LAWYER LINCOLN, IN A NEW SUIT OF CLOTHES, RESCUING A PIG STUCK IN THE MUD
Lawyer Lincoln rode from one county-seat to another, on the Eighth Judicial Circuit of Illinois, either on the back of a raw-boned horse, or in a rickety buggy drawn by the same old "crowbait," as his legal friends called the animal. The judge and lawyers of the several courts traveled together and whiled away the time chatting and joking. Of course, Abraham Lincoln was in great demand because of his unfailing humor.
One day he appeared in a new suit of clothes. This was such a rare occurrence that the friends made remarks about it. The garments did not fit him very well, and the others felt in duty bound to "say things" which were anything but complimentary.
As they rode along through the mud they were making Lincoln the butt of their gibes. He was not like most jokers, for he could take as well as give, while he could "give as good as he got."
In the course of their "chaffing" they came to a spot about four miles from Paris, Illinois, where they saw a pig stuck in the mud and squealing lustily. The men all laughed at the poor animal and its absurd plight.
"Poor piggy!" exclaimed Mr. Lincoln impulsively. "Let's get him out of that."
The others jeered at the idea. "You'd better do it. You're dressed for the job!" exclaimed one.
"Return to your wallow!" laughed another, pointing in great glee to the wallowing hog and the mudhole.
Lincoln looked at the pig, at the deep mud, then down at his new clothes. Ruefully he rode on with them for some time. But the cries of thehelpless animal rang in his ears. He could endure it no longer. Lagging behind the rest, he waited until they had passed a bend in the road. Then he turned and rode back as fast as his poor old horse could carry him through the mud. Dismounting, he surveyed the ground. The pig had struggled until it was almost buried in the mire, and was now too exhausted to move. After studying the case as if it were a problem in civil engineering, he took some rails off the fence beside the road. Building a platform of rails around the now exhausted hog, then taking one rail for a lever and another for a fulcrum, he began gently to pry the fat, helpless creature out of the sticky mud. In doing this he plastered his new suit from head to foot, but he did not care, as long as he could save that pig!
"Now, piggy-wig," he said. "It's you and me for it. You do your part and I'll get you out. Now—'one-two-three—up-a-daisy!'"
He smiled grimly as he thought of the jeers and sneers that would be hurled at him if his friends had stayed to watch him at this work.
After long and patient labor he succeeded in loosening the hog and coaxing it to make the attempt to get free. At last, the animal wasmade to see that it could get out. Making one violent effort it wallowed away and started for the nearest farmhouse, grunting and flopping its ears as it went.
Lawyer Lincoln looked ruefully down at his clothes, then placed all the rails back on the fence as he had found them.
He had to ride the rest of the day alone, for he did not wish to appear before his comrades untilthemud on his suit had dried so that it could be brushed off. That night, when they saw him at the tavern, they asked him what he had been doing all day, eying his clothes with suspicious leers and grins. He had to admit that he could not bear to leave that hog to die, and tried to excuse his tender-heartedness to them by adding: "Farmer Jones's children might have had to go barefoot all Winter if he had lost a valuable hog like that!"
"BEING ELECTED TO CONGRESS HAS NOT PLEASED ME AS MUCH AS I EXPECTED"
In 1846 Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress, defeating the Rev. Peter Cartwright, thefamous backwoods preacher, who was elected to the State Legislature fourteen years before, the first time Lincoln was a candidate and the only time he was ever defeated by popular vote. Cartwright had made a vigorous canvass, telling the people that Lincoln was "an aristocrat and an atheist." But, though they had a great respect for Peter Cartwright and his preaching, the people did not believe all that he said against Lincoln, and they elected him. Shortly after this he wrote again to Speed:
"You, no doubt, assign the suspension of our correspondence to the true philosophic cause; though it must be confessed by both of us that this is a rather cold reason for allowing such a friendship as ours to die out by degrees."Being elected to Congress, though I am very grateful to our friends for having done it, has not pleased me as much as I expected."
"You, no doubt, assign the suspension of our correspondence to the true philosophic cause; though it must be confessed by both of us that this is a rather cold reason for allowing such a friendship as ours to die out by degrees.
"Being elected to Congress, though I am very grateful to our friends for having done it, has not pleased me as much as I expected."
