Yale University Library ('ll' ! nil Vit li "'-"'^' I lit'/ (.11 39002002966175 I ii,jii,^^^r : Sl'rltJlfe* I'.aJst „ ,^ .1.1 I ,T ' Ni ,1 1j. ,. RtjLilJ^ltlHVifi ,S»*-T*ta , tfr||fern 1 ^ j"! ! lBlSn,n .^^^P^% ^^AdJu^^All^f THE VS^ORDS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN FOR USE IN SCHOOLS SELECTED, ARRANGED AND ANNOTATED ISAAC THOMAS, A.M. (Yale) PRINCIPAL OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, BURLINGTON, VT. 'Utterances of wonderful beauty and grandeur." — Carl Schurz CHICAGO WESTERN PUBLISHING HOUSE Copyright, 1898, by WESTERN PtTBLISHING HOUSE lVordsA.L.—t-8 PREFACE. This book is not a biography, nor was it intended to be. Its main purpose is to put within the reach of our youth a collection of Lincoln's words which, in them selves, will be a source of inspiration to all that read them and will serve as models of good English to the schools, and to make known his words as they ought to be known by all good Americans. It is impossible to lay too much stress upon these qualities of Lincoln's words: their inspiring power, their terseness and vigor, and their worthiness to be studied and known by his countrymen. The editor, therefore, asks the special attention of the readers of this book to what has been said upon this matter by the writers quoted. A second purpose of the book is to gather together into such form as will make them easily accessible to the young, those speeches, letters and state papers of Mr. Lincoln that most clearly reveal what sort of patriot, statesman and man he was. It has in it, there fore, no connected or detailed account of Mr. Lincoln's boyhood or early manhood. It begins with him where his national life may be said to begin, in the middle of the year 1858, giving some of his deeds and words from that time to his death. What he did and said before 1858, though important as a preparation for his larger work, were almost entirely local in their character, and have, therefore, a limited interest to the young people 3 4 PREFACE. of to-day, who can know him in an historical way only. But in what he was and in what he did the last seven years of his life, he belongs to his country and to all the world. In choosing examples of Mr. Lincoln's work the limits of the book allowed the choice of only a certain amount of material, so that the editor was compelled to exercise self-denial to a very high degree. And since he was thereby precluded from much interesting matter, the greater care had to be taken in order that the speeches, state papers, etc., chosen, might be repre sentative of their author in the highest and best sense. This task was made a good deal easier by the fact that Lincoln's public life and service mainly centered in the struggle against, and for the extinction of, slavery in the United States. The speeches that have been chosen include nearly all, if not quite all, the arguments Mr. Lincoln used in the discussion of slavery and the other questions of his day, if, indeed, there can be said to have been other questions. And to the reader of all his great speeches, it is astonishing how few those arguments were. The state papers, messages and proclamations and the public letters all bear upon the same subject — the salvation of the Union with the extinction of slavery. In the choice of these, the editor has been guided by his desire to present connectedly Mr. Lincoln's prog ress to the perception that the extinction of slavery was necessary to the salvation of the Union. In these is shown also his wonderful political sagacity in refus ing to move forward faster than the support of the people would warrant, and in knowing just the right time for the next move. The letters are of two sorts, public and private. In PREFACE. 5 the public letters Mr. Lincoln defends, explains or vin dicates his public action. Written to private individuals, to committees, and to men in public position, they are in reality addressed to the public, to the people, to debate with them questions of public importance and to prepare their minds for his next action. In the purely private letters Mr. Lincoln is seen in another light entirely. His sympathy, his thoughtfulness, his kind ness, his gentleness and his fidelity to his duty all come before us. All his speeches, state papers, letters and addresses are so plain, so simple, as to need only a reading to be understood. The editor, therefore, has been careful to add a note here and there only. In addition to Mr. Lincoln's own words, some of the best things that have been written about him and his words have been put into the book. These serve (i) to present a view of him not possible to be obtained from his own writings, given, as it is, by his contemporaries ; (2) to call attention to some special characteristic of his speeches, letters and papers, and in this way to make clearer their object and the nature of the work which he was doing; (3) to show to the youth of our schools what friends, eminent public men, and poets have said of him ; (4) to bind together the book into a connected whole and so give a more nearly complete portrait of Mr. Lincoln; and (5) to induce both teacher and pupil to read more widely and study more carefully the words of the "first American." In the arrangement of the material selected, the greatest care has been taken so that the picture might grow as the reading proceeded from the beginning to the end. The editor believes