Dean Swift said that the man who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before serves well of his kind. Considering how much grass there is in the world and comparatively how little fun, we think that a still more deserving person is the man who makes many laughs grow where none grew before.
Sometimes it happens that the biggest crop of laugh is produced by a man who ranks among the greatest and wisest. Such a man was Abraham Lincoln whose wholesome fun mixed with true philosophy made thousands laugh and think at the same time. He was a firm believer in the saying, “Laugh and the world laughs with you.”
Whenever Abraham Lincoln wanted to make a strong point he usually began by saying, “Now, that reminds me of a story.” And when he had told a story every one saw the point and was put into a good humor.
The ancients had Aesop and his fables. The moderns had Abraham Lincoln and his stories.
Aesop’s Fables have been printed in book form in almost every language and millions have read them with pleasure and profit. Lincoln’s stories were scattered in the recollections of thousands of people in various parts of the country. The historians who wrote histories of Lincoln’s life remembered only a few of them, but the most of Lincoln’s stories and the best of them remained unwritten. More than five years ago the author of this book conceived the idea of collecting all the yarns and stories, the droll sayings, and witty and humorous anecdotes of Abraham Lincoln into one large book, and this volume is the result of that idea.
Before Lincoln was ever heard of as a lawyer or politician, he was famous as a story teller. As a politician, he always had a story to fit the other side; as a lawyer, he won many cases by telling the jury a story which showed them the justice of his side better than any argument could have done.
While nearly all of Lincoln’s stories have a humorous side, they also contain a moral, which every good story should have.
They contain lessons that could be taught so well in no other way. Every one of them is a sermon. Lincoln, like the Man of Galilee, spoke to the people in parables.
Nothing that can be written about Lincoln can show his character in such a true light as the yarns and stories he was so fond of telling, and at which he would laugh as heartily as anyone.
For a man whose life was so full of great responsibilities, Lincoln had many hours of laughter when the humorous, fun-loving side of his great nature asserted itself.
Every person to keep healthy ought to have one good hearty laugh every day. Lincoln did, and the author hopes that the stories at which he laughed will continue to furnish laughter to all who appreciate good humor, with a moral point and spiced with that true philosophy bred in those who live close to nature and to the people around them.
In producing this new Lincoln book, the publishers have followed an entirely new and novel method of illustrating it. The old shop-worn pictures that are to be seen in every “History of Lincoln,” and in every other book written about him, such as “A Flatboat on the Sangamon River,” “State Capitol at Springfield,” “Old Log Cabin,” etc., have all been left out and in place of them the best special artists that could be employed have supplied original drawings illustrating the “point” of Lincoln’s stories.
These illustrations are not copies of other pictures, but are original drawings made from the author’s original text expressly for this book.
In these high-class outline pictures the artists have caught the true spirit of Lincoln’s humor, and while showing the laughable side of many incidents in his career, they are true to life in the scenes and characters they portray.
In addition to these new and original pictures, the book contains many rare and valuable photograph portraits, together with biographies, of the famous men of Lincoln’s day, whose lives formed a part of his own life history.
No Lincoln book heretofore published has ever been so profusely, so artistically and expensively illustrated.
The parables, yarns, stories, anecdotes and sayings of the “Immortal Abe” deserve a place beside Aesop’s Fables, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and all other books that have added to the happiness and wisdom of mankind.
Lincoln’s stories are like Lincoln himself. The more we know of them the better we like them.
BY COLONEL ALEXANDER K. McCLURE.
While Lincoln would have been great among the greatest of the land as a statesman and politician if like Washington, Jefferson and Jackson, he had never told a humorous story, his sense of humor was the most fascinating feature of his personal qualities.
He was the most exquisite humorist I have ever known in my life. His humor was always spontaneous, and that gave it a zest and elegance that the professional humorist never attains.
As a rule, the men who have become conspicuous in the country as humorists have excelled in nothing else. S. S. Cox, Proctor Knott, John P. Hale and others were humorists in Congress. When they arose to speak if they failed to be humorous they utterly failed, and they rarely strove to be anything but humorous. Such men often fail, for the professional humorist, however gifted, cannot always be at his best, and when not at his best he is grievously disappointing.
