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LIFE OF 


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INCOLN, 


FOR THE YOUNG MAN AND THE SABBATH SCHOOL, 


;Y WM. C. GRAY. 


Having chosen our course without suile and with pure purpose, let us 

renew our trust in God, and go on without far and with 

manly hearts." Message^ July 5, 1361. 


CINCINNATI : 

WESTERN TRACT AND BOOK SOCIETY, 

No. 28 WEST FOURTH STREET. 

1867. 


Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1807, by the 
WESTERN TRACT AND BOOK SOCIETY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District. Court of the United States, for the 

Southern District of Ohio. 


STEREOTYPED AT THE 
FRANKMN TYPK FOVNUBT, 
CINCINNATI. 


\ 


CONTENTS. 


PAOB 

CHAPTEK I. Parentage and childhood Early life The 

Christian mother . 7 

" II. Removal from Kentucky New home 

Death of his mother 16 

" III. Life in Indiana Going to mill Education- 
Rescuing a drunkard 21 

** IV. Voyage- to New Orleans Incidents Re- 
moval to Illinois Rails for raiment A 
merchant's clerk Honesty War policy.... 27 

" V. Indian war Store-keeping Postmastership 37 

'* VI. Surveying Study of law Election to the 
Legislature " Why Abe was cold" Re- 
moval to Springfield 42 

" VII. His course as a lawyer Armstrong trial 

Strange incident Humanity to a pig 47 

" VIII. Marriage Defense of fugitives Election to 

Congress 59 

" IX. Slavery Stephen A. Douglas Great de- 
bates Specimens of his logic 64 

*' X. The Presidential contest In a Sabbath- 
school Reliance on God Slavery in 
arms God against slavery Rebel exulta- 
tion Election and inauguration 74 

(in) 


391903 


iv CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

CHAP. XI. The call to arms Lincoln and Douglas The 

great uprising Arduous labors 87 

" XII. Lincoln and slavery Whittier's hymn 

Why emancipation was delayed 91 

" XIII. His religious character A Christian mother 
Incidents of religious life Literary pre- 
ferences Never read a novel 99 

" XIV. Patience McClellan Personal abuse The 

slave trader Reprieves and pardons 114 

" XV. Lincoln stories Use of wit 127 

" XVI. Magnitude of the war Selections from Lin- 
coln's speeches and proclamations " Po- 
litical blunders " Among the freedmen 
" lo Triumphe " 139 

" XVII. In the hospitals Incidents of his last days 

His death and burial 159 

" XVIII. Lessons from the life of Lincoln 1. The 
secret of his success 2. The theater 3. 
The providence of God 169 

" XIX. Tributes to his character from Europe Con- 
clusion ... . 183 


PEEFACE. 


. r 

f? HE emancipation of four millions of people from a 
state of bondage, the most cruel and degrading 
known in the annals of oppression, was an event 
which will fix attention so long as history shall be 
read. The prominence attained by the Chief Magis-. 
trate who led in the achievement of this grand result, 
and the affection cherished for him by the people whose 
liberties he so greatly aided in preserving, combine to 
render his personal example a moral power with the 
masses. To the colored race he stands in a higher re- 
lationship than that of any man who ever lived. Crushed 
for half a thousand years in a bondage which seemed as 
hopeless as it was cruel, the light of liberty burst upon 
them with a suddenness that brought shouts of wildest 
joy from every lip; and Abraham Lincoln became to 
them the Angel of Deliverance, sent direct on his mis- 
sion by the blessed Jesus. Their enthusiastic gratitude 
kindled almost to idolatry. "He walks de earf like de 
Lord," exclaimed an aged freedman in describing the 
Emancipator. With these people the example of hon- 
esty, industry, and humanity found in Abraham Lin- 
coln will have an influence proportionate to the love and 
veneration in which his memory is held. 

(v) 


VI PREFACE. 


The design of this volume is to portray the life and 
character of this honored patriot in a volume the brev- 
ity of which will render it available for wide circula- 
tion in home circles and Sabbath-schools, and among 
that grateful and affectionate people who have most rea- 
son to cherish and honor his memory. 

While the central object in view in writing these 
pages was the commendation of pure Christian mor- 
ality, the facts and attending circumstances of Lincoln's 
life produce also an argument of a different cast and 
higher range. However nakedly stated, and for what- 
ever purpose, they illuminate the truth of the discrim- 
inating, particular, and unerring PROVIDENCE OF GOD, 
with a brightness that has fastened the attention of the 
Christian world. 

The palm of martyrdom gives peculiar fragrance to 
the fame of any champion of the right. This is par- 
ticularly true of one whose name had already been en- 
shrined in the affections of the people. While writing 
under these influences, we have sought to avoid a spirit 
of hero-worship ; to represent and commend that which 
is admirable and worthy of imitation, and to condemn 
with impartiality that which may be used in apology 
for evil w. o. G. 


' </#/; "AY, 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


CHAPTER I. 


i 


PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 

: ; :' - >; :''-' ': V ! f ?;-.-'' :: ' .*. i.. : :. -. \: 

BRAHAM LINCOLN was born on 
Nolin Creek, in Hardin County, Ken- 
tucky, on the 12th of February, 1809. 
Before that time, the savage tribes had been de- 
feated and driven from his native State, but they 
yet lingered in broken and straggling bands in 
the adjacent territory, north and south, arid 
reigned in their original power a few leagues 
westward. The whole country west of the Ka- 
nawha was, as yet, a wilderness, almost undis- 
turbed. The great forests covered the solitary 
hills and valleys. The deer and bears had not 
yet forsaken their ancient haunts. The dashing 

(7) 


8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


saw-mills had not riven to planks the giant oaks 
and poplars. No busy grist-mills, driven by the 
tumbling waterfall, prepared the settler's corn. 
The swift locomotive, with its shrill shriek, was 
a thing as unknown to little Abe as it was to 
Abraham of old, sitting by his tent on the field 
of Mamre. Some shreds or antiquated garments 
of silk or broadcloth may have descended from 
the past as family mementoes, but otherwise they 
were unknown. The free school and the Sabbath 
school, with their precious privileges and de- 
lightful surroundings, were in reserve for the 
children of a later day. "Home" was a word 
as sweet to the heart then as now, but little 
Abe's home and those of his neighbors were not 
such as the most of children now enjoy. Little 
cabins of rough logs and clay, covered with 
clapboards, floored with puncheons, beds often 
of leaves, a fire-place nearly as wide and deep 
as a bed is long and broad such was " home,"- 
and yet little Abe's father and mother devoutly 
thanked God for the protection and comfort it 
afforded them; and well they should, for even 
such a home was a great blessing. 

Their fare consisted of corn-bread, milk, and 
such luxuries as the garden, field, and woods 


PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 9 


afforded them. It was abundant often luxu- 
rious. The wild plum, blackberry, raspberry, 
fox-grape and other fruits grew in rich profu- 
sion ; while squirrels, venison, and fat turkeys 
were to be had by the sharp-shooting pioneers, 
for the taking. The maple gave freely the most 
delicious sweet that nature anywhere affords. 
The gold of a king could purchase nothing nicer 
than the sugar fresh and warm from the kettle. 
And then how pleasant it was to sit in a cozy 
camp before the roaring furnace, gaze at the 
stars through the swaying branches above, listen 
to the music of the dripping " spiles," and dream 
of the future, as many a ragged backwoods boy 
has done. Hickory-nuts rattled down in plenty 
on the yellow leaves little Abe probably knew 
all the best trees for a mile around and many 
were the pleasant winter nights spent till bedtime 
around the great "fire-place" cracking them and 
telling Indian and bear stories while the icy 
winds were tossing the snow drifts without. 