this part of his work will commend itself to any who will examine it carefully. Lastly, the purpose of the book is to present a con- 6 PREFACE. necLed piece of history covering the question of slavery in the United States as only Mr. Lincoln has covered it, and giving an exposition of the war for the Union made by a master hand. The words and example of Lincoln, rightly understood by our young people, cannot fail of good in bringing them to see more clearly what true patriotism is as set forth in the say ings and deeds of "the kindly-earnest, brave, fore seeing man," who gave his life also to the cause for which so many others died, "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ' ' Burlington, Vt., September, 1898. I. T. PUBLISHERS' NOTE. Acknowledgments are due for permission to use cop57riglit se lections in this volume as follows ; To Horace L. Traubel, for ' 'My Captain;" to the Independent of New York, for the stories taken from "Six Months at the White House;" to D. Appleton & Co., for the selections from "Herndon's Life of Lincoln" and for the poeras by Bryant which are taken by their special permission from the Poetical Works of Wm. CuUen Bryant, edited by Parke Godwin. The selections by Whittier, Holmes, Lowell, Taylor, Schurz and Phoebe Cary are used by permission of and by special arrangement with Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Publishers. CONTENTS. Fag. Chronological list of events in the life of Abraham Lincoln . lo Lincoln's favorite poem .... William Knox. n Extract from " Abraham Lincoln " fames Russell Lowell. 14 Lincoln's boyhood and youth . . Carl Schurz. 20 Lincoln's method of study . . Rev. J. P. Gulliver. 24 Lincoln's three great political speeches . ... 26 Speech at Springfield, 111. — June 16, 1858 .... 27 Lincoln's rule of political action . . Leottard Swett. 40 Lincoln as an orator .... Wm. H. Herndon. 42 Speech in reply to Senator Douglas — July 10, 1858 . . 45 Lincoln as a lawyer Leonard Swett. 61 Lincoln as a lawyer . . . fudge David Davis. 62 Lincoln as a lawyer .... Wm. H. Herndon. 64 Speech at Cooper Union, New York — February 27, i860 . 66 Extract from speech at Hartford, Conn. — IMarch 5, i860 . 97 Some characteristics of Lincoln . . Joshua F. Speed. 98 Farewell speech at Springfield, Illinois — February 11, 1861 . 100 Extract from speech at Pittsburg — February, 186 1 . . loi Speech at Philadelphia — February 21, 1861 . . 103 The situation in 186 1 Carl Schiirz. 105 First Inaugiaral Address — March 4,1861 .... 109 Estimate of Lincoln .... Wm. H. Herndon. 124 Lincoln's management of men . . Leonard Swett. 129 A proclamation — April 15, 1861 131 Message to congress in special session — July 4, 1861 . . 133 Lincoln's mode of life at the White House . Johji Hay. 158 ¦Message to congress recommending compensated emancipa tion — March 6, 1862 161 Message to congress — April 16, 1862 164 7 8 CONTENTS. Page Proclamation revoking General Hunter's order of military emancipation — May 19, 1862 ...... 165 Order authorizing employment of contrabands — July 22, 1862 168 Letter to Horace Greeley — August 22, 1862 . . . 169 Preliminary emancipation proclamation — September 22, 1862 170 Final emancipation proclamation — January i, 1863 . . 174 Account of the emancipation proclamation, as related to F. B. Carpenter ........ 177 Hymn after the emancipation proclamation Oliver Wendell Holmes. 180 The death of slavery . . . Williani Cull en Bryant. 181 Lincoln's letters Carl Schurz. 184 Letter to J. C. Conkling— August 26, 1863 .... 186 Letter to A. G. Hodges— April 4, 1864 193 An English estimate of Lincoln — London Spectator, April 25 and May 2, 1891 . . 196 Letter to General G. B. McClellan — April 9, 1862 . . .202 Letter to General G. B. McClellan— May 9, 1862 . . 205 Letter to General G. B. McClellan^October 13, 1862 . . 206 Letter to General Schofield relating to the removal of Gen eral Curtis — May 27, 1863 210 Letter to General U. S. Grant — July 13, 1863 ... 211 Letter to General U. S. Grant — April 30, 1864 . . . 212 Order for Sabbath observance — November 16, 1862 . . 213 Our good president ..... Phosbe Cary. 214 Tribute to President Lincoln — London Daily News, April 27, 1865 .... 216 Abraham Lincoln . . William CuUen Bryant. 218 Letter to the workingmen of Manchester, England — January 19, 1863 . 219 Proclamation for Thanksgiving — October 3, 1863 . . . 222 Address at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Ceme tery — November ig, 1863 224 CONTENTS. 9 Pago Extract from Gettysburg ode . . . Bayard Taylor. 225 Extract from the last annual message — December 6, 1864 . 226 Laus Deo ! . . . . John Greenleaf Whittier. 234 Second inaugural address — IMarch 4, 1865 .... 237 The "second inaugural" — London Spectator, April 25 and May 2, 1891 . . 240 Last public address — April 11, 1865 241 My Captain Walt Whitman. 248 Extract from commemoration ode . James Russell Lowell. 250 Some stories about Lincoln . . . . . .255 ILLUSTRATIONS. 0pp. Page Portrait of Lincoln 11 Log cabin in which Lincoln was born .... 20 Residence in Springfield 64 Wigwam, Chicago g8 Portrait of Lincoln 170 Gettysburg National Cemetery 224 Lincoln Monument, Springfield 248 White House 255 IO CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF EVENTS. Chronological List of Events in the Life of Abraham Lincoln. Born in a log-cabin near Hodgensville, now Larue county, Kentucky February 12, 1809 His father moves with his family into the wilderness near Gentry ville, Indiana - - - ^^^° His mother dies, at the age of 35 '^^^^ His father's second marriage - ... 