 
 In the final immortal document proclaimed 
 on January 1, 1863, the President used these 
 words: 
 
 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. 
 
 Further evidence of the President's con- 
 stant reliance upon his Maker is to be found 
 in frequent utterances in his messages to Con- 
 gress. 
 
 In his first message to the 37th Congress on 
 July 4, 1861, he made a simple and direct ap- 
 peal to the people to uphold the Constitution 
 and defend their government and closed with 
 these words: 
 
 And having thus chosen our course, without guile 
 and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 145 
 
 God, and go forward without fear and with manly 
 hearts. 
 
 In his annual message to Congress on De- 
 cember 3, 1861, dealing in general with the 
 state of the nation, he opened with this state- 
 ment: 
 
 In the midst of unprecedented political troubles 
 we have cause of great gratitude to God for unusual 
 good health and most abundant harvests. 
 
 This message he closed with these words: 
 
 With a reliance on Providence all the more firm 
 and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which 
 events have devolved upon us. 
 
 His message to Congress on March 6, 1862, 
 recommending compensated emancipation, 
 was closed as follows: 
 
 In full view of my great responsibility to my God 
 and to my country, I earnestly beg the attention of 
 Congress and the people to the subject. 
 
 His annual message to Congress on Decem- 
 ber 1, 1862, was general in character, but dealt 
 largely with the problems of the Civil War. 
 It began in this way: 
 
 Since your last annual assembling another year of 
 health and bountiful harvest has passed; and while 
 it has not pleased the Almighty to bless us with a 
 
146 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 return of peace, we can but press on, guided by the 
 best light he gives us, trusting that in his own good 
 time and wise way all will yet be well. 
 
 This message ended with these words: 
 
 The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way 
 which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, 
 and God must forever bless. 
 
 The annual message to Congress on Decem- 
 ber 8, 1863, was general in character. It 
 began with this familiar note: 
 
 Another year of health, and of sufficiently 
 abundant harvests, has passed. For these, and espe- 
 cially for the improved condition of our national 
 affairs, our renewed and profoundest gratitude to 
 God is due. 
 
 In the body of this message, speaking of the 
 government's obligation to the Indians, the 
 President said: 
 
 Sound policy, and our imperative duty to these 
 wards of the government, demand our anxious and 
 constant attention to their material well-being, to 
 their progress in the arts of civilization, and, above 
 all, to that moral training which, under the blessing 
 of Divine Providence, will confer upon them the 
 elevated and sanctifying influences, the hopes and 
 consolations, of the Christian faith. 
 
 In his annual message to Congress on De- 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 147 
 
 cember 6, 1864, which, under God, was to be 
 his last, in his opening words the President 
 said: 
 
 Again the blessings of health and abundant 
 harvests claim our profoundest gratitude to Al- 
 mighty God. 
 
 There are yet other documentary evidences 
 of like tenor. Lincoln was frequently called 
 upon to greet delegations of churchmen who 
 came to Washington to give him their views 
 on the conduct of the war or to offer him sup- 
 port and encouragement. He was also obliged 
 often to reply to communications from like 
 groups of citizens. 
 
 To a delegation of Evangelical Lutherans 
 of the United States, who waited upon him 
 early in May, 1862, the President said, in part: 
 
 You all may recollect that in taking up the sword 
 thus forced into our hands, this government ap- 
 pealed to the prayers of the pious and the good, 
 and declared that it placed its whole dependence 
 upon the favor of God. I now humbly and rever- 
 ently, in your presence, reiterate the acknowledg- 
 ment of that dependence, not doubting that, if it 
 shall please the Divine Being who determines the 
 destinies of nations, this shall remain a united 
 people, and that they will, humbly seeking the 
 divine guidance, make their prolonged national 
 existence a source of new benefits to themselves and 
 
148 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 their successors, and to all classes and conditions of 
 mankind. 
 
 About the middle of May, 1862, the East 
 Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church, through a committee of min- 
 isters, presented a preamble and resolutions 
 of approval to the President. In the course 
 of his brief reply he wrote: 
 
 These kind words of approval, coming from so 
 numerous a body of intelligent Christian people, 
 and so free from all suspicion of sinister motives, are 
 indeed encouraging to me. By the help of an all- 
 wise Providence, I shall endeavor to do my duty, 
 and I shall expect the continuance of your prayers 
 for a right solution of our national difficulties and 
 the restoration of our country to peace and pros- 
 perity. 
 
 In September, 1862, a delegation of Friends 
 called upon the President and their leader, 
 Mrs. Eliza P. Gurney, presented an address 
 begging him to bring the war to an end. The 
 reply he made was not without appreciative 
 understanding of the devotion of the Friends 
 to peace, but revealed his constant reliance 
 upon Divine Will. He said: 
 
 I am glad of this interview, and glad to know 
 that I have your sympathy and prayers. We are 
 indeed going through a great trial— a fiery trial. In 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 149 
 
 the very responsible position in which I happen to 
 be placed, being a humble instrument in the hands 
 of our Heavenly Father, as I am, and as we all are, 
 to work out his great purposes, I have desired that 
 all my works and acts may be according to his will, 
 and that it might be so, I have sought his aid; but if, 
 after endeavoring to do my best in the light which 
 he affords me, I find my efforts fail, I must believe 
 that for some purpose unknown to me, he wills it 
 otherwise. If I had had my way, this war would never 
 have been commenced. If I had been allowed my 
 way, this war would have been ended before this; 
 but we find it still continues, and we must believe 
 that he permits it for some wise purpose of his own, 
 mysterious and unknown to us; and though with 
 our limited understandings we may not be able to 
 comprehend it, yet we cannot but believe that he 
 who made the world still governs it. 
 