Little is known of his ancestry, and that little 
does not extend far back into the past. His 
grandfather came to Kentucky, from Virginia, 
in 1780, or eleven years after the famous pioneer, 
Daniel Boone, first established his cabin on Ken- 


10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


tucky soil. He brought a large family of little 
children to brave the dangers and privations of 
pioneer life, but he lived only four years to afford 
them protection and support. While working in 
the woods one day a skulking savage stole upon 
him and shot him dead. We may imagine the 
terror and distress which fell upon the wife and 
little ones at this dreadful calamity ; and yet it 
was not the helpless despair which would have 
seized upon a family of our times could they have 
been placed in similar circumstances. Such oc- 
currences were not then uncommon. Pioneer's 
wives were brave spirited and adequate to such 
emergencies. Not long before this occurrence, 
and in the same county, lived a settler and his 
family named Davis. The husband was absent 
from home one day, and his wife, with the sharp 
scrutiny, which exposure to danger had given, 
observed an Indian peering from behind the door 
of the stable, about ten rods distant from the 
cabin. She well knew his hostile intent, but did 
not scream, or faint, or do any such like absurd 
thing. Walking carelessly into her cabin, she 
took down her husband's rifle, crept into the loft, 
carefully placed the muzzle in a crevice between 
the logs, aimed long and well, and fired. With a 


THE CHRISTIAN MOTHER. 11 


yell of rage and pain the savage broke from his 
covert and fled to the woods, his speed hastened 
by a defiant cheer from the undaunted woman. 
Many such instances of hardihood and bravery, 
and not a few of high moral heroism might be 
given of the pioneer women of those early times. 
The part of the country where the grandfather 
Lincoln was killed is not known. The widow 
gathered up her children and removed to Wash- 
ington County, then more thickly settled if such 
an expression may be used in reference to an ex- 
ceedingly sparce population and there reared, 
as best she could, the little ones cast wholly 
upon her care. The father of Abraham Lincoln 
grew up an ignorant, wandering boy. He could 
not so much as read, but was respected as a man 
of inflexible honesty and generous nature, and 
beloved for his amiability and kindness. Abra- 
ham's mother came from Virginia. She was a 
woman of elevated Christian character, posessing 
sound judgment and strong common sense. With 
these traits in an eminent degree, she was hum- 
ble, tender, and loving. What a precious mother 
was that for a little boy ! How sweet her mem- 
ory. Mr. Lincoln always looked back to her, 
amid the storms of political strife and furious 


12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


war, with deepest reverence and affection. "All 
that I am or hope to be," he said, " I owe to 
my angel mother blessings on her memory." 
It is much to have such a mother on earth, 
much to have such a mother in heaven to draw 
our affections to that blessed place, and to meet 
us when Jesus shall have redeemed us and called 
us to himself. Let us who are so blessed thank 
God every day for a pious mother, whether she 
be on earth or in heaven. 

There was no church or school within many 
miles of the humble home of this little family. 
Abraham had a little sister whom he tenderly 
loved, and a little brother who died young. The 
well-worn Bible and the family circle were al- 
most the only means of religious instruction 
afforded to these children. An itinerant Baptist 
minister, Parson Elkin, came at intervals of 
many months and held public worship at some 
of the settlers' cabins, or beneath the spreading 
branches of a forest tree, and to his rude but 
earnest eloquence the little family and their 
neighbors listened with pleasure and profit. 
Those early pioneer preachers, in their sim- 
plicity and devotion, remind us of the saints 
of olden time, " who wandered about in sheep- 


PIONEER MINISTERS. 13 


sldns and goat-skins destitute and afflicted." 
They rode through forests and wilds, swam 
rivers, and braved the tempests for the love of 
Jesus. They thought little of their hardships, 
and God was with them. Go'd always goes with 
his children who love him. An old itenerant, 
with white locks, relates the following incident 
of those times. He was walking across a wide 
prairie. Night came upon him, and foot-sore 
and weary, he sought a place to rest. Finding 
a little tree he lay down and placed his feet up 
against it, as they ached less while raised higher 
than his body. He heard the wolves howling in 
the distance and was greatly afraid. However, 
he prayed and fell asleep. As soon as he slept 
he dreamed he saw a bright angel standing over 
him with a drawn and glittering sword, who said, 
"Sleep without fear, I have come to protect 
you." The morning sun awoke the minister 
from a refreshing sleep, and he went on his way 
with a psalm of joy. 

The opportunities for education were quite 
as limited. At the age of seven Abraham was 
sent to school for about two months. The school 
was kept in a vacant cabin by a catholic school- 
master named Zachariah Riney. A school- 


14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


teacher he could scarcely be called. "Zack" 
was as innocent' 1 of any knowledge of geog- 
raphy or grammar as little bare-footed Abe 
himself. But the young pupil rapidly mastered 
the mysteries of his borrowed speller, and took 
care, when the school closed, not to forget what 
he had learned. The next year he had another 
opportunity of attending a school kept by a 
young man named Caleb Hazel. At the end 
of Hazel's "quarter" little Abe could both read 
and write pretty well. For several years after- 
ward his penmanship was cultivated by writing 
with coals upon the smooth end of chopped 
logs, and his reading by lessons in the Bible 
and a copy of Pilgrim's Progress, which, taken 
together, constituted the "family library.'*' His 
time was busily employed in wielding the ax 
and hoe, clearing fields, building fence, and 
such other rugged labors as he had strength 
to perform. 

These were hardships, and yet how much 
of genuine boyish pleasure was mingled with 
them. For instance, what grand sport it was 
to fire the brush-heaps at night! How the 
flames leaped and crackled, the great trees 
suddenly standing out from the darkness with 


EARLY SCENES. 15 


shadows swaying like phantoms in a dream. 
And then to see the dry trees in the "dead- 
ening" wrapped in twisting fire, or tumbling 
with a crash in jclouds of sparks and smoke. 
Those were better bon-fires than those made 
of store-boxes and barrels, lighted for a better 
purpose, and free from evil surroundings. 


16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


r 
CHAPTER II. 

THE FIRST REMOVAL. 

HEN Abraham was ten years old, his 
father sold his farm for ten barrels of 
whisky and twenty dollars in money. 
Leaving his family at home, he took his whisky 
and a few farming utensils, on an ox-wagon, and 
started to find and prepare a new abode in the 
dark woods of Indiana. . Arriving at the Ohio 
River, he attempted to cross it, with his valuables, 
in a flat-boat. Unfortunately fortunately, we 
would say of a similar occurrence in our times 
one of the barrels slipped from its place, upset- 
ting the boat and tumbling whisky, plows, and 
boatman into the river. He saved but little of 
his property, and considered himself fortunate 
to have escaped with his life. 

It must not be supposed that Mr. Lincoln was 
an immoral man because he received whisky in 
'part pay for his farm. The terrible conse- 


THE NEW HOME. 17 


quences of intemperance were not so prominent 
in the thinly populated country as they after- 
ward became, and public opinion was not then 
enlightened on this subject. Whisky was a com- 
mon beverage among all classes, rich and poor, 
ministers and people. Little log distilleries were 
found in every neighborhood, and the whisky-jug 
in almost every house. If such customs pre- 
vailed now the consequences would be indescriba- 
bly destructive of morals, life, and property. 

Having selected a home in Spencer County, 
Indiana, he returned for his family, and they were 
soon housed in a new cabin. The little furniture 
which they had was in the river. To begin with, 
a bed must be had ; they had no bedstead, and 
no means of getting one but to make it, and no 
tools but the augur and ax to make it with. But 
the process was simple. A stake was driven in 
the ground near the corner of the cabin, about 
four feet from one wall and six from the other ; 
augur-holes were then bored in the logs opposite, 
and 'poles driven into them, the other ends meet- 
ing on the stake. Across these were laid laths, 
rived from an oak log, and upon them rested the 
straw bed. A little three-legged stool, also the 
result of saw-and-ax carpentry, was the incipient 


18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


presidential chair. A fire-place, nearly as wide 
as the end of the cabin, built of logs, and lined 
with broad stones and clay, a few shelves, a pun- 
cheon table, and such like conveniences, com- 
pleted the establishment. 

Shortly after the family were settled in their 
new quarters, little Abe distinguished himself by 
a noted feat with his father's rifle, which always 
hung upon a pair of wooden hooks above the fire- 
place. His father was out chopping, and his 
mother and little sister engaged in firing brush- 
heaps, when Abe heard the call of a flock of wild 
turkeys in the woods at the back of the house. 
Mounting his stool, he reached the rifle down with 
trembling hands, put the muzzle out of a crevice, 
and gave the adventurous gobblers a broadside. 
One of them sprang high in the air, and came 
down flapping and fanning up the dry leaves in 
its last flutter. Dropping his gun, he ran out 
with a whoop of triumph, and bore his game aloft 
to his admiring little sister and mother. Game 
was abundant in fact the only reliance of the 
pioneers for meat and doubtless little Abe, with 
his father, often followed the bay of the trusty 
''coon-dog, in the darkness and stillness of the 
heavy forests ; yet he never afterward so greatly 


A MOTHER IN HEAVEN. 19 


distinguished himself as a hunter as on the fa- 

D 

mous day when he brought down his first gob- 
bler. 