18 19 Makes a trip to New Orleans and back, at work on a flat- boat - - - - 1828 Drives in an ox-cart with his father and stepmother to a clearing on the Sangamon river, near'Decatur, Illinois 1829 , Makes another flat-boat trip to New Orleans and back, on which trip he first sees negroes shackled together, and forms his opinions concermng slavery -, May, 1831 Begins work in a store at New Salem, Illinois - - August, 1831 Enlists in the Black Hawk war; elected a captain of volunteers ¦ - - - 1832 Announces himself a whig candida,te for the legislature, and is defeated _ . . - . - 1832 Elected to the Illinois legislature - 1834 Reelected to the legislature , 1835 to 1842 Studies law at Springfield ¦ ¦ ^837 Is a presidential elector on the whig national ticket 1840 Marries Mary Todd - - November 4, 1842 Canvasses Illinois for Henry Clay - "44 Elected to congress - ' J*„ Supports General Taylor for president "4S Engages in law practice -. ^ „ . ; , . '^r^lt Debates with Douglas at Peona and Spnngfield 18 5 Aids in ore-anizing the republican party 1855-1856 foint debates in Illinois ^th Stephen A Douglas - 1858 i^Ts^ts New York, and speaks at Cooper Union February, i860 Attends republican state convention at Decatur; declared to be the choice of Illinois for the presidency - - May, i860 Nominated at Chicago as the repubhcan candidate for ¦ ^resident ¦ - - " ^^ ^°' ^°°° Elected president over J. C. Breckenridge, Stephen A. Douglas and John Bell November, i860 Inaugurated president - March 4, 1861 Issues first order for troops April 15, 186 1 Issues emancipation proclamation - Januarj' i, 1863 His address at Gettysburg November 19, 1863 Calls for 500,000 volunteers - - July, 1864 Renominated and reelected president - - - 1864 His second inauguration March 4, 1865 Assassinated April 14, 1865 ^^^rclo'kytur'^ THE WORDS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN fJU "^ 'Bi LINCOLN'S FAVORITE POEM. Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave. He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around, and together be laid ; And the young and the old, and the low and the high. Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie. The infant a mother attended and loved ; The mother that infant's affection who proved; The husband, that mother and infant who blest, — Each, all, are away to their dwellings of Rest. The maid oh whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye, Shone beauty and pleasure, — her triumphs are by ; And the memory of those who loved her and praised. Are alike from the minds of the living erased. ti LINCOLN S FAVORITE POEM. The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne, The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn, The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap. The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep, The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread. Have faded away like the grass that we tread. The saint, who enjoyed the communion of heaven. The sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven, The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just. Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust. So the multitude goes — like the flower or the weed That withers away to let others succeed ; So the multitude comes — even those we behold, To repeat every tale that has often been told. For we are the same our fathers have been ; We see the same sights our fathers have seen ; We drink the same stream, we view the same sun. And run the same course our fathers have run. The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think ; From the death we are shrinking, our fathers would shrink ; LINCOLN S FAVORITE POEM. I3 To the life we are clinging, they also would cling ; — But it speeds for us all like a bird on the wing. They loved — but the story we cannot unfold; They scorned — but the heart of the haughty is cold; They grieved — -but no wail from their slumber will come; They joyed — but the tongue of their gladness is dumb. They died — aye, they died; — we things that are now, That walk on the turf that lies over their brow, And make in their dwellings a transient abode. Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road. Yea ! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain. Are mingled together in sunshine and rain ; And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. 'Tis the wink of an eye — 'tis the draught of a breath — From the blossom of health to the paleness of death. From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud : — Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud? William Knox. Note. — Mr. Knox was a Scotchman, a contemporary of Sir Walter Scott. He died in 1825, at the age of 36. 