 This interview evidently left a very vivid 
 impression upon Lincoln's mind. More than 
 a year later Mrs. Gurney addressed a letter to 
 the President from London. He kept it sev- 
 eral months, and on September 4, 1864, re- 
 plied as follows: 
 
 My esteemed Friend: I have not forgotten— prob- 
 ably never shall forget— the very impressive occa- 
 sion when yourself and friends visited me on a Sab- 
 bath forenoon two years ago. Nor has your kind 
 letter, written nearly a year later, ever been forgot- 
 ten. In all it has been your purpose to strengthen 
 my reliance on God. I am much indebted to the 
 
150 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 good Christian people of the country for their con- 
 stant prayers and consolations; and to no one of 
 them more than to yourself. The purposes of the 
 Almighty are perfect, and must prevail, though we 
 erring mortals may fail to accurately perceive them 
 in advance. We hoped for a happy termination of 
 this terrible war long before this; but God knows 
 best, and has ruled otherwise. We shall yet acknowl- 
 edge his wisdom, and our own error therein. Mean- 
 while we must work earnestly in the best lights he 
 gives us, trusting that so working still conduces to 
 the great ends he ordains. Surely, he intends some 
 great good to follow this mighty convulsion, which 
 no mortal could make, and no mortal could stay. 
 Your people, the Friends, have had, and are having, 
 a very great trial. On principle and faith opposed 
 to both war and oppression, they can only practi- 
 cally oppose oppression by war. In this hard di- 
 lemma some have chosen one horn, and some the 
 other. For those appealing to me on conscientious 
 grounds, I have done, and shall do, the best I could 
 and can, in my own conscience, under my oath to 
 the law. That you believe this I doubt not; and, 
 believing it, I shall still receive for our country 
 and myself your earnest prayers to our Father in 
 heaven. Your sincere friend, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 On January 5, 1863, the President replied 
 to a letter from Caleb Russell and Sallie A. 
 Fenton in these words: 
 
 My good Friends: The Honorable Senator Har- 
 lan has just placed in my hands your letter of the 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 151 
 
 27th of December, which I have read with pleasure 
 and gratitude. It is most cheering and encouraging 
 for me to know that in the efforts which I have 
 made and am making for the restoration of a right- 
 eous peace to our country, I am upheld and sus- 
 tained by the good wishes and prayers of God's 
 people. No one is more deeply than myself aware 
 that without His favor our highest wisdom is but as 
 foolishness and that our most strenuous efforts 
 would avail nothing in the shadow of His displeas- 
 ure. I am conscious of no desire for my country's 
 welfare that is not in consonance with His will, and 
 of no plan upon which we may not ask His blessing. 
 It seems to me that if there be one subject upon 
 which all good men may unitedly agree, it is im- 
 ploring the gracious favor of the God of Nations 
 upon the struggles our people are making for the 
 preservation of their precious birthright of civil and 
 religious liberty. 
 
 Very truly your friend, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 Again, in the latter part of May, 1863, the 
 President received representatives of the Pres- 
 byterian General Assembly and in acknowl- 
 edging the memorial presented by them he 
 said: 
 
 This to me is most gratifying, because from the 
 beginning I saw that the issue of our great struggle 
 depended on the divine interposition and favor. 
 If we had that, all would be well. . . . Relying, as 
 I do, upon the Almighty Power, and encouraged as 
 
152 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 I am by these resolutions which you have just read, 
 with the support which I receive from Christian 
 men, I shall not hesitate to use all the means at my 
 control to secure the termination of this rebellion, 
 and will hope for success. 
 
 In the course of a long letter to A. G. 
 Hodges, written on April 4, 1864, Lincoln 
 said: 
 
 I add a word which was not in the verbal con- 
 versation. In telling this tale I attempt no compli- 
 ment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have con- 
 trolled events, but confess plainly that events have 
 controlled me. Now, at the end of three years' 
 struggle, the nation's condition is not what either 
 party, or any man, devised or expected. God alone 
 can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If 
 God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and 
 wills also that we of the North, as well as you of 
 the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that 
 wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause 
 to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 On May 14, 1864, a Methodist delegation 
 called again upon the President. Respond- 
 ing to the address presented to him, Lincoln 
 said: 
 
 Nobly sustained as the government has been by 
 all the churches, I would utter nothing which might 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 153 
 
 in the least appear invidious against any. Yet with- 
 out this it may fairly be said that the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, not less devoted than the best, is 
 by its greater numbers the most important of all. 
 It is no fault in others that the Methodist Church 
 sends more soldiers to the field, more nurses to the 
 hospital, and more prayers to heaven than any. God 
 bless the Methodist Church. Bless all the churches, 
 and blessed be God, who, in this our great trial, 
 giveth us the churches. 
 
 About this time also representatives of the 
 American Baptist Home Mission Society pre- 
 sented a preamble and resolutions to the Presi- 
 dent. Replying by letter he said: 
 
 When, a year or two ago, those professedly holy 
 men of the South met in the semblance of prayer 
 and devotion, and, in the name of Him who said, 
 "As ye would all men should do unto you, do ye 
 even so unto them, ,, appealed to the Christian 
 world to aid them in doing to a whole race of men 
 as they would have no man do unto themselves, to 
 my thinking they condemned and insulted God and 
 His church far more than did Satan when he 
 tempted the Saviour with the kingdoms of the earth. 
 The devil's attempt was no more false, and far less 
 hypocritical. But let me forbear, remembering it is 
 also written, "Judge not, lest ye be judged/' 
 
 On September 7, 1864, a committee of 
 colored people of Baltimore presented the 
 
154 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 President with a Bible. Speaking informally 
 in response he said: 
 
 In regard to this great book, I have but to say, it 
 is the best gift God has given to man. 
 
 All the good Saviour gave to the world was com- 
 municated through this book. But for it we could 
 not know right from wrong. All things most desir- 
 able for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to 
 be found portrayed in it. To you I return my most 
 sincere thanks for the very elegant copy of the great 
 Book of God which you present. 
 