But a dark day was at hand for the little pio- 
neer family. The devoted, tender wife and 
mother was seized with a quick consumption, 
and almost before the desolate family could re- 
alize it she was gone to her Savior. With many 
a bitter tear and despairing sob, they prepared 
a grave near the cabin and laid her to rest. 

So passed away from an humble cabin home a 
woman who had done more to elevate and bless 
the human race than the greatest empress that 
ever wore a crown. The principles of justice, 
the love of truth, which she had implanted in 
the heart of her little boy, and the kindly, pa- 
tient, persevering nature which he inherited from 
her, made him the great liberator of a prostrate 
race. 

Little Abe sat down, in his grief, and wrote to 
Parson Elkin, who lived near the old Lincoln 
home in Kentucky, requesting him to come and 
preach a funeral sermon at the grave of his 
mother. In due time an answer came, appoint- 
ing a day when the parson would preach. He 
traveled over one hundred miles on horseback 


20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


to pay the last honors to one whose godliness 
and worth he had so well known. Word had 
been passed from house to house, and on the 
appointed day a congregation of about two hun- 
dred people assembled, some of them coming 
a distance of twenty miles. At the foot of the 
grave, and surrounded by that congregation of 
coarsely-clad but earnest worshipers, the minis- 
ter lifted his voice in the solemn hymn, the sim- 
ple prayer, and the plain-spoken but eloquent 
appeals of the Gospel. 

About two years afterward the father married 
a Mrs. Sarah Johnston, who lived near their old 
home in Kentucky. She proved to be an amia- 
ble and provident step-mother. 


LIFE IN INDIANA. 21 


CHAPTER III. 

LIFE IN INDIANA. 

HE inconveniences and privations of their 
life in Indiana is shown by the fact that 
there was no grist-mill nearer than fifty 
miles distant from their home, and that was a 
rude affair, in which the grinding-stones were 
slowly turned by a horse hitched at the end of 
a lever. Meal was usually manufactured in a 
large wooden mortar, formed by burning a bowl 
into the end of a log of oak or other hard wood. 
The corn was beaten in this with a heavy wooden 
pestle, suspended by bending over a tough sap- 
pling and tying the pestle to it with a piece of 
leather. This saved labor by lifting the pestle 
after it had been brought down with all the 
operator's force upon the corn. 

When Abraham was about fourteen years old 
he went occasionally to the horse-mill, ground 
his corn and returned, the whole trip occupying 


22 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


from four to five days. On one occasion, while 
grinding at this mill and following the horse in 
his rounds, the vicious animal gave him a severe 
kick, knocking him senseless. When he became 
conscious, he proceeded without delay to finish 
his grinding and return home. 

About the same time, a man named Andrew 
Crawford, a neighboring farmer, opened a winter 
school on his own place. This school Abraham 
attended for about three months, and there 
learned the rudiments of arithmetic. Grammar 
was a mysterious science to most of the back- 
woods school-masters. An illustration of this 
occurred, at the same period, in a neighboring 
county in Ohio. John Woods, who afterward 
became a member of Congress, and a man of 
note and usefulness, having cyphered as far as 
the " Single Rule of Three," heard of a teacher 
some miles off who "knew grammar," and forth- 
with posted away to attend his school. He be- 
came so absorbed in the study that he was ac- 
customed to con over his lesson on the way to 
and from school. One evening his father and 
the family were startled by their trusty neigh- 
bor, Deacon Silvers, who rode up to the house 
in hot haste, and called out : 


BAD EFFECTS OF GRAMMAR. 23 


" I say, Alex. Woods, your John is in the 
edge of my clearing, a mile back, sitting on a 
log, and he 's crazy as a loon ! Come, and I '11 
help you home with him afore he gits away." 

" What 's that ye say ? ' exclaimed the aston- 
ished father ; " ye do n't mean to say " 

" I say he 's gone crazy, and I 'in afeard he '11 
be off into the woods, and may be die there." 

"And what's he at that makes ye think so?' 
excitedly asked the mother, while "Alex." was 
after his hat. 

" He 's talking gibberish and staring at the 
ground. He says 4 1 love, you love, she loves ; 
nom'tive I possesses me.' He 's mad crazy ; and 
Mrs. Woods, I believe it was that Jane Pettigrew 
that cracked the silly fellow's head I'm very 
sorry for you, Mrs. Woods." 

The acquaintance of Abraham with Mr. Craw- 
ford, as pupil and teacher, resulted in mutual 
confidence and esteem. Mr. Crawford had in 
his possession an old copy of Weems's life of 
Washington, which Abe greatly desired to read, 
and Mr. Crawford freely loaned it to him. He 
pored delighted over the history of that great 
and good man by whose side he was destined to 
stand in the pages of history and in the affec- 


24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


tions of mankind. One unguarded evening he 
left it on a table near an open window. A dash- 
ing rain-storm blew up in the night, and the 
book was soaked through and ruined. Little 
Abe's grief and self-reproach knew no bounds at 
the discovery of this disaster. But he took up 
the book and went straight to the owner, showed 
him its condition, and offered to make payment 
in full. Mr. Crawford put him to the test by 
offering to take two days' corn-husking in pay- 
ment for the loss. Abe regarded the proposal 
as very liberal, and at daylight next day was in 
the corn-field, and continued faithfully and in- 
dustriously at the work till his obligation was 
discharged. 

As Abraham grew up he became a muscular 
and powerful youth ; but his strong arm and 
hard hand were never employed in bullying or 
oppressing his weaker companions. He loved 
peace and justice, and lacked neither courage nor 
will to enforce their observance when occasion 
required. Two stout and well-matched young 
rowdies, whom he had often reproved for their 
quarrelsome and profane conduct, getting into 
a fisticuff encounter at a log-rolling, he seized 
them both, dragged them to a pond close by, with 


RESCUING A DRUNKARD. 25 


the intention of pitching them in, as he said, " to 
cool them off," and was only dissuaded from 
ducking them by their promises to behave more 
decently in the future. 

At another time, as he was going home one 
freezing winter night with two companions, from 
a debating society, they found an incorrigible 
toper, well known in the neighborhood, lying 
drunk upon the snow. His companions proposed 
to let him lie there, as he was worthless and past 
reformation. Not so, thought Abraham. If he 
was a miserable sot he was still a man, and he 
would not willingly let him pass from his inebriate 
sleep into the sleep of death, to wake in a dread 
eternity. He asked his companions to aid him by 
lifting the half-lifeless form from the snow, while 
he sank upon one knee to receive it. Having the 
drunken man balanced across his shoulder, he 
rose and carried him a distance of a quarter of 
a mile, to the nearest house, and stayed with 
him till morning, sparing no efforts to Save his 
life. The drunkard lived, but so great was the 
power of appetite that the terrible lesson of that 
night was lost upon him, and he soon after filled 
a drunkard's grave. 

Alcohol is one of the most deceptive and 


26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


deadly enemies of the human race. It besets 
the young man in many attractive forms, and 
disguises itself in generous virtues. It stills his 
fears, hushes conscience, and leads him in giddy 
mazes of delirium to that 

mysterious bourne 


By which our path is crossed, 
Beyond which God himself hath sworn 
That he who goes is lost. 


FIRST VOYAGE TO NEW ORLEANS. 27 


CHAPTER IV. 

FIRST VOYAGE TO NEW ORLEANS. 

T the age of eighteen, Abraham longed to 
see more of the great world than his se- 
eluded life had yet brought to his view. 
A pleasure trip by post-roads and public convey- 
ances was out of the question. But combining 
toil with pleasure, with the assistance of a few 
neighbors, he built a little flat-boat, launched it 
on the Ohio, loaded it with such produce as his 
neighbors were willing to risk in the adventure, 
and with one companion, pushed off to find the 
far-distant market at New Orleans. While he 
was preparing to start, a little occurrence took 
place, which, insignificant as it seems, produced 
a marked impression on his mind. As he stood 
at the landing loading his boat, two passengers 
came up, who wished to be placed on an ap- 
proaching steamer. Abe volunteered, and hav- 
ing safely placed them on board and handed up 


28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


their baggage, they each threw back into the 
bottom of his canoe a silver half dollar. " I 
could scarcely believe my eyes," said the Pres- 
ident afterward, in relating this incident, " I 
could scarcely believe that I, a poor boy, had 
earned a dollar in less than a day. The world 
seemed wider and fairer to me. I was a more 
hopeful and confident being from that time." 