I remember Corwin, of Ohio, who was a great statesman as well as a great humorist, but whose humor predominated in his public speeches in Senate and House, warning a number of the younger Senators and Representatives on a social occasion when he had returned to Congress in his old age, against seeking to acquire the reputation of humorists. He said it was the mistake of his life. He loved it as did his hearers, but the temptation to be humorous was always uppermost, and while his speech on the Mexican War was the greatest ever delivered in the Senate, excepting Webster’s reply to Hayne, he regretted that he was more known as a humorist than as a statesman.
His first great achievement in the House was delivered in 1840 in reply to General Crary, of Michigan, who had attacked General Harrison’s military career. Corwin’s reply in defense of Harrison is universally accepted as the most brilliant combination of humor and invective ever delivered in that body. The venerable John Quincy Adams a day or two after Corwin’s speech, referred to Crary as “the late General Crary,” and the justice of the remark from the “Old Man Eloquent” was accepted by all. Mr. Lincoln differed from the celebrated humorists of the country in the important fact that his humor was unstudied. He was not in any sense a professional humorist, but I have never in all my intercourse with public men, known one who was so apt in humorous illustration us Mr. Lincoln, and I have known him many times to silence controversy by a humorous story with pointed application to the issue.
His face was the saddest in repose that I have ever seen among accomplished and intellectual men, and his sympathies for the people, for the untold thousands who were suffering bereavement from the war, often made him speak with his heart upon his sleeve, about the sorrows which shadowed the homes of the land and for which his heart was freely bleeding.
I have many times seen him discussing in the most serious and heartfelt manner the sorrows and bereavements of the country, and when it would seem as though the tension was so strained that the brittle cord of life must break, his face would suddenly brighten like the sun escaping from behind the cloud to throw its effulgence upon the earth, and he would tell an appropriate story, and much as his stories were enjoyed by his hearers none enjoyed them more than Mr. Lincoln himself.
I have often known him within the space of a few minutes to be transformed from the saddest face I have ever looked upon to one of the brightest and most mirthful. It was well known that he had his great fountain of humor as a safety valve; as an escape and entire relief from the fearful exactions his endless duties put upon him. In the gravest consultations of the cabinet where he was usually a listener rather than a speaker, he would often end dispute by telling a story and none misunderstood it; and often when he was pressed to give expression on particular subjects, and his always abundant caution was baffled, he many times ended the interview by a story that needed no elaboration.
I recall an interview with Mr. Lincoln at the White House in the spring of 1865, just before Lee retreated from Petersburg. It was well understood that the military power of the Confederacy was broken, and that the question of reconstruction would soon be upon us.
Colonel Forney and I had called upon the President simply to pay our respects, and while pleasantly chatting with him General Benjamin F. Butler entered. Forney was a great enthusiast, and had intense hatred of the Southern leaders who had hindered his advancement when Buchanan was elected President, and he was bubbling over with resentment against them. He introduced the subject to the President of the treatment to be awarded to the leaders of the rebellion when its powers should be confessedly broken, and he was earnest in demanding that Davis and other conspicuous leaders of the Confederacy should be tried, condemned and executed as traitors.
General Butler joined Colonel Forney in demanding that treason must be made odious by the execution of those who had wantonly plunged the country into civil war. Lincoln heard them patiently, as he usually heard all, and none could tell, however carefully they scanned his countenance what impression the appeal made upon him.
I said to General Butler that, as a lawyer pre-eminent in his profession, he must know that the leaders of a government that had beleaguered our capital for four years, and was openly recognized as a belligerent power not only by our government but by all the leading governments of the world, could not be held to answer to the law for the crime of treason.
Butler was vehement in declaring that the rebellious leaders must be tried and executed. Lincoln listened to the discussion for half an hour or more and finally ended it by telling the story of a common drunkard out in Illinois who had been induced by his friends time and again to join the temperance society, but had always broken away. He was finally gathered up again and given notice that if he violated his pledge once more they would abandon him as an utterly hopeless vagrant. He made an earnest struggle to maintain his promise, and finally he called for lemonade and said to the man who was preparing it: “Couldn’t you put just a drop of the cratur in unbeknownst to me?”
After telling the story Lincoln simply added: “If these men could get away from the country unbeknownst to us, it might save a world of trouble.” All understood precisely what Lincoln meant, although he had given expression in the most cautious manner possible and the controversy was ended.