 In a letter written to Thurlow Weed just 
 thirty days before his death, Lincoln records 
 his overwhelming belief in "a God governing 
 the world/ ' This letter alone taken in con- 
 nection with his "little notification speech" 
 and the second inaugural, to which it refers, 
 confounds for all time those who would call 
 him an atheist and epitomizes the faith he pos- 
 sessed. It ran as follows: 
 
 Dear Mr. Weed: Every one likes a compliment. 
 Thank you for yours on my little notification speech 
 and on the recent inaugural address. I expect the 
 latter to wear as well as— perhaps better than— any- 
 thing I have produced; but I believe it is not im- 
 mediately popular. Men are not flattered by being 
 shown that there has been a difference of purpose 
 between the Almighty and them. To deny it, how- 
 ever, in this case, is to deny that there is a God 
 governing the world. It is a truth which I thought 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 155 
 
 needed to be told, and, as whatever of humiliation 
 
 there is in it falls most directly on myself, I thought 
 
 others might afford for me to tell it. 
 
 Truly yours, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 All the utterances of the President here pre- 
 sented in his public addresses, his official 
 proclamations, his greetings to delegations of 
 churchmen, his letters and other documents, 
 made by a man who had earned the appella- 
 tion of "Honest Abe" before he came to Wash- 
 ington, must be accepted as a literally truthful 
 expression of the inner personal feelings of 
 the man himself. They cannot be explained 
 away by the possible assumption that they 
 were merely the formal utterances of the 
 President who sought the favor and support 
 of Christian people. Such a view would be 
 nothing short of an insult to the memory of 
 the martyred President whose entire life was 
 characterized by unwavering truthfulness 
 upon all matters of ordinary fact with which 
 he dealt and by scrupulous intellectual hon- 
 esty in his dealing with great issues and causes. 
 Lincoln was not an actor. When in a public 
 document or before a great assemblage he 
 voiced faith in and dependence upon his 
 Maker, he was not using words for their lit- 
 erary appropriateness or for their oratorical 
 
156 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 effect. He was solemnly expressing his true 
 inner self. 
 
 It is now commonly agreed that a personal 
 spiritual awakening, such as he had never ex- 
 perienced before, came to Lincoln after the 
 death of his son Willie at the White House 
 on Thursday, February 20, 1862. Strong man 
 that he was and busy as he was day and night 
 with the trials of office, he will-nigh surren- 
 dered to his grief at the loss of his son. For 
 several weeks he set apart each Thursday for 
 the indulgence of his grief and did not dis- 
 continue the practice until after an intimate 
 talk with the Rev. Francis Vinton, Rector of 
 Trinity Church, New York, who called at the 
 White House at the request of Mrs. Lincoln to 
 console the President. In his account of this 
 incident in his book entitled Six Months at the 
 White House, F. B. Carpenter, the artist, says: 
 
 Through a member of the family, I have been in- 
 formed that Mr. Lincoln's views in relation to spirit- 
 ual things seemed changed from that hour. Certain 
 it is, that thenceforth he ceased the observance of 
 the day of the week upon which his son died, and 
 gradually resumed his accustomed cheerfulness. 
 
 Confirmation of the change in Lincoln's 
 spiritual life is to be found in another inci- 
 dent related by Carpenter now commonly ac- 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 157 
 
 cepted in substance, if not in its exact terms, 
 as authentic. Carpenter's account reads as 
 follows: 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Willets, of Brooklyn, gave me an 
 account of a conversation with Mr. Lincoln, on the 
 part of a lady of his acquaintance, connected with 
 the "Christian Commission, ,, who in the prosecu- 
 tion of her duties had several interviews with him. 
 The President, it seemed, had been much impressed 
 with the devotion and earnestness of purpose mani- 
 fested by the lady, and on one occasion, after she 
 had discharged the object of her visit, he said to her: 
 
 "Mrs. , I have formed a high opinion of your 
 
 Christian character, and now, as we are alone, I 
 have a mind to ask you to give me, in brief, your 
 idea of what constitutes a true religious experience." 
 The lady replied at some length, stating that, in her 
 judgment, it consisted of a conviction of one's own 
 sinfulness and weakness, and personal need of the 
 Saviour for strength and support; that views of mere 
 doctrine might and would differ, but when one was 
 really brought to feel his need of divine help, and 
 to seek the aid of the Holy Spirit for strength and 
 guidance, it was satisfactory evidence of his having 
 been born again. This was the substance of her 
 reply. When she had concluded, Mr. Lincoln was 
 very thoughtful for a few moments. He at length 
 said, very earnestly: "If what you have told me is 
 really a correct view of this great subject, I think I 
 can say with sincerity, that I hope I am a Christian. 
 I had lived/' he continued, "until my boy Willie 
 died, without realizing fully these things. That 
 blow overwhelmed me. It showed me my weakness 
 
158 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 as I have never felt it before, and if I can take what 
 you have stated as a test, I think I can safely say 
 that I know something of that change of which you 
 speak; and I will further add, that it has been my 
 intention for some time, at a suitable opportunity, 
 to make a public religious profession." 
 
 Lincoln did not, however, at any time in his 
 life make "a public religious profession/' He 
 did not join a church in Washington, although 
 he regularly attended the New York Avenue 
 Presbyterian Church and formed a close at- 
 tachment to the minister, the Rev. Phineas D. 
 Gurley. Eight years after Lincoln's death, 
 Doctor Gurley had this to say in an article in 
 Scribner's Monthly: 
 
 I have had frequent and intimate conversations 
 with him on the subject of the Bible and the Chris- 
 tian religion, when he could have had no motive to 
 deceive me, and I considered him sound, not only 
 on the truth of the Christian religion, but on all its 
 fundamental doctrines and teachings. And, more 
 than that, in the latter days of his chastened and 
 weary life, after the death of his son Willie, and 
 his visit to the battlefield of Gettysburg, he said, 
 with tears in his eyes, that he had lost confidence in 
 everything but God, and that he now believed his 
 heart was changed and that he loved the Saviour, 
 and, if he was not deceived in himself, it was his 
 intention soon to make a profession of religion. 
 