The vast extent and power of our country 
must have been strongly impressed upon his 
mind by that voyage of eighteen hundred miles. 
Floating slowly down for days and weeks upon 
the mighty rivers, the hills and rocks, prairies 
and forests, with ever- vary ing scenery, which 
rose upon his vision, were all new, vast, and 
strange to him as they were to Marquette, 
whose canoe, first of any white explorer, trav- 
ersed those great rivers. He and his compan- 
ion alternately slept in a little bunk on the deck, 
keeping watch at night when there was light 
enough to keep the boat off the bars and snags, 
and approaching the shore when it was neces- 
sary to cook their simple meals of mush and 
venison, or rashers of pork. 

Arriving at a little town below Natchez, Abe 
had his first acquaintance with some of the fea- 


"CARRYING THE WAR INTO AFRICA." 29 


tures of slavery. During the night, when he 
and his companion were asleep, seven stout 
negro slaves, in quest of more liberal rations than 
the negro quarters afforded them, undertook to 
rob the boat. Abe suddenly awoke before they 
had succeeded in boarding his deck, and, seizing 
a handspike, knocked four of them off the plank 
into the water. The other three fled, but Abe's 
blood was up, and he and his companion pursued 
and administered a severe pounding to each of 
them. The next castigation he inflicted in that 
" sunny land ' was on a much larger scale, and 
the subjects of it were robbers of loftiest pre- 
tentions. 

Having disposed of his cargo and the boat 
which contained it, he returned home on foot 
a weary journey of weeks. 

The family had attained to years of maturity. 
Sarah Lincoln, Abraham's only sister, married a 
man named Aaron Grigsby, and about a year 
afterward died. His two step-sisters also mar- 
ried. The hard labor of clearing away the 
heavy timber to convert the land into produc- 
tive fields was discouraging to the young people ; 

and in addition to this, thev suffered much from 

t/ 

that obstinate and enervating affliction the fever 


30 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


and ague. Hearing much of the wide and fer- 
tile prairies of Illinois, they longed to find 
more pleasant homes and a more tractable soil 
from which to win their bread. The matter was 
discussed around the parental hearth many an 
evening during the winter of 1830, and they 
concluded to abandon the wooded hills for the 
far-famed prairies in the following spring. On 
the 30th of March they all, 'sons, daughters, 
husbands, and little ones, with their effects, 
loaded in ox-wagons, started on their westward 
way. The streams were swollen, the roads deep 
with mud, and the progress consequently slow 
and wearisome. After fifteen days' journeying, 
they rested on the north side of the Sangamon 
River, in Mason County, Illinois, about twelve 
miles west of Decatur. Abraham Lincoln en- 
tered Illinois on foot, in a threadbare suit of wal- 
nut jeans, splashed and smeared with mud, driv- 
ing an ox-wagon ; he left it the trusted President 
of his country, honoring the office more than it 
honored him. 

Again the work of constructing a cabin was 
to be done, and in a few days one was built on 
a ridge which divided the woodland from the 
prairie mostly the result of the stout arms of 


RAILS FOR RAIMENT. 31 


Abraham. He then set to work and split rails 
enough to fence ten acres, plowed and planted it 
before the first of June ; and, having thus pro- 
vided for his father's family, set out to seek his 
own fortune. 

He was sadly in need of sufficient clothing to 
cover his lank but muscular limbs, and the first 
necessity was to provide himself a new suit. A 
widow named Mrs. Nancy Miller had a loom 
and plenty of flax and wool. Abe opened ne- 
gotiations with her on the subject of his neces- 
sities, and concluded a bargain to chop and split 
twenty-nine hundred good rails for a suit of 
jeans, to be spun, woven, and made to fit. The 
widow and the axman each performed their part 
of the contract, and Mr. Lincoln rejoiced in a 
substantial suit of new clothes, shirt included. 

Their old enemy, the fever and ague, again vis- 
ited the Lincoln family, and the following spring 
they again abandoned their homes, this time re- 
moving to Coles County. Here Abraham worked 
about among the farmers, at such labor as he 
could get, for two years. It is related that a 
respectable-looking traveler stopped one even- 
ing at a farm-house where he was working, and 
requested a lodgment for the night. The host 


32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


informed him that he was welcome, but that 
they had no spare bed, and that he would be 
obliged to sleep with his hired man. " Let me 
see him," said the gentleman. He was con- 
ducted around the house to where Abe lay, rest- 
ing over six feet of himself upon the grass. 
"He'll do," said the traveler, and so stayed 
and slept with his future President. 

Abraham's faithfulness and honesty were soon 
known among his new acquaintances ; also that 
he had held the " responsible position" of cap- 
tain of a flat-boat. A Kentucky trader, Denton 
Offut, wishing to send a boat to New Orleans, 
applied to him to undertake the trip. John 
Hanks, a cousin of Abraham's mother, and a 
stout young man named Johnston, were em- 
ployed to accompany him. The trip was suc- 
cessfully made, and the proceeds paid off to 
Offut with scrupulous honesty. 

At the period of Mr. Lincoln's life when he 
became of age, there was nothing in his personal 
appearance that would recommend him as a dry- 
goods clerk, or indicate his probable success as 
a merchant. Six feet four inches high, clad in 
a blue warmus, with tow pantaloons a world too 
short, coarse cowskin shoes, lank arms, a weather- 


A MERCHANT'S CLERK. 33 


brown, angular face the last man to twirl a 
yardstick, skip a counter, or play the agreeable 
to ladies yet such was to be his next occupa- 
tion. Offutt had a store in New Salem, of which 
the stock in trade consisted of an assortment of 
trace-chains, tea, sickles, sugar, mop-sticks, mo- 
lasses, cheese, castor-oil, cotton lace, nails, rib- 
bons, and similar goods, not forgetting a barrel 
of tar and one of vinegar in the cellar. His 
clerks had cheated and stolen from him to the 
extent that he was on the point of abandoning 
the business, but he concluded to make a trial 
of Abraham. He justified the confidence of his 
employer, and proved himself adequate to the 
business. 

The honesty of Abraham Lincoln was exhib- 
ited in numerous instances while in the employ 
of Offutt, in matters which would seem to a per- 
son less conscientious to be trivial and unneces- 
sary. Once he sold a woman a little bill of 
goods amounting, as he reckoned it, to two dol- 
lars and a sixpence. She paid the amount and 
left the store. Abe ran over the figures again 
to see that all was right, and discovered that he 
had charged her six and a quarter cents too 
much. It was night and dark, and the woman 
3 


34 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


lived nearly three miles away; but he closed the 
store, followed her home, and paid over the six- 
pence. Such exhibitions of rigid honesty show 
that he regarded strict adherence to principle as 
important in the smallest transactions. It was 
not a cunning attempt to secure a reputation for 
fair dealing and accuracy, for that would itself 
be dishonest, and wholly repugnant to his charac- 
ter. Most young men, in similar circumstances, 
would have quieted conscience by the reflection 
that the wrong was not intentional, and could be 
rectified at another time. His conduct shows 
that he did not consider this procrastination as 
honest. In this he was correct. Postponement 
is the first and fatal step in the total abandon- 
ment of duty. 

This scrupulous regard for truth and justice 
was not confined to the rights of others. He 
was mild, patient, amiable, forgiving, but would 
not permit himself to be injured or humiliated 
without earnest and usually effective protest. 
He was a peace man but not a non-combatant. 
A number of illustrations of this trait occurred 
during his life, before he gave that grand display 
of heroism, endurance, and persistence which 
resulted in the defeat and destruction of slavery. 


A LITTLE JOB OF THRASHING. 35 


While in Offutt's store, an amusing test of his 
peculiar courage occurred. A swaggering bully 
and fighter came in while he was dealing with 
some ladies, and opened upon him with a torrent 
of vile and abusive language. Lincoln begged him 
to desist till the ladies were gone, when he would 
hear whatever he had to say. When the ladies 
had departed, the ruffian became more abusive and 
profane than ever. Abe listened to him a mo- 
ment, and then said, in a reluctant way, " Well, 
I see that somebody will have to whip you, and 
I suppose I may as well do it as to leave the 
job for some other man." 