In the same letter he imparted to his friend some information which seems to have been much more interesting to him than being elected to Congress:
"We have another boy, born the 10th of March (1846). He is very much such a child as Bob was at his age, rather of a longer order. Bob is 'short and low,' and I expect always will be. He talks very plainly, almost as plainly as anybody. He is quite smart enough. I sometimes fear he is one of the little rare-ripe sort that are smarter at five than ever after."Since I began this letter, a messenger came to tell me Bob was lost; but by the time I reached the house his mother had found him and had him whipped, and by now very likely he has run away again!"As ever yours,"A. Lincoln."
"We have another boy, born the 10th of March (1846). He is very much such a child as Bob was at his age, rather of a longer order. Bob is 'short and low,' and I expect always will be. He talks very plainly, almost as plainly as anybody. He is quite smart enough. I sometimes fear he is one of the little rare-ripe sort that are smarter at five than ever after.
"Since I began this letter, a messenger came to tell me Bob was lost; but by the time I reached the house his mother had found him and had him whipped, and by now very likely he has run away again!
"As ever yours,"A. Lincoln."
The new baby mentioned in this letter was Edward, who died in 1850, before his fourth birthday. "Bob," or Robert, the eldest of the Lincoln's four children, was born in 1843. William, born in 1850, died in the White House. The youngest was born in 1853, after the death of Thomas Lincoln, so he was named for his grandfather, but he was known only by his nickname, "Tad." "Little Tad" was his father's constantcompanion during the terrible years of the Civil War, especially after Willie's death, in 1862. "Tad" became "the child of the nation." He died in Chicago, July 10, 1871, at the age of eighteen, after returning from Europe with his widowed mother and his brother Robert. Robert has served his country as Secretary of War and Ambassador to the English court, and is recognized as a leader in national affairs.
When Lincoln was sent to the national House of Representatives, Douglas was elected to the Senate for the first time. Lincoln was the only Whig from Illinois. This shows his great personal popularity. Daniel Webster was then living in the national capital, and Congressman Lincoln stopped once at Ashland, Ky., on his way to Washington to visit the idol of the Whigs, Henry Clay.
As soon as Lincoln was elected, an editor wrote to ask him for a biographical sketch of himself for the "Congressional Directory." This is all Mr. Lincoln wrote—in a blank form sent for the purpose:
"Born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky.
"Education defective.
"Profession, lawyer.
"Military service, captain of volunteers in Black Hawk War.
"Offices held: Postmaster at a very small office; four times a member of the Illinois Legislature, and elected to the lower House of the next Congress."
Mr. Lincoln was in Congress while the Mexican War was in progress, and there was much discussion over President Polk's action in declaring that war.
As Mrs. Lincoln was obliged to stay in Springfield to care for her two little boys, Congressman Lincoln lived in a Washington boarding-house. He soon gained the reputation of telling the best stories at the capital. He made a humorous speech on General Cass, comparing the general's army experiences with his own in the Black Hawk War. He also drafted a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, which was never brought to a vote. Most of his care seems to have been for Billy Herndon, who wrote complaining letters to him about the "old men" in Springfield who were always trying to "keep the young men down." Here are two of Mr. Lincoln's replies:
"Washington, June 22, 1848."Dear William:"Judge how heart-rending it was to come to my room and find and read your discouraging letter of the 15th. Now, as to the young men, you must not wait to be brought forward by the older men. For instance, do you suppose that I would ever have got into notice if I had waited to be hunted up and pushed forward by older men?""Dear William:"Your letter was received last night. The subject of that letter is exceedingly painful to me; and I cannot but think that there is some mistake in your impression of the motives of the old men. Of course I cannot demonstrate what I say; but I was young once, and I am sure I was never ungenerously thrust back. I hardly know what to say. The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure you that suspicion and jealousy never did keep any man in any situation. There may be sometimes ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and theywill succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall into it."Now in what I have said, I am sure you will suspect nothing but sincere friendship. I would save you from a fatal error. You have been a laborious, studious young man. You are far better informed on almost all subjects than I have ever been. You cannot fail in any laudable object, unless you allow your mind to be improperly directed. I have somewhat the advantage of you in the world's experience, merely by being older; and it is this that induces me to advise."Your friend, as ever,"A.Lincoln."
"Washington, June 22, 1848.
"Judge how heart-rending it was to come to my room and find and read your discouraging letter of the 15th. Now, as to the young men, you must not wait to be brought forward by the older men. For instance, do you suppose that I would ever have got into notice if I had waited to be hunted up and pushed forward by older men?"
"Your letter was received last night. The subject of that letter is exceedingly painful to me; and I cannot but think that there is some mistake in your impression of the motives of the old men. Of course I cannot demonstrate what I say; but I was young once, and I am sure I was never ungenerously thrust back. I hardly know what to say. The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure you that suspicion and jealousy never did keep any man in any situation. There may be sometimes ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and theywill succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall into it.