 Additional evidence of Lincoln's constant 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 159 
 
 reliance upon a Power beyond himself 
 throughout his Presidency may be found in 
 his dealings with the members of his Cabinet, 
 with the officers of the army and the navy, 
 with other public officials and with distin- 
 guished private citizens. One illustration 
 along this line must serve in this connection. 
 William H. Seward was the idol of the new 
 Republican party in the East in 1860, and it 
 was generally expected that he would be the 
 choice of the party for President at the Wig- 
 wam Convention in Chicago in May of that 
 year. Seward had already had a distinguished 
 career extending over thirty years of active 
 political life. A graduate of Union College, 
 he was admitted to the bar in New York state 
 at the age of twenty-one. He early gained dis- 
 tinction as a lawyer and at the age of twenty- 
 nine was elected to the state Senate, serving 
 four years. At thirty-seven years of age, in 
 1838, he was elected governor of the state of 
 New York and was re-elected in 1840 for a 
 second term. In 1849 the Whigs in the state 
 Legislature sent Seward to the United States 
 Senate, where he served for two terms. In the 
 fullness of his powers at sixty years of age, one 
 of the leading statesmen of the nation, he con- 
 fidently expected that he would be nominated 
 
160 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 for the Presidency by the Republicans in 
 1860. 
 
 Seward accepted the proffer of the port- 
 folio of Secretary of State which Lincoln 
 promptly offered him after the election in 
 November, 1860, with reluctance and misgiv- 
 ings and undertook to withdraw at the last 
 moment before the inauguration. Lincoln 
 prevailed upon him finally to accept the post, 
 and he did so with the earnest conviction that 
 he was to be the power behind the throne. 
 Shortly after the inauguration, saturated with 
 this idea, he wrote to Mrs. Seward: 
 
 The President is determined that he will have a 
 compound Cabinet; and that it shall be peaceful, 
 and even permanent. I was at one time on the 
 point of refusing— nay, I did refuse, for a time, to 
 hazard myself in the experiment. But a distracted 
 country appeared before me, and I withdrew from 
 that position. I believe I can endure as much as 
 any one; and may be I can endure enough to make 
 the experiment successful. At all events, I did not 
 dare to go home, or to England, and leave the 
 country to chance. 
 
 In this exalted frame of mind the distin- 
 guished Secretary of State penned one of the 
 strangest documents in our history. Feeling 
 as he apparently did that the primary respon- 
 sibility for the conduct of the government 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 161 
 
 rested upon him, on April 1, 1861, he sub- 
 mitted a memorandum to the President, en- 
 titled "Some Thoughts for the President's 
 Consideration/ ' which read as follows: 
 
 First. We are at the end of a month's administra- 
 tion, and yet without a policy either domestic or 
 foreign. 
 
 Second. This, however, is not culpable, and it 
 has even been unavoidable. The presence of the 
 Senate, with the need to meet applications for 
 patronage, have prevented attention to other and 
 more grave matters. 
 
 Third. But further delay to adopt and prosecute 
 our policies for both domestic and foreign affairs 
 would not only bring scandal on the administration, 
 but danger upon the country. 
 
 Fourth. To do this we must dismiss the appli- 
 cants for office. But how? I suggest that we make 
 the local appointments forthwith, leaving foreign or 
 general ones for ulterior and occasional action. 
 
 Fifth. The policy at home. I am aware that my 
 views are singular, and perhaps not sufficiently ex- 
 plained. My system is built upon this idea as a 
 ruling one, namely, that we must 
 
 CHANGE THE QUESTION BEFORE THE PUBLIC FROM 
 
 one upon slavery, or about slavery, for a question 
 upon union or disunion: 
 
 In other words, from what would be regarded as 
 a party question, to one of patriotism or union. 
 
 The occupation or evacuation of Fort Sumter, 
 although not in fact a slavery or a party question, 
 is so regarded. Witness the temper manifested by 
 
162 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 the Republicans in the free States, and even by the 
 Union men in the South. 
 
 I would therefore terminate it as a safe means for 
 changing the issue. I deem it fortunate that the last 
 administration created the necessity. 
 
 For the rest, I would simultaneously defend and 
 reinforce all the ports in the gulf, and have the navy 
 recalled from foreign stations to be prepared for a 
 blockade. Put the island of Key West under martial 
 law. 
 
 This will raise distinctly the question of union or 
 disunion. I would maintain every fort and posses- 
 sion in the South. 
 
 For Foreign Nations 
 
 I would demand explanations from Spain and 
 France, categorically, at once. 
 
 I would seek explanations from Great Britain and 
 Russia, and send agents into Canada, Mexico, and 
 Central America to rouse a vigorous continental 
 spirit of independence on this continent against 
 European intervention. 
 
 And, if satisfactory explanations are not received 
 from Spain and France, 
 
 Would convene Congress and declare war against 
 them. 
 
 But whatever policy we adopt, there must be an 
 energetic prosecution of it. 
 
 For this purpose it must be somebody's business 
 to pursue and direct it incessantly. 
 
 Either the President must do it himself, and be 
 all the while active in it, or 
 
 Devolve it on some member of his cabinet. Once 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 163 
 
 adopted, debates on it must end, and all agree and 
 abide. 
 
 It is not in my especial province; 
 
 But I neither seek to evade nor assume responsi- 
 bility. 
 
 We shall never know all that took place in 
 the mind of the President when he read this 
 amazing document from his Secretary of State. 
 It must be remembered that this brazenly ex- 
 pressed willingness to assume the reins of gov- 
 ernment came to the President from a man 
 who greatly outranked him in education and 
 in social experience, in high public service as 
 governor of a great state, as United States 
 senator, and, in the judgment of many con- 
 spicuous politicians in his own party, espe- 
 cially in the powerful East, in statesmanship 
 and in forceful qualities of leadership. 
 