Lincoln differed from professional humorists in the fact that he never knew when he was going to be humorous. It bubbled up on the most unexpected occasions, and often unsettled the most carefully studied arguments. I have many times been with him when he gave no sign of humor, and those who saw him under such conditions would naturally suppose that he was incapable of a humorous expression. At other times he would effervesce with humor and always of the most exquisite and impressive nature. His humor was never strained; his stories never stale, and even if old, the application he made of them gave them the freshness of originality.
I recall sitting beside him in the White House one day when a message was brought to him telling of the capture of several brigadier-generals and a number of horses somewhere out in Virginia. He read the dispatch and then in an apparently soliloquizing mood, said: “Sorry for the horses; I can make brigadier-generals.”
There are many who believe that Mr. Lincoln loved to tell obscene or profane stories, but they do great injustice to one of the purest and best men I have ever known. His humor must be judged by the environment that aided in its creation.
As a prominent lawyer who traveled the circuit in Illinois, he was much in the company of his fellow lawyers, who spent their evenings in the rude taverns of what was then almost frontier life. The Western people thus thrown together with but limited sources of culture and enjoyment, logically cultivated the story teller, and Lincoln proved to be the most accomplished in that line of all the members of the Illinois bar. They had no private rooms for study, and the evenings were always spent in the common barroom of the tavern, where Western wit, often vulgar or profane, was freely indulged in, and the best of them at times told stories which were somewhat “broad;” but even while thus indulging in humor that would grate harshly upon severely refined hearers, they despised the vulgarian; none despised vulgarity more than Lincoln.
I have heard him tell at one time or another almost or quite all of the stories he told during his Presidential term, and there were very few of them which might not have been repeated in a parlor and none descended to obscene, vulgar or profane expressions. I have never known a man of purer instincts than Abraham Lincoln, and his appreciation of all that was beautiful and good was of the highest order.
It was fortunate for Mr. Lincoln that he frequently sought relief from the fearfully oppressive duties which bore so heavily upon him. He had immediately about him a circle of men with whom he could be “at home” in the White House any evening as he was with his old time friends on the Illinois circuit.
David Davis was one upon whom he most relied as an adviser, and Leonard Swett was probably one of his closest friends, while Ward Lamon, whom he made Marshal of the District of Columbia to have him by his side, was one with whom he felt entirely “at home.” Davis was of a more sober order but loved Lincoln’s humor, although utterly incapable of a humorous expression himself. Swett was ready with Lincoln to give and take in storyland, as was Lamon, and either of them, and sometimes all of them, often dropped in upon Lincoln and gave him an hour’s diversion from his exacting cares. They knew that he needed it and they sought him for the purpose of diverting him from what they feared was an excessive strain.
His devotion to Lamon was beautiful. I well remember at Harrisburg on the night of February 22, 1861, when at a dinner given by Governor Curtin to Mr. Lincoln, then on his way to Washington, we decided, against the protest of Lincoln, that he must change his route to Washington and make the memorable midnight journey to the capital. It was thought to be best that but one man should accompany him, and he was asked to choose. There were present of his suite Colonel Sumner, afterwards one of the heroic generals of the war, Norman B. Judd, who was chairman of the Republican State Committee of Illinois, Colonel Lamon and others, and he promptly chose Colonel Lamon, who alone accompanied him on his journey from Harrisburg to Philadelphia and thence to Washington.
Before leaving the room Governor Curtin asked Colonel Lamon whether he was armed, and he answered by exhibiting a brace of fine pistols, a huge bowie knife, a black jack, and a pair of brass knuckles. Curtin answered: “You’ll do,” and they were started on their journey after all the telegraph wires had been cut. We awaited through what seemed almost an endless night, until the east was purpled with the coming of another day, when Colonel Scott, who had managed the whole scheme, reunited the wires and soon received from Colonel Lamon this dispatch: “Plums delivered nuts safely,” which gave us the intensely gratifying information that Lincoln had arrived in Washington.
Of all the Presidents of the United States, and indeed of all the great statesmen who have made their indelible impress upon the policy of the Republic, Abraham Lincoln stands out single and alone in his individual qualities. He had little experience in statesmanship when he was called to the Presidency. He had only a few years of service in the State Legislature of Illinois, and a single term in Congress ending twelve years before he became President, but he had to grapple with the gravest problems ever presented to the statesmanship of the nation for solution, and he met each and all of them in turn with the most consistent mastery, and settled them so successfully that all have stood unquestioned until the present time, and are certain to endure while the Republic lives.