Leaping over the counter, he walked out, fol- 
lowed by the pugilist, who stripped for the bat- 
tle, while he poured out his most frightful 
threats and imprecations. Abe stood by, look- 
ing on, neither angry nor alarmed, but inter- 
ested in this violent exhibition of human nature. 
The bully leaped from the ground, struck a sci- 
entific attitude, and declared himself READY. 
Lincoln seized him with the grip of a vice, 
threw him upon the grass, arid, gathering a 
bunch of smart- weed, which grew at his feet, he 
rubbed it in the fellow's eyes till he bellowed 
with pain and begged for mercy ; then lifting 


36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


him up, lie led him to the well, furnished him 
with a basin of water, " hoped it would not 
smart long," and did what he could to afford 
him relief. 

His opportunities for acquiring knowledge, 
meager as they might seem, were greatly in- 
creased by his employment in the store. While 
there, a copy of Kirkham's Grammar fell into 
his hands, and the common-sense method of 
the old author led him easily and pleasantly, as 
it did thousands of others, into the principles 
of language. The author's plan of reasoning on 
the subject, and his pithy attacks on the absurd- 
ities of his predecessors, was the very style to 
interest and delight the logic-loving mind of 
Lincoln. 

After Abraham had been in Offutt's employ a 
little over a year, that gentleman failed in busi- 
ness ; the store was closed, and Abe had to look 
elsewhere for labor of muscle or brain. His 
management of Offutt's business had gained him 
the title of "Honest Abe," and the homely 

* 

phrase clung to him long after he had exhibited 
much more striking and brilliant traits of mind 

O 9 

and character. 


THE INDIAN WAR. 37 


CHAPTER V. 

THE INDIAN WAR. 

1831, while Abraham Lincoln was em- 
ployed as a clerk, rumors of trouble with 
the Indians became prevalent throughout 
the Western States. In pursuance of a treaty 
made with them in 1825, they had retired from 
Illinois to the west of the Mississippi. The ter- 
ritory now included in the beautiful States of 
Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and inhabited 
by a population second to none in the world in 
enterprise, intelligence, and patriotism, was then 
the country of warlike and powerful savage 
tribes. The Sacs and Foxes, Kickapoos, and 
Pottawatamies, in Iowa, and the Winnebagoes, 
Ottawas, and Chippewas in what is now Wiscon- 
sin and Minnesota, were as numerous as their 
kindred ever were in Kentucky or Ohio. It is 
astonishing to reflect that in one brief generation, 
thirty-five years only, they have so nearly dis- 
appeared and become extinct. But so it is or- 


38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


dained of Providence. Man may so degrade Lira- 
self that the influences of civilization and light, 
which to others are elevating, will be to him 
harbingers of swift destruction. So it is with the 
Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, our Sav- 
ior to some a message of joy and endless pro- 
gression in happiness, to others a savor of death. 
The famous Tecumseh and Black Hawk, old 
chiefs of the Sacs, resolved to violate the treaty 
and invade Illinois. This they did in the spring 
of 1831 ; but on the approach of a few hundred 
troops, under Gen. Gaines, retired to their own 
territory. In 1832 they again crossed the river, 
and Gov. Reynolds, of Illinois, called for volun- 
teers to repel them, and Abraham, then twenty- 
three years old, instantly responded, and, bor- 
rowing a buck-rifle, repaired to the rendezvous 
at Salem. His friends and neighbors among 
whom, and most zealous for him of all, was his 
friend of the smart-weed combat proposed him 
for captain. A well-to-do and somewhat self- 
important man, named Kirkpatrick, for whom 
Abe had labored as a farm-hand, was seeking 
and expecting the commission. An election was 
held, and Abe beat his former employer by a 
vote nearly unanimous. 


THE BLACK HAWK WAR. 89 


The forces then assembled at Bardstown, and 
from thence marched to the field of operations. 
The wily savages refused to give battle, divided 
their forces into marauding bands, and scattered 
over the country. The volunteers became dis- 
couraged with the dull and futile toil of march- 
ing here and there in pursuit of the swift-footed 
redskins, and when the Indians, finding retreat 
across the river necessary to avoid battle, left 
the soil of Illinois, the volunteers refused to 
follow, and disbanded. The Governor at once 
called for volunteers from the disorganizing 
troops, and again Abe stepped forward. But be- 
fore these new organizations could be perfected 
and brought into the field, Black Hawk and nearly 
all his warriors were defeated and captured at 
the battle of Bad Ax, on the Wisconsin River. 

The " veterans ' of the Black Hawk war re- 
turned home a few days before the fall elections 
in 1832, and immediately placed their captain in 
nomination for the Legislature. Abe was little 
known, except in Salem and the immediate 
vicinity, and the short time intervening between 
their return and the election-day prevented any 
efforts at canvassing the county, but in Salem 
he beat his opponent nearly two to one. 


40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


Soon after, a man named Redford, who had a 
store in Salem, sold out to a Mr. William G. 
Greene, who was well acquainted with young 
Lincoln. Greene proposed to Lincoln and an- 
other young man named Berry to take the store 
off his hands. The copartnership was formed; 
and Greene became their security to Redford. 
But Berry proved to be dissolute and dishonest, 
and the firm of Lincoln and Berry became bank- 
rupt. Lincoln assumed the debt, and set to 
work to pay it out of his earnings, and at the 
end of six years had paid the last cent, princi- 
pal and interest. 

During the fall following, while Abe was em- 
ployed in gathering corn, chopping and hauling 
wood for the winter, and similar labors, he re- 
ceived the appointment of postmaster from Pres- 
ident Jackson. Postage was then high, mails 
few, and came but twice a week, correspondence 
meager, and the profits of such a position very 
small. He could not remain in an office, and so 
carried the letters in his hat ! It was somewhat 
comical to go in quest of the perambulating 
" post-office," and to find it one day in a corn- 
field, and the next at a shingle-tree in the woods, 
but so the literary people of Sangamon were 


A PERIPATETIC POSTMASTER. 41 


compelled to do. When a letter, by frequent 
contact with the dusky pate upon which the 
"United States mail" rested, became worn and 
greasy, the postmaster posted it off to the dead- 
letter office, with the evidences of its age patent 
upon its surface. The office was discontinued, 
and no one appeared to take charge of the pro- 
ceeds, until many years afterward, when Lincoln 
was engaged in a thriving and successful prac- 
tice at law. An agent then called on him and 
presented the claim. Lincoln read it over with 
an embarrassed look ; and some friends who sat 
by, supposing he had not the money to pay, drew 
out their wallets to assist him. He thanked 
them, and said he had almost forgotten what he 
had done with that money. But going to an 
old trunk in a corner of the office, full of old 
papers, pleas, and other office rubbish, he dug 
down to the bottom, exhumed a lot of silver 
coin, tied up in a faded piece of calico, laid it 
upon the table, and counted out the exact sum 
which the agent's claim demanded not a cop- 
per more nor less did the rag contain. In all 
those years of privation, penury, and toil, he had 
not used a cent even for a brief period of the 
money belonging to the Department. 


42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


CHAPTER VI. 

SURVEYOR AND LAWYER. 

y* *w* 

* ffi N the winter of 1834, Abraham obtained 

u \ /A" 

a book on surveying, which had an in- 
troductory chapter on such principles 
of geometry and trigonometry as were neces- 
sary in the art of measuring heights and dis- 
tances. This gave him a taste for those sciences, 
and he did not desist from their pursuit till he 
had mastered Euclid. He afterward remarked, 
that from that time he was never satisfied with 
any argument short of the nearest possible ap- 
proach to mathematical demonstration. 

The following spring he was so fortunate as to 
have the opportunity to turn his mathematical 
acquirements to good account. John Calhoun, 
afterward well known or rather infamously 
known during the Kansas-Nebraska contest of 
1855-6, as "Lecompton Calhoun," was then 
surveyor for Sangamon County. The great im- 


STUDY OF THE LAW. 43 


migration into that part of the State gave him 
more business than he could manage. Hearing 
of young Lincoln's acquirements in his line, he 
gave him employment. Abe soon became an 
accurate and reliable surveyor. 

Happening at a book auction, at Springfield, 
he purchased an old copy of Blackstone's Com- 
mentaries, and, as was his habit with any book 
new to him, plunged at once into the devious 
mazes of English law. A fresh book to him was 
as a defiant kingdom to Alexander a new con- 
quest to be undertaken, and achieved without 
delay. Alternately surveying for bread and 
clothing, and wherewithal to buy more books, 
Abe pushed forward in the study of law. His 
studio was some shady tree in the edge of the 
woods in summer, and by a lard lamp at some 
hospitable fireside in the winter. His devotion 
to his studies rendered him absent-minded; and 
some of his neighbors, noticing the change that 
had come over him, reported that he was be- 
coming insane. These fits of abstraction con- 
tinued to mark him during the remainder of his 
life. He would sometimes sit down at the family 
board, eat mechanically, and without noticing 
conversation addressed to him ; but suddenly re- 


44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


calling himself, as from a dream, he would launch 
out some witty allusion or quotation of poetry, 
and at once enter upon the topic which came up 
in the circle, with great humor and vivacity. 