 The President took no counsel of which we 
 know, but he acted promptly. Before night- 
 fall the Secretary had the President's reply, 
 which read: 
 
 Executive Mansion, April 1, 1861. 
 My dear Sir: Since parting with you I have been 
 considering your paper dated this day, and entitled 
 "Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration." 
 The first proposition in it is, "First, We are at the 
 end of a month's administration, and yet without a 
 policy either domestic or foreign." 
 
164 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 At the beginning of that month, in the inaugural, 
 I said: "The power confided to me will be used to 
 hold, occupy, and possess the property and places 
 belonging to the government, and to collect the 
 duties and imposts." This had your distinct ap- 
 proval at the time; and, taken in connection with 
 the order I immediately gave General Scott, direct- 
 ing him to employ every means in his power to 
 strengthen and hold the forts, comprises the exact 
 domestic policy you now urge, with the single excep- 
 tion that it does not propose to abandon Fort 
 Sumter. 
 
 Again, I do not perceive how the reinforcement 
 of Fort Sumter would be done on a slavery or a 
 party issue, while that of Fort Pickens would be on 
 a more national and patriotic one. 
 
 The news received yesterday in regard to St. 
 Domingo certainly brings a new item within the 
 range of our foreign policy; but up to that time 
 we have been preparing circulars and instructions 
 to ministers and the like, all in perfect harmony, 
 without even a suggestion that we had no foreign 
 policy. 
 
 Upon your closing propositions— that "whatever 
 policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prose- 
 cution of it. 
 
 "For this purpose it must be somebody's business 
 to pursue and direct it incessantly. 
 
 "Either the President must do it himself, and be 
 all the while active in it, or 
 
 "Devolve it on some member of his cabinet. Once 
 adopted, debates on it must end, and all agree and 
 abide"— I remark that if this must be done, I must 
 do it. When a general line of policy is adopted, I 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 165 
 
 apprehend there is no danger of its being changed 
 without good reason, or continuing to be a subject 
 of unnecessary debate; still, upon points arising in 
 its progress I wish, and suppose I am entitled to 
 have, the advice of all the cabinet. 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 The full measure of Abraham Lincoln is to 
 be found in the way he dealt with this inci- 
 dent. There is no record that he ever re- 
 ferred to the matter again with Seward or 
 that he ever mentioned it to other members of 
 the Cabinet. Seward's memorandum and the 
 President's reply were tucked away in the files 
 and not given to the world by Nicolay and 
 Hay until long after the death of both Presi- 
 dent and Secretary. It may well be urged that 
 when Lincoln penned the line, "I remark 
 that if this must be done, I must do it" he be- 
 came President in fact as well as in title. 
 There were many high points in his career. 
 This utterance on April 1, 1861, in some ways 
 marks one of the great peaks, if not the summit, 
 of his life. When he said, "I must do it" he 
 was not acting alone. If we could penetrate 
 into the silence which surrounds what Lin- 
 coln thought and did on that day, it is not an 
 unwarranted assumption, in the light of what 
 we do know about his daily conduct from 1861 
 
166 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 to 1865, that he took counsel with the Divine 
 Being before he decided to put the Secretary 
 in his place. 
 
 Seward, as Lincoln had no doubt antici- 
 pated, was wise enough to discern who was to 
 be President. His subsequent conduct goes 
 far toward atoning for his temporary aberra- 
 tion. Shortly after receiving the President's 
 reply he wrote to Mrs. Seward: 
 
 Executive skill and vigor are rare qualities. The 
 President is the best of us. 
 
 He found his place and kept it. Rare dis- 
 crimination was used in the choice of words 
 engraved on the stone that marks his resting 
 place in the cemetery at Auburn, New York. 
 The words are: "He was faithful." 
 
 It remains finally in this account to sum- 
 mon the judgment of those who knew Lincoln 
 best and who did not hesitate to record them- 
 selves. 
 
 William H. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner 
 for the last twenty years of his life, was always 
 skeptical about Lincoln's personal beliefs in 
 the tenets of Christianity, and yet said this of 
 his religious views: 
 
 The world has always insisted on making an or- 
 thodox Christian of him, and to analyze his sayings 
 or sound his beliefs is but to break the idol. It only 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 167 
 
 remains to say that, whether orthodox or not, he 
 believed in God and immortality; and even if he 
 questioned the existence of future eternal punish- 
 ment he hoped to find a rest from trouble and a 
 heaven beyond the grave. If at any time in his life 
 he was skeptical of the divine origin of the Bible 
 he ought not for that reason to be condemned; for 
 he accepted the practical precepts of that great book 
 as binding alike upon his head and his conscience. 
 The benevolence of his impulses, the seriousness of 
 his convictions, and the nobility of his character are 
 evidences unimpeachable that his soul was ever 
 filled with the exalted purity and sublime faith of 
 natural religion. 
 
 Jesse W. Fell, a strong political supporter 
 and close personal friend of Lincoln, who was 
 the first publicly to urge him as the Republi- 
 can candidate for President, in a statement on 
 his religious opinions, declared that Lincoln 
 "did not believe in what are regarded as the 
 orthodox or evangelical views of Christian- 
 ity," that "his expressed views on these and 
 kindred topics were such as, in the estimation 
 of most believers, would place him entirely 
 outside the Christian pale," and nevertheless 
 went on to say: 
 
 Yet, to my mind, such was not the true position, 
 since his principles and practices and the spirit of 
 his whole life were of the very kind we universally 
 agree to call Christian; and I think this conclusion 
 
168 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 is in no wise affected by the circumstance that he 
 never attached himself to any religious society what- 
 ever. 
 
 His religious views were eminently practical, and 
 are summed up, as I think, in these two proposi- 
 tions: "The Fatherhood of God, and the brother- 
 hood of man." He fully believed in a superintend- 
 ing and overruling Providence, that guides and 
 controls the operations of the world, but maintained 
 that law and order, and not their violation or sus- 
 pension, are the appointed means by which this 
 Providence is exercised. 
 