In this he surprised not only his own cabinet and the leaders of his party who had little confidence in him when he first became President, but equally surprised the country and the world.
He was patient, tireless and usually silent when great conflicts raged about him to solve the appalling problems which were presented at various stages of the war for determination, and when he reached his conclusion he was inexorable. The wrangles of faction and the jostling of ambition were compelled to bow when Lincoln had determined upon his line of duty.
He was much more than a statesman; he was one of the most sagacious politicians I have ever known, although he was entirely unschooled in the machinery by which political results are achieved. His judgment of men was next to unerring, and when results were to be attained he knew the men who should be assigned to the task, and he rarely made a mistake.
I remember one occasion when he summoned Colonel Forney and myself to confer on some political problem, he opened the conversation by saying: “You know that I never was much of a conniver; I don’t know the methods of political management, and I can only trust to the wisdom of leaders to accomplish what is needed.”
Lincoln’s public acts are familiar to every schoolboy of the nation, but his personal attributes, which are so strangely distinguished from the attributes of other great men, are now the most interesting study of young and old throughout our land, and I can conceive of no more acceptable presentation to the public than a compilation of anecdotes and incidents pertaining to the life of the greatest of all our Presidents.
A.K. McClure
When I have had to address a fagged and listless audience, I have found that nothing was so certain to arouse them as to introduce the name of Abraham Lincoln.
REVERE WASHINGTON AND LOVE LINCOLN, REV. DR. THEODORE L. CUYLER.
No other name has such electric power on every true heart, from Maine to Mexico, as the name of Lincoln. If Washington is the most revered, Lincoln is the best loved man that ever trod this continent.
GREATEST CHARACTER SINCE CHRIST BY JOHN HAY, Former Private Secretary to President Lincoln, and Later Secretary of State in President McKinley’s Cabinet.
As, in spite of some rudeness, republicanism is the sole hope of a sick world, so Lincoln, with all his foibles, is the greatest character since Christ.
STORIES INFORM THE COMMON PEOPLE, BY CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, United States Senator from New York.
Mr. Lincoln said to me once: “They say I tell a great many stories; I reckon I do, but I have found in the course of a long experience that common people, take them as they run, are more easily informed through the medium of a broad illustration than in any other way, and as to what the hypercritical few may think, I don’t care.”
HUMOR A PASSPORT TO THE HEART BY GEO. S. BOUTWELL, Former Secretary of the United States Treasury.
Mr. Lincoln’s wit and mirth will give him a passport to the thoughts and hearts of millions who would take no interest in the sterner and more practical parts of his character.
DROLL, ORIGINAL AND APPROPRIATE. BY ELIHU B. WASHBURNE, Former United States Minister to France.
Mr. Lincoln’s anecdotes were all so droll, so original, so appropriate and so illustrative of passing incidents, that one never wearied.
LINCOLN’S HUMOR A SPARKLING SPRING, BY DAVID R. LOCKE (PETROLEUM V. NASBY), Lincoln’s Favorite Humorist.
Mr. Lincoln’s flow of humor was a sparkling spring, gushing out of a rock—the flashing water had a somber background which made it all the brighter.
LIKE AESOP’S FABLES, BY HUGH McCULLOCH, Former Secretary of the United States Treasury.
Many of Mr. Lincoln’s stories were as apt and instructive as the best of Aesop’s Fables.
FULL OF FUN, BY GENERAL JAMES B. FRY, Former Adjutant-General United States Army.
Mr. Lincoln was a humorist so full of fun that he could not keep it all in.
INEXHAUSTIBLE FUND OF STORIES, BY LAWRENCE WELDON, Judge United States Court of Claims.
Mr. Lincoln’s resources as a story-teller were inexhaustible, and no condition could arise in a case beyond his capacity to furnish an illustration with an appropriate anecdote.
CHAMPION STORY-TELLER, BY BEN. PERLEY POORE, Former Editor of The Congressional Record.
Mr. Lincoln was recognized as the champion story-teller of the Capitol.
LINCOLN CHRONOLOGY.