"Now in what I have said, I am sure you will suspect nothing but sincere friendship. I would save you from a fatal error. You have been a laborious, studious young man. You are far better informed on almost all subjects than I have ever been. You cannot fail in any laudable object, unless you allow your mind to be improperly directed. I have somewhat the advantage of you in the world's experience, merely by being older; and it is this that induces me to advise.
"Your friend, as ever,"A.Lincoln."
LAST DAYS OF THOMAS LINCOLN
Mr. Lincoln did not allow his name to be used as a candidate for re-election, as there were other men in the congressional district who deserved the honor of going to Washington as much as he. On his way home from Washington, after the last session of the Thirtieth Congress,he visited New England, where he made a few speeches, and stopped at Niagara Falls, which impressed him so strongly that he wrote a lecture on the subject.
After returning home he made a flying visit to Washington to enter his patent steamboat, equipped so that it would navigate shallow western rivers. This boat, he told a friend, "would go where the ground is a little damp." The model of Lincoln's steamboat is one of the sights of the Patent Office to this day.
After Mr. Lincoln had settled down to his law business, permanently, as he hoped, his former fellow-clerk, William G. Greene, having business in Coles County, went to "Goosenest Prairie" to call on Abe's father and stepmother, who still lived in a log cabin. Thomas Lincoln received his son's friend very hospitably. During the young man's visit, the father reverted to the old subject, his disapproval of his son's wasting his time in study. He said:
"I s'pose Abe's still a-foolin' hisself with eddication. I tried to stop it, but he's got that foolideein his head an' it can't be got out. Now I haint got no eddication, but I git along better than if I had."
Not long after this, in 1851, Abraham learned that his father was very ill. As he could not leave Springfield then, he wrote to his stepbrother (for Thomas Lincoln could not read) the following comforting letter to be read to his father:
"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 merciful Maker, who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of the 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 be more painful than pleasant, but if it is his lot to go now, he will soon have a joyful meeting with the loved ones gone before, and where the rest of us, through the mercy of God, hope ere long to join them."
Thomas Lincoln died that year, at the age of seventy-three.
A KIND BUT MASTERFUL LETTER TO HIS STEPBROTHER
After his father's death Abraham Lincoln had, on several occasions, to protect his stepmotheragainst the schemes of her own lazy, good-for-nothing son. Here is one of the letters written, at this time, to his stepbrother, John Johnston:
"Dear Brother: I hear that you were anxious to sell the land where you live, and move to Missouri. What can you do in Missouri better than here? Is the land any richer? Can you there, any more than here, raise corn and wheat and oats without work? Will anybody there, any more than here, do your work for you? If you intend to go to work, there is no better place than right where you are; if you do not intend to go to work, you cannot get along anywhere. Squirming and crawling about from place to place can do no good. You have raised no crop this year, and what you really want is to sell the land, get the money and spend it. Part with the land you have and, my life upon it, you will never own a spot big enough to bury you in. Half you will get for the land you will spend in moving to Missouri, and the other half you will eat and drink and wear out, and no foot of land will be bought.
"Now, I feel that it is my duty to have no hand in such a piece of foolery. I feel it is so even onyour own account, and particularly on mother's account.
"Now do not misunderstand this letter. I do not write it in any unkindness. I write it in order, if possible, to get you to face the truth, which truth is, you are destitute because you have idled away your time. Your thousand pretenses deceive nobody but yourself. Go to work is the only cure for your case."
These letters show the wide difference between the real lives of two boys brought up in the same surroundings, and under similar conditions. The advantages were in John Johnston's favor. He and Dennis Hanks never rose above the lower level of poverty and ignorance. John was looked down upon by the poor illiterates around him as a lazy, good-for-nothing fellow, and Dennis Hanks wasknown to be careless about telling the truth.
In speaking of the early life of Abe's father and mother, Dennis threw in the remark that "the Hankses was some smarter than the Lincolns." It was not "smartness" that made Abe Lincoln grow to be a greater man than Dennis Hanks. There are men in Springfield to-day who say, "There were a dozen smarter men in this town than Mr. Lincoln when he happened to be nominated, and peculiar conditions prevailing at that time brought about his election to the presidency!"