 The Hon. Isaac N. Arnold, a member of 
 Congress from Illinois during the Civil War, 
 who knew Lincoln intimately, in his Life of 
 Abraham Lincoln, said: 
 
 No more reverent Christian than he ever sat in 
 the executive chair, not excepting Washington. He 
 was by nature religious; full of religious sentiment. 
 The veil between him and the supernatural was 
 very thin. It is not claimed that he was orthodox. 
 For creeds and dogmas he cared little. But in the 
 great fundamental principles of religion, of the 
 Christian religion, he was a firm believer. Belief 
 in the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, 
 in the Bible as the revelation of God to man, in the 
 efficacy and duty of prayer, in reverence toward the 
 Almighty, and in love and charity to man, was the 
 basis of his religion. 
 
 Major Henry C. Whitney, who traveled 
 with Lincoln as a fellow lawyer in the eighth 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 169 
 
 judicial district of Illinois, in his book, Life 
 on the Circuit with Lincoln, said: 
 
 The conclusion is inevitable, that Mr. Lincoln 
 was practically and essentially, though not ritual- 
 istically a Christian. . . . On the evidences which 
 he himself furnished, I must believe, and cannot 
 doubt, that, although he was not a formal or ritual- 
 istic Christian, yet that no man in any age more 
 closely obeyed the divine precepts or walked more 
 closely to God than he. 
 
 Similar declarations could be summoned 
 from many other sources. His own words and 
 conduct, the unchallenged public record and 
 the views of those who knew him intimately 
 alike reveal the essence and quality of his faith. 
 
 The cornerstone of the memorial hall near 
 Hodgenville, Kentucky, which shelters the 
 remains of the log cabin in which Lincoln 
 was born, was laid by Theodore Roosevelt, 
 President of the United States, on February 
 12, 1909, one hundred years from the day of 
 Lincoln's birth. Linking the names of Wash- 
 ington and Lincoln in his memorable address 
 on that occasion, President Roosevelt said: 
 
 As a people we are indeed beyond measure fortu- 
 nate in the characters of the two greatest of our 
 public men, Washington and Lincoln. Widely 
 though they differed in externals, the Virginia 
 landed gentleman and the Kentucky backwoods- 
 
170 The Growth of Lincoln's Faith 
 
 man, they were alike in essentials, they were alike 
 in the great qualities which made each able to do 
 service to his nation and to all mankind such as no 
 other man of his generation could or did render. 
 Each had lofty ideals, but each in striving to attain 
 these lofty ideals was guided by the soundest com- 
 mon sense. Each possessed inflexible courage in 
 adversity, and a soul wholly unspoiled by prosperity. 
 Each possessed all the gentler virtues commonly 
 exhibited by good men who lack rugged strength 
 of character. Each possessed also all the strong 
 qualities commonly exhibited by those towering 
 masters of mankind who have too often shown 
 themselves devoid of so much as the understanding 
 of the words by which we signify the qualities of 
 duty, of mercy, of devotion to the right, of lofty 
 disinterestedness in battling for the good of others. 
 There have been other men as great and other men 
 as good; but in all the history of mankind there are 
 no other two great men as good as these, no other 
 two good men as great. 
 
 It matters little, as these lines are being 
 written, nearly seventy-three years after Lin- 
 coln's death, that he had no genuine spiritual 
 awakening in his boyhood or youth. It mat- 
 ters little that some men who knew him in the 
 New Salem and in the Springfield days de- 
 clared him to be an infidel. It matters little 
 that he did not join a church and that he did 
 not attend church services regularly until his 
 later years. It matters little that many zealous 
 
Sublime Faith of the President 171 
 
 churchmen have labored in vain to prove him 
 an orthodox Christian in the terms of their 
 particular creeds. It matters little that he was 
 in no sense a theologian and that his intimate 
 personal beliefs were never given to the world. 
 When he set out for Washington in Febru- 
 ary, 1861, he said to his friends and neighbors 
 at Springfield that the task before him was 
 greater than that which rested upon Wash- 
 ington. History confirms that view. He said 
 also that without the assistance of the Divine 
 Being who ever attended Washington he 
 could not succeed. The record is unmistak- 
 able from that day forth that his chief reli- 
 ance was in the Divine Being. Here ad- 
 mittedly is the greatest figure in our history 
 since Washington. Here is perhaps the great- 
 est figure in the nineteenth century, and here 
 we now know is one of the truly great figures 
 in all the history of mankind. This great and 
 good man, bearing the burdens of the Presi- 
 dency in our bitterest national trial, in the 
 fullness of his career, declared: 
 
 I have been driven many times to my knees by 
 the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere 
 else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about 
 me seemed insufficient for that day. 
 
 The faith of the President was sublime. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abolition, resolutions on, 60, 
 77 
 
 Address, Lincoln; in Albany, 
 New York, 129; in Alton, 
 108; in Buffalo, 129; in 
 Charleston, Illinois, 119; 
 in Chicago, 105, 118; in 
 Cincinnati, 129; in Co- 
 lumbus, 129; in Cooper 
 Union, 99, 109ff.; in Gettys- 
 burg, 131 ff.; in Galena, 
 Illinois, 103, 104; in Har- 
 risburg, Pennsylvania, 130; 
 First Inaugural, 99, 132ff.; 
 Second Inaugural, 133ff., 
 154; in Indianapolis, 128, 
 130; in Springfield, Illinois, 
 
 74, 76, 104ff., 119, 128; in 
 Steubenville, Ohio, 129; in 
 Trenton, New Jersey, 37, 
 130 
 
 Address, Theodore Roosevelt, 
 169ff. 
 
 American Baptist Home Mis- 
 sion Society, 153 
 
 American Colonization So- 
 ciety, 102 
 
 Arnold, Isaac N., on Lincoln's 
 religion, 168 
 
 Autobiography of Lincoln, 
 35, 45 
 
 Baptism of Thomas Lincoln, 
 
 23 
 Baptist Church, 23, 24, 32, 
 
 48, 153 
 Barton, Dr. William E., 73, 
 
 123, 124 
 Bateman, Newton, 122 
 Berry, William, 52, 53, 55 
 Bible, the, 16, 24, 36, 73, 74, 
 
 75, 115, 120, 123, 154, 168 
 
 Birthplace of Lincoln, 13, 169 
 Black Hawk War, 50, 51, 52, 
 
 57, 58, 62, 84 
 
 Books Lincoln read, 36, 72 
 Browning, Mrs. Orville H., 
 64ff. 
 