1806—Marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, June 12th,Washington County, Kentucky.1809—Born February 12th, Hardin (now La Rue County), Kentucky.1816—Family Removed to Perry County, Indiana.1818—Death of Abraham’s Mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln.1819—Second Marriage Thomas Lincoln; Married Sally BushJohnston, December 2nd, at Elizabethtown, Kentucky.1830—Lincoln Family Removed to Illinois, Locating in Macon County.1831—Abraham Located at New Salem.1832—Abraham a Captain in the Black Hawk War.1833—Appointed Postmaster at New Salem.1834—Abraham as a Surveyor. First Election to the Legislature.1835—Love Romance with Anne Rutledge.1836—Second Election to the Legislature.1837—Licensed to Practice Law.1838—Third Election to the Legislature.1840—Presidential Elector on Harrison Ticket.Fourth Election to the Legislature.1842—Married November 4th, to Mary Todd. “Duel” with General Shields.1843—Birth of Robert Todd Lincoln, August 1st.1846—Elected to Congress. Birth of Edward Baker Lincoln, March 10th.1848—Delegate to the Philadelphia National Convention.1850—Birth of William Wallace Lincoln, December 2nd.1853—Birth of Thomas Lincoln, April 4th.1856—Assists in Formation Republican Party.1858—Joint Debater with Stephen A. Douglas. Defeated for theUnited States Senate.1860—Nominated and Elected to the Presidency.1861—Inaugurated as President, March 4th. 1863-IssuedEmancipation Proclamation. 1864-Re-elected to the Presidency.1865—Assassinated by J. Wilkes Booth, April 14th. Died April15th. Remains Interred at Springfield, Illinois, May 4th.
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Colonel Alexander K. McClure, the editorial director of the Philadelphia Times, which he founded in 1875, began his forceful career as a tanner’s apprentice in the mountains of Pennsylvania threescore years ago. He tanned hides all day, and read exchanges nights in the neighboring weekly newspaper office. The learned tanner’s boy also became the aptest Inner in the county, and the editor testified his admiration for young McClure’s attainments by sending him to edit a new weekly paper which the exigencies of politics called into being in an adjoining county.
The lad was over six feet high, had the thews of Ajax and the voice of Boanerges, and knew enough about shoe-leather not to be afraid of any man that stood in it. He made his paper a success, went into politics, and made that a success, studied law with William McLellan, and made that a success, and actually went into the army—and made that a success, by an interesting accident which brought him into close personal relations with Abraham Lincoln, whom he had helped to nominate, serving as chairman of the Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania through the campaign.
In 1862 the government needed troops badly, and in each Pennsylvania county Republicans and Democrats were appointed to assist in the enrollment, under the State laws. McClure, working day and night at Harrisburg, saw conscripts coming in at the rate of a thousand a day, only to fret in idleness against the army red-tape which held them there instead of sending a regiment a day to the front, as McClure demanded should be done. The military officer continued to dispatch two companies a day—leaving the mass of the conscripts to be fed by the contractors.
McClure went to Washington and said to the President, “You must send a mustering officer to Harrisburg who will do as I say; I can’t stay there any longer under existing conditions.”
Lincoln sent into another room for Adjutant-General Thomas. “General,” said he, “what is the highest rank of military officer at Harrisburg?” “Captain, sir,” said Thomas. “Bring me a commission for an Assistant Adjutant-General of the United States Army,” said Lincoln.
So Adjutant-General McClure was mustered in, and after that a regiment a day of boys in blue left Harrisburg for the front. Colonel McClure is one of the group of great Celt-American editors, which included Medill, McCullagh and McLean.
Lincoln was, naturally enough, much surprised one day, when a man of rather forbidding countenance drew a revolver and thrust the weapon almost into his face. In such circumstances “Abe” at once concluded that any attempt at debate or argument was a waste of time and words.
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“What seems to be the matter?” inquired Lincoln with all the calmness and self-possession he could muster.
“Well,” replied the stranger, who did not appear at all excited, “some years ago I swore an oath that if I ever came across an uglier man than myself I’d shoot him on the spot.”
A feeling of relief evidently took possession of Lincoln at this rejoinder, as the expression upon his countenance lost all suggestion of anxiety.
“Shoot me,” he said to the stranger; “for if I am an uglier man than you I don’t want to live.”
Thurlow Weed, the veteran journalist and politician, once related how, when he was opposing the claims of Montgomery Blair, who aspired to a Cabinet appointment, that Mr. Lincoln inquired of Mr. Weed whom he would recommend, “Henry Winter Davis,” was the response.
“David Davis, I see, has been posting you up on this question,” retorted Lincoln. “He has Davis on the brain. I think Maryland must be a good State to move from.”