14 EXTRACT FROM "ABRAHAM LINCOLN. EXTRACT FROM "ABRAHAM LINCOLN." Never did a President enter upon office with less means at his command, outside his own strength of heart and steadiness of understanding, for inspiring confidence in the people, and so winning it for himself, than Mr. Lincoln. All that was known of him was that he was a g^ood stump-speaker, nominated for his availability , — that is, because he had no history, — and chosen by a party with whose more extreme opinions he was not in sympathy. It might well be feared that a man past fifty, against whom the ingenuity of hostile partisans could rake up no accusation, must be lacking in manliness of character, in decision of principle, in strength of will ; that a man who was at best only the representative of a party, and who yet did not fairly represent even that, would fail of political, much more of popular, support. And certainly no one ever entered upon office with so few resources of power in the past, and so many materials of weakness in the present, as Mr. Lincoln. Even in that half of the Union which acknowledged him as President, there was a large, and at that time dangerous minority, that hardly admitted his claim to the oflice, and even in the party that elected him there was also a large minority that sus pected him of being secretly a communicant with the church of Laodicea.* All that he did was sure to be ••''See the Book of Revelations, chapter iii., verse 15. EXTRACT FROM "ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 15 virulently attacked as ultra by one side; all that he left undone, to be stigmatized as proof of lukewarm ness and backsliding by the other. Meanwhile he was to carry on a truly colossal war by means of both ; he was to disengage the country from diplomatic entangle ments of unprecedented peril undisturbed by the help or the hindrance of either, and to win from the crown ing dangers of his administration, in the confidence of the people, the means of his safety and their own. He has contrived to do it, and perhaps none of our Presi dents since Washington has stood so firm in the confi dence of the people as he does after three years of stormy administration. Mr. Lincoln's policy was a tentative one, and rightly so. He laid down no programme which must compel him to be either inconsistent or unwise, no cast-iron theorem to which circumstances must be fitted as they rose, or else be useless to his ends. He seemed to have chosen Mazarin's motto, Le temps et moi.* The moi, to be sure, was not very prominent at first ; but it has grown more and more so, till the world is begin ning to be persuaded that it stands for a character of marked individuality and capacity for affairs. Time was his prime-minister, and, we began to think, at one period, his general-in-chief also. At first he was so slow that he tired out all those who see no evidence of progress but in blowing up the engine ; then he was so *Time and I. Cardinal Mazarin was prime-minister of Louis XIV. of France. Time, Ma,zarin said, was his prime-minister. l6 EXTRACT FROM "ABRAHAM LINCOLN." fast, that he took the breath away from those who think there is no getting on safely while there is a spark of fire under the boilers. God is the only being who has time enough ; but a prudent man, who knows how to seize occasion, can commonly make a shift to find as much as he needs. Mr. Lincoln, as it seems to us in reviewing his career, though we have sometimes in our impatience thought otherwise, has always waited, as a wise man should, till the right moment brought up all his reserves. Semper nocuit differre paratis,* is a sound axiom, but the really efiicacious man will also be sure to know when he is not ready, and be firm against all persuasion and reproach till he is. Mr. Lincoln is sometimes claimed as an example of a ready-made ruler. But no case could well be less in point; for, besides that he was a man of such fair- mindedness as is always the raw material of wisdom, he had in his profession a training precisely the oppo site of that to which a partisan is subjected. His experience as a lawyer compelled him not only to see that there is a principle underlying every phenomenon in human affairs, but that there are always two sides to every question, both of which must be fully understood in order to understand either, and that it is of greater advantage to an advocate to appreciate the strength than the weakness of his antagonist's position. Noth ing is more remarkable than the unerring tact with * It is always bad for those who are ready to put off action, EXTRACT FROM "ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 7 which, in his debate with Mr. Douglas, he went straight to the reason of the question; nor have we ever had a more striking lesson in political tactics than the fact, that opposed to a man exceptionally adroit in using popular prejudice and bigotry to his purpose, exceptionally unscrupulous in appealing to those baser motives that turn a meeting of citizens into a mob of barbarians, he should yet have won his case before a jury of the people. Mr. Lincoln was as far as possible from an impromptu politician. His wisdom was made up of a knowledge of things as well as of men; his sagacity resulted from a clear perception and honest acknowledgment of difficulties, which enabled him to see that the only durable triumph of political opinion is based, not on any abstract right, but upon so much of justice, the highest attainable at any given moment in human affairs, as may be had in the balance of mutual concession. Doubtless he had an ideal, but it was the ideal of a practical statesman, — to aim at the best, and to take the next best, if he is lucky enough to get even that. His slow, but singularly masculine, intelligence taught him that precedent is only another name for embodied experience, and that it counts for even more in the guidance of communities of men than in that of the individual