True greatness is made of goodness rather than smartness. Abraham Lincoln was honest with himself while a boy and a man, and it was "Honest Abe" who became President of the United States. The people loved him for his big heart—because he loved them more than he loved himself and they knew it. In his second inaugural address as President he used this expression: "With malice toward none, with charity for all." This was not a new thought, but it was full of meaning to the country because little Abe Lincoln hadlivedthat idea all his life, with his own family, his friends, acquaintances, and employers. He became the most beloved man inthe world, in his own or any other time, because he himself loved everybody.
Mrs. Crawford, the wife of "Old Blue Nose," used to laugh at the very idea of Abe Lincoln ever becoming President. Lincoln often said to her: "I'll get ready and the time will come." He got ready in his father's log hut and when the door of opportunity opened he walked right into the White House. He "made himself at home" there, because he had only to go on in the same way after he became the "servant of the people" that he had followed when he was "Old Blue Nose's" hired boy and man.
ONE PARTNER IN THE WHITE HOUSE, THE OTHER IN THE POOR HOUSE
Then there was William H. Herndon, known to the world only because he happened to be "Lincoln's law partner." His advantages were superior to Lincoln's. And far more than that, he had his great partner's help to push him forward and upward. But "poor Billy" had an unfortunate appetite. He could not deny himself, though it always made him ashamed and miserable. It dragged him down, down from "the President's partner" to the gutter. Thatwas not all. When he asked his old partner to give him a government appointment which he had, for years, been making himself wholly unworthy to fill, President Lincoln, much as he had loved Billy all along, could not give it to him. It grieved Mr. Lincoln's great heart to refuse Billy anything. But Herndon did not blame himself for all that. He spent the rest of his wretched life in bitterness and spite—avenging himself on his noble benefactor by putting untruths into the "Life of Lincoln" he was able to write because Abraham Lincoln, against the advice of his wife and friends, had insisted on keeping him close to his heart. It is a terrible thing—that spirit of spite! Among many good and true things hehadto say about his fatherly law partner, he poisoned the good name of Abraham Lincoln in the minds of millions, by writing stealthy slander about Lincoln's mother and wife, and made many people believe that the most religious of men at heart was an infidel (because he himself was one!), that Mr. Lincoln sometimes acted from unworthy and unpatriotic motives, and that he failed to come to his own wedding. If these things had been true it would have been wrong to publish them to the prejudiceof a great man's good name—then how much more wicked to invent and spread broadcast falsehoods which hurt the heart and injure the mind of the whole world—just to spite the memory of the best friend a man ever had!
The fate of the firm of Lincoln & Herndon shows in a striking way how the world looks upon the heart that hates and the heart that loves, for the hateful junior partner died miserably in an almshouse, but the senior was crowned with immortal martyrdom in the White House.
THE RIVAL FOR LOVE AND HONORS
Stephen A. Douglas, "the Little Giant," who had been a rival for the hand of the fascinating Mary Todd, was also Lincoln's chief opponent in politics. Douglas was small and brilliant; used to society ways, he seemed always to keep ahead of his tall, uncouth, plodding competitor. After going to Congress, Mr. Lincoln was encouraged to aspire even higher, so, ten years later, he became a candidate for the Senate. Slavery was then the burning question, and Douglas seemed naturally to fall upon the opposite side, favoring and justifying it in every way he could.
Douglas was then a member of the Senate,but the opposing party nominated Lincoln to succeed him, while "the Little Giant" had been renominated to succeed himself. Douglas sneered at his tall opponent, trying to "damn him with faint praise" by referring to him as "a kind, amiable and intelligent gentleman." Mr. Lincoln challenged the Senator to discuss the issues of the hour in a series of debates.
Douglas was forced, very much against his will, to accept, and the debates took place in seven towns scattered over the State of Illinois, from August 21st to October 15th, 1858. Lincoln had announced his belief that "a house divided against itself cannot stand;" therefore the United States could not long exist "half slave and half free."
"The Little Giant" drove from place to place in great style, traveling with an escort of influential friends. These discussions, known in history as the "Lincoln-Douglas Debates," rose to national importance while they were in progress, by attracting the attention, in the newspapers, of voters all over the country. They were attended, on an average, by ten thousand persons each, both men being accompanied by bands and people carrying banners and whatMr. Lincoln called "fizzlegigs and fireworks."
Some of the banners were humorous.
Abe the Giant-Killer
Abe the Giant-Killer
was one. Another read:
Westward the Star of Empire takes its way;The girls link on to Lincoln, their mothers were for Clay.
At the first debate Lincoln took off his linen duster and, handing it to a bystander, said:
"Hold my coat while I stone Stephen!"