 Calhoun, John, 54 
 Carpenter, F. B., 156, 157 
 Cartwright, the Rev. Peter, 
 
 58, 91 
 
 Chase, Salmon P., 141 ff. 
 Chicago, Illinois, 83, 91, 99, 
 
 105, 109, 118, 159 
 Childhood of Lincoln, 13ff. 
 Christian Commission, 157 
 Christianity of Lincoln, 124, 
 
 155 
 Clay, Henry, 90, 102, 116 
 Coles County, Illinois, 16ff., 
 
 33, 47 
 Colonization of Negro race, 
 
 102, 141 
 Constitution, U. S., 41, 60, 61, 
 
 74, 100, 101, 109 
 Conversion, 77, 124, 157, 158 
 Curzon, Lord, 134 
 
 Davis, Judge David, 87ff. 
 Death, of Edward Baker Lin- 
 coln, 82; of Nancy Hanks 
 Lincoln, 28; of Robert 
 Todd Lincoln, 81i; of 
 Sarah Bush Lincoln, 33; 
 of "Tad" Lincoln, 82; of 
 "Willie" Lincoln, 82, 156, 
 157; of Ann Rutledge, 63 
 Debates, Lincoln-Douglas, 97, 
 
 99, 102, 103, 106, 107, 119 
 Deming, Hon. Henry C, 114 
 Dodge, Daniel Kilham, 78 
 Douglas, Stephen A., 84, 91, 
 
 173 
 
174 
 
 Index 
 
 96, 97, 99, 102, 106, 107, 
 
 108, 110, 117, 123 
 Downs, the Rev. William, 23 
 Dresser, the Rev. Charles, 72 
 Durley, Williamson, 102 
 
 Education, of Abraham Lin- 
 coln, 19, 22, 35, 38, 39; of 
 Nancy Hanks Lincoln, 
 16ff.; of Sarah Bush Lin- 
 coln, 36; of Thomas Lin- 
 coln, 14, 16ff. 
 Education, Lincoln's views 
 
 on, 57, 58 
 Elkin, the Rev. David, 29 
 Emancipation Proclamation, 
 
 61, 140ff. 
 Episcopal Church, 112, 156 
 Essay of Lincoln, against re- 
 ligion, 73; on national poli- 
 tics (1828), 41 
 Eulogy, on Henry Clay, 102, 
 116; on Benjamin Fergu- 
 son, 75ff. 
 Evangelical Lutherans, 147 
 Everett, Edward, 132, 133 
 
 Fell, Jesse W., on Lincoln's 
 
 religion, 167, 168 
 First Inaugural Address, 99, 
 
 132 
 Fragment, notes for speeches 
 
 (1858), 120; on slavery 
 
 (1854), 117 
 Friends' delegation, 148ff. 
 
 General Land Office, 93 
 Gentryville, Ind., 40, 42, 46 
 Gettysburg Address, 131, 132ff. 
 Graham, Mentor, 73 
 Grave of, baby Thomas Lin- 
 coln, 21; Nancy Hanks 
 Lincoln, 28, 30; Thomas 
 Lincoln, 16, 34; William H. 
 Seward, 166 
 Gurley, the Rev. Phineas D., 
 158 
 
 Gurney, Mrs. Eliza P., 148, 
 149 
 
 Hanks, Dennis F., 31 
 Hanks, Lucy, 18 
 Henderson, T. J., 94 
 Henry, A. G., 98 
 Herndon, William H., 17, 72, 
 73, 86, 91, 95, 113, 124, 166 
 Hodges, A. G., 152 
 Holland's Life of Lincoln, 122 
 
 Illinois, 46, 80, 92; Central 
 Railroad, 87; Eighth Judi- 
 cial Circuit, 86, 87; General 
 Assembly, 55, 57, 58, 60, 77, 
 90, 91, 94, 97; House Jour- 
 nal, 100; Republican State 
 Convention, 96; State Jour- 
 nal, 83; Supreme Court, 85 
 
 Indiana, 24, 25, 26ff., 35, 44, 
 45, 63 
 
 Iowa, land grant to Lincoln, 
 51 
 
 Johnston, John D., 34, 121 
 Judd, Norman B., 97ff. 
 
 Kentucky, 21, 24, 25, 43, 48, 
 
 64, 65, 81, 84 
 Knob Creek Farm, 19, 20, 25 
 
 Lamon, Ward H., 72, 73, 124 
 
 Land Grant Act, 41 
 
 Letter, Everett to Lincoln, 133 
 
 Letter, Lincoln to; Mrs. 
 Browning, 64ff.; Durley, 
 102; Russell, 150ff.; Mrs. 
 Gurney, 149ff.; Henderson, 
 94; Henry, 97ff.; Hodges, 
 152; Hoyt, 94; Johnston, 
 121; Judd, 97ff.; Thomas 
 Lincoln, 15; Peck, 116; 
 Pierce, 120; Robertson, 
 103, 117; Seward, 163fL; 
 Mary Speed, 75; J. F. 
 Speed, 76, 81, 101; Stuart, 
 70; Weed, 154ff. 
 