In the fall of 1834, two years after his first 
candidacy for the Legislature, he was again nom- 
inated, and this time elected by a majority of 
two hundred and fifty above that of the others 
on his ticket. During this campaign he met his 
opponent at various places in public debate, and 
acquitted himself as a logical, witty, and effective 
public speaker. The State of Illinois was then, 
and so remained for twenty years afterward, over- 
whelmingly Democratic, the Whig party forming 
scarcely a respectable opposition. Had Mr. Lin- 
coln sought popular favor and the honors and emol- 
uments of office, without regard to his convic- 
tions of right, he could have placed himself at the 
head of the party in the State, and shared with 
Mr. Douglas the political triumphs which that 
leader achieved; but he was convinced that the 
principles advocated by the minority were just, 
that the majority were wrong, and he would not 
sacrifice an iota of what he regarded as truth 
for political success or pecuniary gain. 

The capital of the state was then at Vandalia, 


WHY ABE WAS COLD. 45 


about one hundred miles from Salem, the home 
of Mr. Lincoln. The Legislature met in De- 
cember, when the roads were deep and the 
weather inclement. But he had not the means 
to pay his way by public conveyance or to pur- 
chase a horse ; he therefore walked all the way 
to the capital, and at the close of the term 
walked back again. As he returned in the 
spring the weather was severe, and he, being 
thinly clad, complained of the cold. One of his 
colleagues, all of whom were upon horseback, 
in allusion to his big feet, said : " It is no wonder 
Abe is cold ; there 's so much of him on the 
ground!' Lincoln laughed as heartily at this 
broad joke as any of his companions. 

During this session of the Legislature, a series 
of resolutions were passed pledging the legisla- 
tors, and, so far as their influence could extend, 
the people of the State, to vile subserviency to 
slaveholders. Mr. Lincoln and one other inde- 
pendent and honorable man, DANIEL STONE, 
would not submit to this humiliation, but entered 
a vigorous protest upon the journal of the House. 
By that one manly act " Dan Stone ' will be re- 
membered as a just and fearless man, even if 
all other events of his life are forgotten. 


46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


At the close of the second session of the Leg- 
islature, Major Stewart, of Springfield, offered him 
a partnership in the practice of law, which flat- 
tering proposal he immediately accepted, and, 
packing up his scanty wardrobe and library, 
turned his back upon his old home, with its rough 
toils, but with its many pleasant associations, for 
a new and broader field of usefulness. In thus 
leaving the scene of so many hardships and pri- 
vations, he also left friends who knew him best 
and trusted him most friends who had honored 
him with his first political success. But mingled 
with his regret were high hopes as he looked for- 
ward to the expanding and brightening future. 

The young lawyer did not pack an expensive 
trunk, with stores of glossy linen, patent collars, 
and fancy toilet fixtures, as a preparation for 
this journey to Springfield. He would have 
been well suited to tie up his extra cotton shirt 
in a handkerchief, and make a straight line for 
his new home across lots, taking advantage of 
his lengthy supply of legs to ford the streams, 
as he often had done before, and did afterward. 
But he accumulated a burden of wealth, in the 
shape of law-books, which he could not carry 


PADDLING HIS OWN CANOE. 47 


upon his back. He was, therefore, under the 
necessity of asking a neighbor boy to haul his 
box to the Sangamon River, but not to await a 
passing steamer, as there were none, but to take 
passage in a vessel of his own. He procured a 
little skiff, and, loading in his worldly goods, 
applied his tough hands to the oars, and so 
"paddled his own canoe" to fortune and fame. 

This little incident in Lincoln's life has much 
in it that is picturesque and pleasing. He had 
passed the primary grade in his school of disci- 
pline. The ax and the maul, the scanty clothing 
and penury, the struggle for education and cul- 
ture against most discouraging disadvantages, 
all were left behind as he stepped from the bank 
of the stream into his little boat. He was now 
to test his powers in efforts of intellect instead 
of muscle. He doubtless looked to success in 
the legal profession as the summit of his ambi- 
tion, not knowing that this, also, was merely a 
higher school of discipline to prepare him for the 
work of his life. 

His success at the law was immediate. Po- 
litical campaigning had given him fluency and 
confidence as a public speaker ; and his acute 
and logical mind was peculiarly fitted for the 


48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


work of that controversial profession. The next 
Legislative election the people of Springfield 
returned him for a second term to the Legisla- 
ture ; this was repeated from time to time, till 
his professional duties became so onerous that 
he was compelled to decline further service in 
that body. 


HIS COURSE AS A LAWYER 49 


CHAPTER VII. 


HIS COURSE AS A LAWYER. 


RICKERY and deception are regarded 
as vices almost inseparable from the 
legal profession. In almost every con- 
test one or both of the parties are seeking to do 
injustice. The attorney is constantly brought in 
contact with knavery, becomes familiar with all 
its devious ways, and is often strongly tempted, 
by pecuniary gain and professional ambition, to 
resort to it himself. And yet the most certain 
avenue to success in this, as in other callings, is 
unswerving honesty. No business man is will- 
ing to incur the vexation, watchfulness, and, 
withal, the uncertainty, of dealing with a knave. 
On the other hand, business intercourse with a 
man of Christian uprightness and integrity is a 
constant source of satisfaction and security. 

Mr. Lincoln's course as a lawyer was " obsti- 
nately honest." So thorough was the confidence 
4 


50 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


reposed in him by those who knew him well, 
that with them his logical deductions, in ad- 
dressing a jury, would outweigh the testimony 
upon oath of some respectable witnesses. Con- 
stantly acting upon principle, he could not and 
would not defend the wrong. He not only would 
not lie for any man or any cause, but he would 
have nothing to do with a cause for the main- 
tenance of which it was necessary for any body 
to lie. 

During the progress of an important trial at 
Springfield, he became convinced that his client 
was acting dishonestly, and that justice and the 
law were against him. He at once notified his 
associate counsel that he would not argue such 
a case, and took no further part in it. The trial 
proceeded, and, much to Mr. Lincoln's astonish- 
ment, his colleague gained the verdict. The 
successful client paid over to the firm the hand- 
some fee of nine hundred dollars, but Mr. Lin- 
coln would not accept a dime of it. 

At that time it was customary, as now, for the 
common pleas judges to pass from county to 
county, holding courts in each, with the differ- 
ence that the judicial districts embraced a much 
wider area of country than at present. It was 


THE ARMSTRONG TRIAL. 51 


also the custom of the best lawyers to follow the 
judges from one county to another, and thus 
extend their practice over the whole district. 
This was called " circuit riding," a term applied 
to the itinerant labors of both lawyers and 
preachers. 

The minister and the lawyer, each equipped 
with saddle-bags and leggings, pursued their 
journeys on horseback, through mud and rain, 
snow and sleet, through sloughs and across riv- 
ers, contented and happy in the pursuit of their 
callings. 

While engaged in studying his profession in 
intervals of hard labor, in Menard County, a 
family named Armstrong, father, mother, and 
sons, had kindly made him welcome to a home 
in their cabin during one winter. This generous 
hospitality from a poor mail, as Armstrong then 
was, was treasured in the grateful memory of the 
rising lawyer, and brought a full reward, as the 
following incident, related by one who witnessed 
it, fully shows : 

" Some few years since, the oldest son of Mr. 
Lincoln's old friend Armstrong, the chief sup- 
port of his widowed mother the good old man 
having some time previously passed from earth 


52 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


was arrested on the charge of murder. A young 
man had been killed during a riotous melee in 
the night-time, at a camp-meeting, and one of 
his associates stated that the death-wound was 
inflicted by young Armstrong. A preliminary 
examination was gone into, at which the accuser 
testified so positively that there seemed to be no 
doubt of the guilt of the prisoner, and, therefore, 
he was held for trial. As is too often the case, 
the bloody act caused an undue excitement in 
the public mind. Every improper incident in 
the life of the prisoner, each act which bore the 
least resemblance to rowdyism, each school-boy 
quarrel, was suddenly remembered and magni- 
fied, until they pictured him as a fiend of the 
most horrid hue. As these rumors were spread 
abroad they were received as gospel truth, and 
the most feverish desire for vengeance seized 
upon the infatuated populace, while only prison- 
bars prevented a horrible death at the hands of 
a mob. The events were heralded in the news- 
papers, painted in the highest colors, accompa- 
nied with rejoicing over the certainty of punish- 
ment being meted out to the guilty party. The 
prisoner, overwhelmed by the circumstances in 
which he found himself placed, fell into a mel- 


THE ARMSTRONG TRIAL. 53 


ancholy condition bordering on despair ; and the 
widowed mother, looking through her tears, saw 
no cause for hope from earthly aid. 