In the course of these debates Lincoln propounded questions for Mr. Douglas to answer. Brilliant as "the Little Giant" was, he was not shrewd enough to defend himself from the shafts of his opponent's wit and logic. So he fell into Lincoln's trap.
"If he does that," said Lincoln, "he may be Senator, but he can never be President. I am after larger game. The battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this."
This prophecy proved true.
When Abraham Lincoln was a small boy he began to show the keenest sympathy for the helpless and oppressed. The only time he betrayed anger as a child was, as you already have learned, when he saw the other boys hurting a mud-turtle. In his first school "composition," on "Cruelty to Animals," his stepsister remembers this sentence: "An ant's life is as sweet to it as ours is to us."
As you have read on an earlier page, when Abe grew to be a big, strong boy he saved a drunken man from freezing in the mud, by carrying him to a cabin, building a fire, and spent the rest of the night warming and sobering him up. Instead of leaving the drunkard to the fate the other fellows thought he deserved, Abe Lincoln, through pity for the helpless, rescued a fellow-being not only from mud and cold but also from a drunkard's grave. For that tall lad's love and mercy revealed to the poor creature the terrible slavery of which he was thevictim. Thus Abe helped him throw off the shackles of drink and made a man of him.
BLACK SLAVES AND WHITE
As he grew older, Abe Lincoln saw that the drink habit was a sort of human slavery. He delivered an address before the Washingtonian (Temperance) Society in which he compared white slavery with black, in which he said:
"And when the victory shall be complete—when there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the earth—how proud the title of that land which may truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both those revolutions that have ended in that victory."
This address was delivered on Washington's Birthday, 1842. The closing words throb with young Lawyer Lincoln's fervent patriotism:
"This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birth of Washington; we are met to celebrate this day. Washington is the mightiest name of earth, long since the mightiest in the cause of civil liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name no eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To add to the brightness of the sun or glory to the name of Washingtonis alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe we pronounce the name and, in its naked, deathless splendor, leave it shining on."
It was young Lincoln's patriotic love for George Washington which did so much to bring about, in time, a double emancipation from white slavery and black.
Once, as President, he said to a boy who had just signed the temperance pledge:
"Now, Sonny, keep that pledge and it will be the best act of your life."
President Lincoln was true and consistent in his temperance principles. In March, 1864, he went by steamboat with his wife and "Little Tad," to visit General Grant at his headquarters at City Point, Virginia.
When asked how he was, during the reception which followed his arrival there, the President said, as related by General Horace Porter:
"'I am not feeling very well. I got pretty badly shaken up on the bay coming down, and am not altogether over it yet.'
"'Let me send for a bottle of champagne for you, Mr. President,' said a staff-officer, 'that's the best remedy I know of for sea-sickness.'
"'No, no, my young friend,' replied thePresident, 'I've seen many a man in my time seasick ashore from drinking that very article.'
"That was the last time any one screwed up sufficient courage to offer him wine."
"THE UNDER DOG"
Some people are kinder to dumb animals—is itbecausethey are dumb?—than to their relatives. Many are the stories of Lincoln's tenderness to beasts and birds. But his kindness did not stop there, nor with his brothers and sisters in white. He recognized his close relationship with the black man, and the bitterest name his enemies called him—worse in their minds than "fool," "clown," "imbecile" or "gorilla"—was a "Black Republican." That terrible phobia against the negro only enlisted Abraham Lincoln's sympathies the more. He appeared in court in behalf of colored people, time and again. The more bitter the hatred and oppression of others, the more they needed his sympathetic help, the more certain they were to receive it.
"My sympathies are with the under dog," said Mr. Lincoln, one day, "though it is often that dog that starts the fuss."
The fact that the poor fellow may havebrought the trouble upon himself did not make him forfeit Abraham Lincoln's sympathy. That was only a good lesson to him to "Look out and do better next time!"
THE QUESTION OF EMANCIPATION
After he went to Washington, President Lincoln was between two fires. One side wanted the slaves freed whether the Union was broken up or not. They could not see that declaring them free would have but little effect, if the government could not "back up" such a declaration.
The other party did not wish the matter tampered with, as cheap labor was necessary for raising cotton, sugar and other products on which the living of millions of people depended.
The extreme Abolitionists, who wished slavery abolished, whether or no, sent men to tell the President that if he did not free the slaves he was a coward and a turncoat, and they would withhold their support from the Government and the Army.