life. He was not a man who held it good public economy to pull down on the mere chance of rebuilding better. Mr. Lincoln's faith in God was qualified by a very well-founded distrust of the wisdom of man. Perhaps it was hia want of self-confidence l8 EXTRACT FROM "ABRAHAM LINCOLN." ]that more than anything else won him the unlimited confidence of the people, for they felt that there would l^e no need of retreat from any position he had deliberately taken. The cautious, but steady, advance 6f his policy during the war was like that of a Roman army. He left behind him a firm road on which public confidence could follow; he took America with him where he went; what he gained he occupied, and his advanced posts became colonies. The very homeli ness of his genius was its distinction. His kingship was conspicuous by its workday homespun. Never was ruler so absolute as he, nor so little conscious of it; for he was the incarnate common-sense of the people. With all that tenderness of nature whose sweet sadness touched whoever saw him with some thing of its own pathos, there was no trace of senti mentalism in his speech or action. He seems to have had but one rule of conduct, always that of practical and successful politics, to let himself be guided by ¦ events, when they were sure to bring him out where ¦ he wished to go, though by what seemed to unprac- i tical minds, which let go the possible to grasp at the ; desirable, a longer road. On the day of his death, this simple Western attor ney, who according to one party was a vulgar joker, and whom the doctrinaires among his own supporters accused of wanting every element of statesmanship, was the most absolute ruler in Christendom, and this solely by the hold his good-humored sagacity had laid EXTRACT FROM "ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 19 on the hearts and understandings of his ^countrymen. Nor was this all, for it appeared that he had drawn the great majority, not only of his fellow-citizens, but of mankind also, to his side. So strong and so persuasive is honest manliness without a single quality of romance or unreal sentiment to help it ! A civilian during times of the most captivating military achievement, awk ward, with no skill in the lower technicalities of man ners, he left behind him a fame beyond that of any conqueror, the memory of a grace higher than that of outward person, and of a gentlemanliness deeper than mere breeding. Never before that startled April moming did such multitudes of men shed tears for the death of one they had never seen, as if with him a friendly presence had been taken away from their lives, leaving them colder and darker. Never was funeral panegyric so eloquent as the silent look of sympathy which strangers exchanged when they met on that day. Their common manhood had lost a kinsman. James Russell Lowell. Note. — This essay was first published in the Atlantic Monthly, January, 1864. The last paragraph was added when Mr. Lowell collected his essays into book form. In the complete edition of his works the date is given 1864-1865. 20 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD AND YOUTH. LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD AND YOUTH. The statesman or the military hero born and reared in a log cabin is a familiar figure in American history ; but we may search in vain among our celebrities for one whose origin and early life equaled Abraham Lin coln's in wretchedness. He first saw the light in a miserable hovel in Kentucky, on a farm consisting of a few barren acres in a dreary neighborhood; his father atypical "poor Southern white, " shiftless and improvi dent, without ambition for himself or his children, constantly looking for a new piece of land on which he might make a living without much work ; his mother, in her youth handsome and bright, grown prematurely coarse in feature and soured in mind by daily toil and care; the whole household squalid, cheerless, and utterly void of elevating inspirations. Only when the family had "moved" into the malarious backwoods of Indiana, the mother had died, and a stepmother, a woman of thrift and energy, had taken charge of the children, the shaggy-headed, ragged, barefooted, for lorn boy, then seven years old, "began to feel like a human being." Hard work was his early lot. When a mere boy he had to help in supporting the family, either on his father's clearing, or hired out to other farmers to plough, or dig ditches, or chop wood, or drive ox teams; occasionally also to "tend the baby," when the farmer's wife was otherwise engaged. He ft I' 1 Hi r >-:co o 3 « LINCOLN S BOYHOOD AND YOUTH. 21 could regard it as an advancement to a higher sphere of activity when he obtained work in a "cross-roads store, ' ' where he amused the customers by his talk over the counter ; for he soon distinguished himself among the backwoods folk as one who had something to say worth listening to. To win that distinction, he had to draw mainly upon his wits; for, while his thirst for knowledge was great, his opportunities for satisfying that thirst were woefully slender. In the log school-house, which he could visit but little, he was taught only reading, writing, and elementary arithmetic. Among the people of the settlement, bush farmers and small tradesmen, he found none of uncommon intelligence or education; but some of them had a few books, which he borrowed eagerly. Thus he read and re-read ".