The President then told a story of a witness in court in a neighboring county, who, on being asked his age, replied, “Sixty.” Being satisfied he was much older the question was repeated, and on receiving the same answer the court admonished the witness, saying, “The court knows you to be much older than sixty.”
“Oh, I understand now,” was the rejoinder, “you’re thinking of those ten years I spent on the eastern share of Maryland; that was so much time lost, and didn’t count.”
Blair was made Postmaster-General.
Riding at one time in a stage with an old Kentuckian who was returning from Missouri, Lincoln excited the old gentleman’s surprise by refusing to accept either of tobacco or French brandy.
When they separated that afternoon—the Kentuckian to take another stage bound for Louisville—he shook hands warmly with Lincoln, and said, good-humoredly:
“See here, stranger, you’re a clever but strange companion. I may never see you again, and I don’t want to offend you, but I want to say this: My experience has taught me that a man who has no vices has d——d few virtues. Good-day.”
Miss Todd (afterwards Mrs. Lincoln) had a keen sense of the ridiculous, and wrote several articles in the Springfield (Ill.) “Journal” reflecting severely upon General James Shields (who won fame in the Mexican and Civil Wars, and was United States Senator from three states), then Auditor of State.
Lincoln assumed the authorship, and was challenged by Shields to meet him on the “field of honor.” Meanwhile Miss Todd increased Shields’ ire by writing another letter to the paper, in which she said: “I hear the way of these fire-eaters is to give the challenged party the choice of weapons, which being the case, I’ll tell you in confidence that I never fight with anything but broom-sticks, or hot water, or a shovelful of coals, the former of which, being somewhat like a shillalah, may not be objectionable to him.”
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Lincoln accepted the challenge, and selected broadswords as the weapons. Judge Herndon (Lincoln’s law partner) gives the closing of this affair as follows:
“The laws of Illinois prohibited dueling, and Lincoln demanded that the meeting should be outside the state. Shields undoubtedly knew that Lincoln was opposed to fighting a duel—that his moral sense would revolt at the thought, and that he would not be likely to break the law by fighting in the state. Possibly he thought Lincoln would make a humble apology. Shields was brave, but foolish, and would not listen to overtures for explanation. It was arranged that the meeting should be in Missouri, opposite Alton. They proceeded to the place selected, but friends interfered, and there was no duel. There is little doubt that the man who had swung a beetle and driven iron wedges into gnarled hickory logs could have cleft the skull of his antagonist, but he had no such intention. He repeatedly said to the friends of Shields that in writing the first article he had no thought of anything personal. The Auditor’s vanity had been sorely wounded by the second letter, in regard to which Lincoln could not make any explanation except that he had had no hand in writing it. The affair set all Springfield to laughing at Shields.”
A country meeting-house, that was used once a month, was quite a distance from any other house.
The preacher, an old-line Baptist, was dressed in coarse linen pantaloons, and shirt of the same material. The pants, manufactured after the old fashion, with baggy legs, and a flap in the front, were made to attach to his frame without the aid of suspenders.
A single button held his shirt in position, and that was at the collar. He rose up in the pulpit, and with a loud voice announced his text thus: “I am the Christ whom I shall represent to-day.”
About this time a little blue lizard ran up his roomy pantaloons. The old preacher, not wishing to interrupt the steady flow of his sermon, slapped away on his leg, expecting to arrest the intruder, but his efforts were unavailing, and the little fellow kept on ascending higher and higher.
Continuing the sermon, the preacher loosened the central button which graced the waistband of his pantaloons, and with a kick off came that easy-fitting garment.
But, meanwhile, Mr. Lizard had passed the equatorial line of the waistband, and was calmly exploring that part of the preacher’s anatomy which lay underneath the back of his shirt.
Things were now growing interesting, but the sermon was still grinding on. The next movement on the preacher’s part was for the collar button, and with one sweep of his arm off came the tow linen shirt.
The congregation sat for an instant as if dazed; at length one old lady in the rear part of the room rose up, and, glancing at the excited object in the pulpit, shouted at the top of her voice: “If you represent Christ, then I’m done with the Bible.”
Once, when Lincoln was pleading a case, the opposing lawyer had all the advantage of the law; the weather was warm, and his opponent, as was admissible in frontier courts, pulled off his coat and vest as he grew warm in the argument.