Delegations of Abolitionists from all over the North arrived almost daily from different cities to urge, coax and threaten the President. They did not know that he was trying to keep the BorderStates of Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri from seceding. If Maryland alone had gone out of the Union, Washington, the national capital, would have been surrounded and forced to surrender.
Besides, at this time, the armies of the North were losing nearly all the battles.
To declare all the slaves down South freed, when the Government could not enforce such a statement and could not even win a battle, would be absurd. To one committee the President said: "If I issued a proclamation of emancipation now it would be like the Pope's bull (or decree) against the comet!"
A delegation of Chicago ministers came to beg Mr. Lincoln to free the slaves. He patiently explained to them that his declaring them free would not make them free. These men seemed to see the point and were retiring, disappointed, when one of them returned to him and whisperedsolemnly:
"What you have said to us, Mr. President, compels me to say to you in reply that it is a message from our divine Master, through me, commanding you, sir, to open the doors of bondage that the slave may go free!"
"Now, isn't that strange?" the President replied instantly. "Here I am, studying this question, day and night, and God has placed it upon me, too. Don't you think it's rather odd that He should send such a message by way of that awful wicked city of Chicago?"
The ministers were shocked at such an answer from the President of the United States. They could not know, for Mr. Lincoln dared not tell them, that he had the Emancipation Proclamation in his pocket waiting for a Federal victory before he could issue it!
THE PROCLAMATION
Then, came the news of Antietam, a terrible battle, but gained by the Northern arms. At last the time had come to announce the freeing of the slaves that they might help in winning their liberties. The President had not held a meeting of his Cabinet for some time. He thought of the occasion when, as a young man he went on a flatboat trip to New Orleans and saw, for the first, the horrors of negro slavery, and said to his companions:
"If ever I get a chance to hit that thing I'll hit it hard!"
Now the "chance to hit that thing"—the inhuman monster of human slavery—had come, and he was going to "hit it hard."
He called the Cabinet together. Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War, has described the scene:
"On the 22nd of September, 1862, I had a sudden and peremptory call to a Cabinet meeting at the White House. I went immediately and found the historic War Cabinet of Abraham Lincoln assembled, every member being present. The President hardly noticed me as I came in. He was reading a book of some kind which seemed to amuse him. It was a little book. He finally turned to us and said:
"'Gentlemen, did you ever read anything from "Artemus Ward?" Let me read you a chapter that is very funny.'
"Not a member of the Cabinet smiled; as for myself, I was angry, and looked to see what the President meant. It seemed to me like buffoonery. He, however, concluded to read us a chapter from 'Artemus Ward,' which he did with great deliberation. Having finished, he laughed heartily, without a member of the Cabinet joining in the laughter.
"'Well,' he said, 'let's have another chapter.'
"I was considering whether I should rise and leave the meeting abruptly, when he threw the book down, heaved a long sigh, and said:
"'Gentlemen, why don't you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die, and you need this medicine as much as I do.'
"He then put his hand in his tall hat that sat upon the table, and pulled out a little paper. Turning to the members of the Cabinet, he said:
"'Gentlemen, I have called you here upon very important business. I have prepared a little paper of much significance. I have made up my mind that this paper is to issue; that the time is come when it should issue; that the people are ready for it to issue.
"'It is due to my Cabinet that you should be the first to hear and know of it, and if any of you have any suggestions to make as to the form of this paper or its composition, I shall be glad to hear them. But the paper is to issue.'
"And, to my astonishment, he read the Emancipation Proclamation of that date, which was to take effect the first of January following."
Secretary Stanton continued: "I have alwaystried to be calm, but I think I lost my calmness for a moment, and with great enthusiasm I arose, approached the President, extended my hand and said:
"'Mr. President, if the reading of chapters of "Artemus Ward" is a prelude to such a deed as this, the book should be filed among the archives of the nation, and the author should be canonized. Henceforth I see the light and the country is saved.'
"And all said 'Amen!'
"And Lincoln said to me in a droll way, just as I was leaving, 'Stanton, it would have been too early last Spring.'
"And as I look back upon it, I think the President was right."
It was a fitting fulfillment of the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed that:
"All men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
That Declaration young Abe Lincoln first read in the Gentryville constable's copy of the "Statutes of Indiana."
At noon on the first of January, 1863, WilliamH. Seward, Secretary of State, with his son Frederick, called at the White House with the Emancipation document to be signed by the President. It was just after the regular New Year's Day reception.