" At this juncture the widow received a letter 
from Mr. Lincoln, volunteering his services in 
an effort to. save the youth from the impending 
stroke. Gladly was his aid accepted, although 
it seemed impossible for even his sagacity to 
prevail in such a desperate case ; but the heart 
of the attorney was in the work, and he set 
about it with a will that knew no. such word as 
fail. Feeling that the poisoned condition of the 
public mind was such as to preclude the possi- 
bility of impaneling an impartial jury in the 
court having jurisdiction, he procured a change 
of venue and a postponement of the trial. He 
then went studiously to work unraveling the his- 
tory of the case, and satisfied himself that his 
client was the victim of malice, and that the 
statements of the accuser were a tissue of false- 
hoods. When the trial was called', the prisoner, 
pale and emaciated, an.d with hopelessness writ- 
ten on every feature accompanied by his half- 
hoping, half-despairing mother, whose only hope 
was a mother's belief in her son's innocence, in 
the justice of God, and in the noble counsel 


54 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


who, without hope of fee or reward on earth, 
had undertaken the cause took his seat in the 
prisoner's box, and with stony firmness listened 
to the reading of the indictment. 

" Lincoln sat quietly by, while the large audi- 
tory looked on him as though wondering what 
he could say in defense of one whose guilt was 
deemed certain. The examination of the wit- 
nesses for the State was begun, and a well- 
arranged mass of evidence, circumstantial and 
positive, was introduced, which seemed to impale 
the prisoner beyond the possibility of extrica- 
tion. Mr. Lincoln propounded but few ques- 
tions, and those of a character which excited no 
uneasiness on the part of the prosecutor, merely, 
in most cases, requiring the main witness to be 
definite as to time and place. When the evi- 
dence of the prosecution was closed, Lincoln 
introduced a few witnesses to remove some er- 
roneous impressions in regard to the previous 
character of his client, who, though somewhat 
rowdyish, had never been known to commit a 
vicious act, and to show that a greater degree 
of ill-feeling existed between the accuser and 
the accused than between the accused and the 
murdered man. The prosecutor felt that the 


THE ARMSTRONG TRIAL. 55 


case was a clear one, and his opening speech 
was brief and formal. 

" Lincoln arose, while a deathly silence pervaded 
the vast audience, and, in a clear but moderate 
tone, began his argument. Slowly and carefully 
he reviewed the testimony, pointing out the hith- 
erto unobserved discrepancies in the statements 
of the principal witness. That which appeared 
plain and plausible he made to appear crooked 
as a serpent's path. The witness had stated 
that the affair took place at a certain hour in 
the evening, and that, by the aid of the brightly- 
shining moon, he saw the prisoner inflict the 
death-blow with a slung-shot. Mr. Lincoln 
showed that at the hour referred to the moon 
was not yet above the horizon, and, consequently, 
the whole tale was a fabrication. He then drew 
a picture of the perjurer so horrid and ghastly 
that the accuser could sit under it no longer, 
but reeled and staggered from the court-room. 
Then, in words of thrilling pathos, Lincoln ap- 
pealed to the jurors as fathers of sons who 
might become fatherless, to yield to no previous 
impressions of ill-founded prejudice, but to do 
his client justice ; and as he alluded to the debt 
of gratitude which he owed the boy's sire, tears 


56 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


were seen to fall from many eyes unused to 
weep. It was near night, when he concluded by 
saying that if justice were done, as he believed 
it would be, before the sun should set it would 
shine upon his client a free man. Half an hour 
had not elapsed when a messenger announced 
that the jury had agreed upon their verdict. 
The court-room was soon filled to overflowing 
by citizens of the town. When the prisoner and 
his mother entered, silence reigned as completely 
as if the house were empty. The foreman of the 
jury, in answer to the usual inquiry from the 
court, in a strong, clear tone, announced the 
verdict, "NoT GUILTY!" The widow dropped 
into the arms of her son, who held her up, and 
told her to look on him as before, a free man 
and innocent. Then, with the words, " Where 
is Mr. Lincoln?" he rushed across the room and 
grasped the hand of his deliverer, while his 
heart was too full for utterance. Lincoln turned 
his eyes toward the west, where the sun still 
lingered in view, and then turning toward the 

youth, said, "It is not yet sundown, and you 

- f )) 
are tree. 

While riding alone, at one time, to attend court 
in a neighboring county, an incident occurred 


HUMANITY TO A PIG. 


, . 

which would have seemed strange and ludicrous 
to a bystander, and which yet gives a view of 
the humane and sensitive heart of Mr. Lincoln, 
and shows that, in the quality of mercy, he was 
as child-like and sincere as he was determined 
iii his ideas of truth and justice. 

He was riding by a deep slough, in which 
he saw a pig ingulfed, and showing by its ex- 
hausted efforts that it would never succeed in 
extricating itself. He looked at it a moment 
with a pitying eye, but the mud was deep and 
black, and his wardrobe for the journey was 
limited to the suit he had on. He therefore 
rode on, but more than once looked back at the 
pitiable object. Pursuing his way about two 
miles, during which time he sought in vain to 
banish the struggling pig from his mind, he 
turned suddenly about and rode quickly hafck, 
fearing he might ba too late to save the animal's 

^j ^3 J^ 

life. Dismounting, he hitched his horse and set 
about his labor of mercy in good earnest. He 

soon had a bridge of rails built to within 


reach of the pig, f0ied him by the ears and 
landed him on terra fir ma. After looking at him 
with a smile, as he scampered off, he re-mounted 
his horse and rode away. Mr. Lincoln probably 


58 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


never in his life inflicted wanton pain on the 
sensibilities of any person, or upon the humblest 
of God's creatures. But while 

"Meekly bending heart and brow 
To the helpless and the low" 

was also ever 

"Ready to redress the wrong 
Of the weak against the strong." 

After he had attained power and fame, his for- 
mer humble and illiterate friends found him the 
same unassuming, considerate, and affectionate 
friend that he was while sharing their hospitality 
as a poor boy at the cabin fireside, or around 
the homely meal. Having one night left his 
comfortable quarters and agreeable companions, 
at the hotel of a village where he was attending 
court, to visit an aged friend in her cabin, his 
friends remonstrated with him. " 0," said he, 
" it would break old Aunty's heart to hear that 
I had left town without visiting her." He took 
pleasure, and it was pleasure in its highest and 
noblest form, in seating himself at the old ma- 
tron's table, to listen to her garrulous talk, relate 
his merriest stories, and gratify her by his un- 
affected respect. 


A STRANGE INCIDENT. 59 


An incident in wide contrast to these, and 
which brought out wholly different traits of his 
character, took place in 1839. The Legislature 
was then in session at Springfield, and Mr. Lin- 
coln was a member. During the session, a young 
lady wrote, and the editor of the paper at Spring- 
field published, a sarcastic poem, which the pub- 
lic at once understood as directed against James 
Shields, also a member of the Legislature. 
Shields demanded of the editor the name of so 
audacious a writer, with the intent to repay the 
shedding of ink by the shedding of blood. Lin- 
coln was unmarried, and understood to be at 
least an admirer of the offending young lady, arid 
the editor, dishonorably fearing to meet the re- 
sponsibility, repaired to Lincoln, with the request 
that he would assume it, and settle the difficulty 
with Shields. He at once consented, and Shields 
was informed that Lincoln considered himself 
responsible. 

Mr. Lincoln seems to have gone into this 
difficulty without thinking of its folly his mind 
absorbed with the idea of defending the name 
and privacy of the lady. Shields immediately 
challenged him to mortal combat, and Lincoln 
as promptly accepted, naming broad-swords as 


60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


the weapons, and " Bloody Island ' in the Illi- 
nois river as the place. At the time appointed, 
Shields and his friends, and a surgeon, repaired 
to the place, and found Abe busy chopping away 
the underbrush with his sword, to clear a place 
for the duel. Friends who knew the trivial na- 
ture of the quarrel interfered and put an end to 
it. Lincoln said, doubtless truly, that he did not 
intend to injure Shields, and chose broad-s words 
that his superior reach of arm might enable him 
to defend himself and disarm his antagonist; 
but even with this purpose, it was the most .un- 
reasonable act of his life. 