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At that time, shirts with buttons behind were unusual. Lincoln took in the situation at once. Knowing the prejudices of the primitive people against pretension of all sorts, or any affectation of superior social rank, arising, he said: “Gentlemen of the jury, having justice on my side, I don’t think you will be at all influenced by the gentleman’s pretended knowledge of the law, when you see he does not even know which side of his shirt should be in front.” There was a general laugh, and Lincoln’s case was won.
President Lincoln once told the following story of Colonel W., who had been elected to the Legislature, and had also been judge of the County Court. His elevation, however, had made him somewhat pompous, and he became very fond of using big words. On his farm he had a very large and mischievous ox, called “Big Brindle,” which very frequently broke down his neighbors’ fences, and committed other depredations, much to the Colonel’s annoyance.
One morning after breakfast, in the presence of Lincoln, who had stayed with him over night, and who was on his way to town, he called his overseer and said to him:
“Mr. Allen, I desire you to impound ‘Big Brindle,’ in order that I may hear no animadversions on his eternal depredations.”
Allen bowed and walked off, sorely puzzled to know what the Colonel wanted him to do. After Colonel W. left for town, he went to his wife and asked her what the Colonel meant by telling him to impound the ox.
“Why, he meant to tell you to put him in a pen,” said she.
Allen left to perform the feat, for it was no inconsiderable one, as the animal was wild and vicious, but, after a great deal of trouble and vexation, succeeded.
“Well,” said he, wiping the perspiration from his brow and soliloquizing, “this is impounding, is it? Now, I am dead sure that the Colonel will ask me if I impounded ‘Big Brindle,’ and I’ll bet I puzzle him as he did me.”
The next day the Colonel gave a dinner party, and as he was not aristocratic, Allen, the overseer, sat down with the company. After the second or third glass was discussed, the Colonel turned to the overseer and said:
“Eh, Mr. Allen, did you impound ‘Big Brindle,’ sir?”
Allen straightened himself, and looking around at the company, replied:
“Yes, I did, sir; but ‘Old Brindle’ transcended the impanel of the impound, and scatterlophisticated all over the equanimity of the forest.”
The company burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, while the Colonel’s face reddened with discomfiture.
“What do you mean by that, sir?” demanded the Colonel.
“Why, I mean, Colonel,” replied Allen, “that ‘Old Brindle,’ being prognosticated with an idea of the cholera, ripped and teared, snorted and pawed dirt, jumped the fence, tuck to the woods, and would not be impounded nohow.”
This was too much; the company roared again, the Colonel being forced to join in the laughter, and in the midst of the jollity Allen left the table, saying to himself as he went, “I reckon the Colonel won’t ask me to impound any more oxen.”
Some of Mr. Lincoln’s intimate friends once called his attention to a certain member of his Cabinet who was quietly working to secure a nomination for the Presidency, although knowing that Mr. Lincoln was to be a candidate for re-election. His friends insisted that the Cabinet officer ought to be made to give up his Presidential aspirations or be removed from office. The situation reminded Mr. Lincoln of a story:
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“My brother and I,” he said, “were once plowing corn, I driving the horse and he holding the plow. The horse was lazy, but on one occasion he rushed across the field so that I, with my long legs, could scarcely keep pace with him. On reaching the end of the furrow, I found an enormous chin-fly fastened upon him, and knocked him off. My brother asked me what I did that for. I told him I didn’t want the old horse bitten in that way. ‘Why,’ said my brother, ‘that’s all that made him go.’ Now,” said Mr. Lincoln, “if Mr.—— has a Presidential chin-fly biting him, I’m not going to knock him off, if it will only make his department go.”
Mr. T. W. S. Kidd, of Springfield, says that he once heard a lawyer opposed to Lincoln trying to convince a jury that precedent was superior to law, and that custom made things legal in all cases. When Lincoln arose to answer him he told the jury he would argue his case in the same way.
“Old ‘Squire Bagly, from Menard, came into my office and said, ‘Lincoln, I want your advice as a lawyer. Has a man what’s been elected justice of the peace a right to issue a marriage license?’ I told him he had not; when the old ‘squire threw himself back in his chair very indignantly, and said, ‘Lincoln, I thought you was a lawyer. Now Bob Thomas and me had a bet on this thing, and we agreed to let you decide; but if this is your opinion I don’t want it, for I know a thunderin’ sight better, for I have been ‘squire now for eight years and have done it all the time.’”