Mr. Lincoln seated himself at his table, took up the pen, dipped it in the ink, held the pen a moment, then laid it down. After waiting a while he went through the same movements as before. Turning to his Secretary of State, he said, to explain his hesitation:
"I have been shaking hands since nine o'clock this morning, and my arm is almost paralyzed. If my name ever goes into history, it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles when I sign the Proclamation, all who examine the document hereafter will say:
"'He hesitated.'"
Turning back to the table, he took the pen again and wrote, deliberately and firmly, the "Abraham Lincoln" with which the world is now familiar. Looking up at the Sewards, father and son, he smiled and said, with a sigh of relief:
"That will do!"
THE BATTLE
The Battle of Gettysburg, which raged through July 1st, 2nd and 3d, 1863, was called the "high water mark" of the Civil War, and one of the "fifteen decisive battles" of history. It was decisive because General Robert E. Lee, with his brave army, was driven back from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. If Lee had been victorious there, he might have destroyed Philadelphia and New York. By such a brilliant stroke he could have surrounded and captured Baltimore and Washington. This would have changed the grand result of the war.
In point of numbers, bravery and genius, the battle of Gettysburg was the greatest that had ever been fought up to that time. Glorious as this was, the greatest glory of Gettysburg lay in the experiences and utterances of one man, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America.
It came at a terrible time in the progress of the war, when everything seemed to be going against the Union. There had been four disastrous defeats—twice at Bull Run, followed by Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. Even the battle of Antietam, accounted victory enough for the President to issue his Emancipation Proclamation, proved to be a drawn battle, with terrific losses on both sides. Lee was driven back from Maryland then, it is true, but he soon won the great battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and had made his way north into Pennsylvania.
The night after the battle of Chancellorsville (fought May 2nd and 3d, 1863), was the darkest in the history of the Civil War. President Lincoln walked the floor the whole night long, crying out in his anguish, "O what will the country say!"
To fill the decimated ranks of the army, the Government had resorted to the draft, which roused great opposition in the North and provoked foolish, unreasoning riots in New York City.
After winning the battle of Gettysburg, which the President hoped would end the war, GeneralMeade, instead of announcing that he had captured the Confederate army, stated that he had "driven the invaders from our soil." Mr. Lincoln fell on his knees and, covering his face with his great, strong hands, cried out in tones of agony:
"'Driven the invaders from our soil!' My God, is that all?"
But Lincoln's spirits were bound to rise. Believing he was "on God's side," he felt that the cause of Right could not lose, for the Lord would save His own.
The next day, July 4th, 1863, came the surrender of Vicksburg, the stronghold of the great West. Chastened joy began to cover his gaunt and pallid features, and the light of hope shone again in his deep, gray eyes.
Calling on General Sickles, in a Washington hospital—for the general had lost a leg on the second day of the battle of Gettysburg—the President was asked why he believed that victory would be given the Federal forces at Gettysburg.
"I will tell you how it was. In the pinch of your campaign up there, when everybody seemed panic-stricken, and nobody could tell what wasgoing to happen, I went to my room one day and locked the door, and got down on my knees before Almighty God, and prayed to him mightily for victory at Gettysburg. I told Him this was His war, and our cause His cause, but that we couldn't stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. And I then and there made a solemn vow to Almighty God that if He would stand by our boys at Gettysburg, I would stand by Him. And Hedid, and Iwill!"
The President's call on General Sickles was on the Sunday after the three-days' battle of Gettysburg, before the arrival of the gunboat at Cairo, Illinois, with the glad tidings from Vicksburg, which added new luster to the patriotic joy of Independence Day. The telegraph wires had been so generally cut on all sides of Vicksburg that the news was sent to Cairo and telegraphed to Washington. In proof that his faith even included the Mississippi blockade he went on:
"Besides, I have been praying over Vicksburg also, and believe our Heavenly Father is going to give us victory there, too, because we need it, in order to bisect the Confederacy, and let 'the Father of Waters flow unvexed to the sea.'"
THE ADDRESS
Not long after the conflict at Gettysburg a movement was on foot to devote a large part of that battle-ground to a national cemetery.
The Hon. Edward Everett, prominent in national and educational affairs, and the greatest living orator, was invited to deliver the grand oration. The President was asked, if he could, to come and make a few dedicatory remarks, but Mr. Everett was to be the chief speaker of the occasion.
The Sunday before the 19th of November, 1863, the date of the dedication, the President went with his friend Noah Brooks to Gardner's gallery, in Washington, where he had promised to sit for his photograph. While there he showed Mr. Brooks a proof of Everett's oration which had been sent to him. As this printed address covered two newspaper pages, Mr. Lincoln struck an attitude and quoted from a speech by Daniel Webster:
"Solid men of Boston, make no long orations!" and burst out laughing. When Mr. Brooks asked abouthisspeech for that occasion, Mr. Lincoln replied: "I've got it written, butnot licked into shape yet. It's short,short,short!"