Index 
 
 175 
 
 Letter, Seward to Mrs. Sew- 
 ard, 160, 166; Smith to 
 Herndon, 113 
 Letters, Aunt Rebecca, 71 
 Lincoln, Abraham, allusions 
 to Deity and Bible (1842- 
 1860), 115ff.; belief in im- 
 mortality, 121; "Bounding 
 Ideas," 40; care in public 
 utterances, 131; church at- 
 tendance, 113; circular to 
 people of Sangamon 
 County, 57; convictions of, 
 80ff.; debts, 53, 55, 97, 98; 
 delegate River and Harbor 
 Convention, 91 ff.; depend- 
 ence on God, 130; earns 
 first dollar, 42ff.; Emanci- 
 pation Proclamation, 141ff.; 
 faith of President, 127ff.; 
 "form on other side of 
 gate," 51; gives fish to sol- 
 dier, 20; "God bless my 
 mother," 18; home life, 81, 
 82; income, 54, 55, 85, 87; 
 interview with Bateman, 
 122ff.; judgment on Berry 
 note, 55; lawyer, 83, 84, 85, 
 87ff.; literary style, 36, 76, 
 78, 109; love affairs, 63ff.; 
 meditation on divine will, 
 140; messages to Congress, 
 144ff .; official proclamations, 
 135ff.; partnerships, 52ff., 
 83ff., 84ff., 86; pewholder, 
 113; President in fact, 165; 
 protest resolution on slav- 
 ery, 60; record in General 
 Assembly, 55, 58, 59ff., 62; 
 religion, 48, 11 Iff., 124ff.; re- 
 ply to delegations, 147, 
 148ff., 151ff., 152ff., 153, 
 154; and Seward, 159ff.; 
 slavery views, 99ff., 117; 
 speech on General Cass, 52; 
 on Mexican War, 92; on 
 
 Subtreasury, 74ff.; at Peoria, 
 
 103; spiritual awakening, 
 
 156; "That church will I 
 
 join," 114; trips to New 
 
 Orleans, 44, 47 
 Lincoln, Baby Thomas, 20ff. 
 Lincoln, Edward Baker, 82, 
 
 112 
 Lincoln, Mary Todd, 69ff., 78, 
 
 79, 81, 82, 83, 110, 112, 121, 
 
 156 
 Lincoln, Nancy Hanks, 9, 13, 
 
 16, 23, 26, 27, 28, 31, 48 
 Lincoln, Sarah, 16, 18, 22, 26, 
 
 27, 31, 35 
 Lincoln, Sarah Bush, 32, 33, 
 
 34, 36, 46, 47 
 Lincoln, Robert Todd, 81 
 Lincoln, Thomas, "Tad," 82, 
 
 112 
 Lincoln, Thomas, 14, 15, 17, 
 
 23ff., 31, 32,33, 34, 36, 45ff., 
 
 121 
 Lincoln, William Wallace, 82, 
 
 156ff. 
 Little Mount Church, 23, 48 
 Little Pigeon Church, 48ff. 
 Logan, Stephen T., 84ff., 92 
 London Standard, 133 
 London Times, 133 
 Lovejoy, Elijah P., 59ff. 
 
 Marriage bond, Thomas and 
 
 Nancy Lincoln, 17 
 Marriage notice, Abraham 
 
 and Mary Lincoln, 72 
 Meditation on divine will, 
 
 140 
 Messages to Congress, 144ff. 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 
 148, 152ff. 
 Mexican War, 92, 116 
 
 New Orleans, 44, 47, 99, 100 
 
 New Salem, Illinois, 47, 49, 
 
 50ff., 58, 63, 64. 72. 73. 170 
 
176 
 
 Index 
 
 New York, 60, 63, 109, 159 
 Niagara Falls, 116 
 
 Oregon Territory, 93 
 Owens, Mary, 64ff. 
 Oxford University, 134 
 
 Paine's Age of Reason, 72, 73 
 
 Peck, J. M., 116 
 
 Pierce, H. L., 120 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress, 36 
 
 Pitt, William, 134 
 
 Prayer, 128, 130, 136, 137, 138, 
 
 153, 171 
 Presbyterian, Church, 112; 
 
 General Assembly, 151 
 Presidency, 88, 96, 98, 99, 103, 
 
 110, 121, 122, 124, 127ff. 
 Proclamation, Emancipation, 
 
 61, 140ff.; Official, 1861- 
 
 1864, 135ff. 
 
 Religious profession, 158 
 
 Resolutions, General Assem- 
 bly (1838), 60; Republican 
 State Convention (1858), 
 96; Stone and Lincoln, 60, 
 61 
 
 River and Harbor Conven- 
 tion, 91 
 
 Robertson, George, 103, 117 
 
 Roby, Katie, 63 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, 169ff. 
 
 Rutledge, Ann, 63fL 
 
 Sangamo Journal, 71, 72, 83 
 School teachers, 22, 35, 73 
 Schools, 22, 35, 39 
 Scott, Gen. Winfield, 93, 164 
 Separate Baptists, 23 
 
 Seward, William H., 42, 138, 
 141, 159ff., 166 
 
 Shields, James, 71 
 
 Shiloh Church Yard, 16 
 
 Slavery, 24, 45, 47, 60, 61, 78, 
 80, 99ff., 117, 118, 119, 120, 
 123, 126, 160ff. 
 
 Smith, the Rev. James, 112, 
 113 
 
 Some thoughts for the Presi- 
 dent's consideration, 161ff. 
 
 Sparrow, Thomas, 17 
 
 Speed, J. F., 56, 81, 91, 101 
 
 Speed, Mary, 75 
 
 Spiritual awakening, 156 
 
 State Universities, 41 
 
 Stone, Dan, 61, 100 
 
 Stuart, John T., 70, 83, 84, 86 
 
 Tarbell, Ida M., 126 
 Tariff discussion (1847), 115 
 The Christian's Defense, 113 
 Trinity Church, 156 
 Trumbull, Lyman, 95 
 
 United States Senate, 91, 94, 
 95, 96, 97, 104, 159, 161 
 
 Vinton, the Rev. Francis, 156 
 Volney's Ruins, 72, 73 
 
 Washington, George, 111, 128. 
 
 169, 170, 171 
 Weems's Life of Washington, 
 
 37 
 Welles, Gideon, 141, 143 
 Whitney, Henry C, 168ff. 
 Wigwam Convention, 99, 159 
 Willets, the Rev. M., 157 
 
 14899