During the forenoon of the 18th, Secretary John Hay was anxious lest the President be late for the special Presidential train, which was to leave at noon for Gettysburg.
"Don't worry, John," said Mr. Lincoln. "I'm like the man who was going to be hung, and saw the crowds pushing and hurrying past the cart in which he was being taken to the place of execution. He called out to them: 'Don't hurry, boys. There won't be anything going on till I get there!'"
When the train stopped, on the way to Gettysburg, a little girl on the platform held up a bouquet to Mr. Lincoln, lisping: "Flowerth for the Prethident."
He reached out, took her up and kissed her, saying:
"You're a sweet little rosebud yourself. I hope your life will open into perpetual beauty and goodness."
About noon on the 19th of November, the distinguished party arrived in a procession and took seats on the platform erected for the exercises. The President was seated in a rocking-chairplaced there for him. There were fifteen thousand people waiting, some of whom had been standing in the sun for hours. It was a warm day and a Quaker woman near the platform fainted. An alarm was given and the unconscious woman was in danger of being crushed.
The President sprang to the edge of the staging and called out:
"Here, let me get hold of that lady."
With a firm, strong grasp he extricated her from the crush and seated her in his rocking-chair. When that modest woman "came to," she saw fifteen thousand pairs of eyes watching her while the President of the United States was fanning her tenderly.
This was too much for her. She gasped:
"I feel—better—now. I want to go—back to—my husband!"
"Now, my dear lady," said Mr. Lincoln. "You are all right here. I had an awful time pulling you up out of there, and I couldn't stick you back again!"
A youth who stood near the platform in front of the President says that, while Mr. Everett was orating, Mr. Lincoln took his "little speech," as he called it, out of his pocket, andconned it over like a schoolboy with a half-learned lesson. The President had put the finishing touches on it that morning. As it was expected that the President would make a few offhand remarks, no one seems to have noticed its simple grandeur until it was printed in the newspapers.
Yet Mr. Lincoln was interrupted four or five times during the two minutes by applause. The fact that the President was speaking was sufficient, no matter what he said. The people would have applauded Abraham Lincoln if he had merely recited the multiplication table! When he finished, they gave "three times three cheers" for the President of the United States, and three cheers for each of the State Governors present.
That afternoon there was a patriotic service in one of the churches which the President decided to attend. Taking Secretary Seward with him, he called on an old cobbler named John Burns, of whose courage in the battle of Gettysburg Mr. Lincoln had just heard. Those who planned the dedication did not think the poor cobbler was of much account. The old hero, now known through Bret Harte's poem, "JohnBurns of Gettysburg," had the pride and joy of having all the village and visitors see him march to the church between President Lincoln and Secretary Seward. This simple act was "just like Lincoln!" He honored Gettysburg in thus honoring one of its humblest citizens. It was Abraham Lincoln's tribute to the patriotism of the dear "common people" whom he said "God must love."
"The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln" would be incomplete without some insight into the perfect boyishness of the President of the United States. When the cares of State and the horrors of war had made his homely yet beautiful face pallid and seamed, till it became a sensitive map of the Civil War, it was said that the only times the President was ever happy were when he was playing with little Tad.
He used to carry the boy on his shoulder or "pick-a-back," cantering through the spaciousrooms of the Executive Mansion, both yelling like Comanches. The little boy was lonely after Willie died, and the father's heart yearned over the only boy left at home, for Robert was at Harvard until near the close of the war, when he went to the front as an aide to General Grant. So little Tad was his father's most constant companion and the President became the boy's only playfellow. Mr. Lincoln, with a heart as full of faith as a little child's, had always lived in deep sympathy with the children, and this feeling was intensified toward his own offspring.
When Abe Lincoln was living in New Salem he distinguished himself by caring for the little children—a thing beneath the dignity of the other young men of the settlement.
Hannah Armstrong, wife of the Clary's Grove bully, whom Abe had to "lick" to a finish in order to establish himself on a solid basis in New Salem society, told how friendly their relations became after the thrashing he gave her husband:
"Abe would come to our house, drink milk, eat mush, cornbread and butter, bring the children candy and rock the cradle." (This seemeda strange thing to her.) "He would nurse babies—do anything to accommodate anybody."