MARRIAGE. 61 


CHAPTER VIII. 

MARRIAGE. 


N 1842 Mr. Lincoln was thirty-three 
years old, and established in a flourish- 
ing practice at law. He therefore deemed 
himself of sufficient age, and in possession of 
resources adequate, for the maintenance of a fam- 
ily. Accordingly he sought and won the heart 
and hand of Miss Mary Todd, daughter of Hon. 
Robert S. Todd, of Lexington, Ky. His bride 
had resided in Springfield for several years pre- 
vious to her marriage, and doubtless fully ap- 
preciated the value of the " rough diamond " she 
had chosen. His social nature and kind dispo- 
sition fitted him to enjoy the attractions of a 
home, and his wit, drollery, and genuine hospi- 
tality to render it singularly attractive to inmates 
and friends. His private correspondence at 
this time shows how happy he was in his new 
relation, and in the new cares and motives 


62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


for exertion which that relation brought upon 
him. 

One afternoon, while sitting in the law-office 
with his partner, Wm. Herndon, Esq., busily 
employed in his professional labors, a poverty- 
stricken old negro woman, with care and sorrow 
depicted on her furrowed face, came in and re- 
quested an interview. She and her children had 
been slaves in Kentucky, and their master had 
brought them into Illinois and set them free. 
Her son obtained employment as steward on a 
river steamer plying between Springfield and 
New Orleans, and supported her by his wages. 
Imprudently stepping off the boat at the latter 
city, he was seized by the rapacious police, un- 
der the assumed authority of the laws of Louis- 
iana against the immigration of free negroes, 
and hurried off to prison, where he was liable to 
be sold into perpetual slavery in payment of his 
fine. Mr. Lincoln heard the story, and requested 
Mr. Herndon to go to Gov. Bissell, whose office 
was near at hand, and request his interference. 
Bissell replied that the Constitution gave him 
no right whatever to call in question the Uws 
of a Southern State. On hearing this, Lincoln 
sprang to his feet in great excitement, struck his 


DEFENDING THE FRIENDLESS. 63 


desk with clinched hand, and exclaimed, " I '11 
have that negro back, or I'll have such an agi- 
tation in Illinois that the Governor will learn 
his constitutional rights ! ' It did not become 
necessary for Mr. Lincoln to make his threatened 
appeal for justice to the people. The colored 
man was recovered by the New Orleans author- 
ities and restored to his aged mother. 

Not unfrequently fugitive slaves were pursued, 
in their eager flight for freedom, and captured 
in Mr. Lincoln's district, or in the vicinity. 
But such was the terror which the epithet " Ab- 
olitionist" or "nigger thief" inspired that most 
lawyers were unwilling to incur the odium of 
defending them before the courts. But Lincoln 
in Illinois, like Chase in Ohio, and Stephens in 
Pennsylvania, never quailed before that cruel, 
black, and bloody power. He stood between it 
and its trembling victims, defending them to 
the utmost, whenever called upon. Other law- 
yers said, " It is right and just to defend these 
fugitives, but we have political aspirations, and 
can not afford it." Lincoln and Chase had 
aspirations too, but they could not afford to un- 
man and degrade themselves. The one became 
President and the other Chief Justice of the 


- 


64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


United States, by regarding justice as the first 
object to be sought; while of all that herd of 
pliant politicians, scarce one is known beyond 
a limited circle. 

In 1846 Mr. Lincoln sought and obtained a 
nomination for Congress in the Sangamon dis- 
trict, and after a spirited canvass was elected 
by a majority of 1,511 votes 597 greater than 
the same district had given the year before to 
that polished and popular statesman Henry Clay, 
as candidate for the Presidency. The great 
lights of the past generation were then in the 
legislative halls Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Ben- 
ton, and Adams. Those men, though probably 
not superior in intellect and eloquence to many 
now occupying their places, exerted a wider in- 
fluence and control than men of equal powers 
could do now. That was the era in our coun- 
try's history for the leadership of men. The 
mighty struggle of a later day reversed this or- 
der, and gave the country the leadership of the 
masses. The personal fortunes of the leader 
were then an object of interest; they are now 
wholly disregarded. The people use the men 
who seem best adapted to se'rve their purposes ; 
the moment he proves himself unfit, unwilling, 


.7$ 


A PERIOD OF RETIREMENT. 65 


or inadequate, he is cast aside with as little re- 
gret as the artisan casts aside a worthless in- 
strument, which is a change greatly for the 
better. Mr. Lincoln made a respectable legis- 
lator, but did not succeed in rising above the 
shadow cast by those great names. 

At the close of his Congressional term, in 
1849, Mr. Lincoln returned to the quiet routine 
of his profession, taking little part in politics, 
but by no means indifferent to the questions of 
importance in the political world, as they arose. 
His next appearance in public life was in a con- 
troversy far more grand in its proportions and 
glorious in its results than any that had taxed 
the strength of true patriots since the close of 
the American Revolution. The better to under- 
stand the circumstances of this contest, let us 
briefly recur to the aggressive power by whom 
it was forced upon the country, and for the 
struggle with which God had trained Abraham 
Lincoln from his mother's knee. 
5 


66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


CHAPTERIX. 

, 

THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT. 


** 

FRICAN slavery and the slave-trade 
^ were first introduced into Morocco, 
Spain, and Portugal, by the Moors, nearly 
seven hundred years ago. After the banishment 
of that race from their possessions in Europe, 
the Spaniards and Portuguese seized upon the 
abhorrent traffic, and have practiced it continu- 
ally since, even after other nations had pro- 
nounced it piracy and punished it with death. 
From that cruel and unprincipled people the 
New World received that spirit of oppression and 
sham-chivalry which became such a mighty power 
for wickedness in our hemisphere. The tortures 
inflicted by Pizarro in Peru, by Cortez in Mex- 
ico, and by the rebels at Andersonville, are all 
parts of the same cast, actuated by the same 
spirit, and repeating age after age, the same 
bombastic ideas, stilted forms of expression, and 
the same cruel practices. 


THE IRREPRESSIBLE 'CONFLICT. 67 


The slave-trade was introduced in the Western 
Hemisphere by Christopher Columbus, on his 
first voyage. He beguiled a number of unsus- 
pecting natives on board of his ship, the Santa 
Maria, when on the point of starting on his re- 
turn, took them to Spain, and sold them into 
slavery. They were, however, afterward liberated, 
by order of Queen Isabella. The colonists, who 
followed in the wake of Columbus, also followed 
his example ; but the aboriginal tribes withered 
and perished under the hard hand of the impla- 
cable Spanish task-master. At the professedly 
pious suggestion of Las Casas, a Jesuit missionary, 
the Spaniards sent vessels direct to the coast of 
Guinea, to capture the hardier Africans and im- 
port them to supply the demand. The system, 
once introduced, spread rapidly in every colony 
planted in the New World Portuguese, Dutch, 
English, and French. 

Ten years after the first cargo of slaves was 
landed in St. Augustine, Florida, the Mayflower, 
freighted with Puritans and free principles, 
touched the Plymouth Rock. From that clay 
began the growth of two hostile systems on 
American soil incongruous and antagonistic as 
fire and water each intolerant of the life of the 


68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


other. The conflict began and continued with 
increasing violence till the death-blow was dealt 
by Abraham Lincoln ; and that its doom might 
be irrevocably sealed, Providence permitted the 
vanquished system to close its infamous history 
with a crime that filled mankind with horror. 

True, the lines between the conflicting moral 
forces were not, in point of geographical location, 
distinctly drawn. Georgia, at an early day, and 
before she became a colony of the British crown, 
prohibited slavery and rum ; while New Eng- 
land both manufactured the one and practiced 
the other. But the principles of the Puritans 
gathered clearness and strength in the rugged 
hills of the North, while the dark spirit of slav- 
ery spread and intensified its hideous reign along 
the malarious levels of the southern coast. 

When the war of the Revolution was termi- 
nated by the triumph of the colonies, and the 
statesmen of that day assembled at Philadelphia, 
in 1787, to frame a government for our then 
independent country, the population consisted 
of a little less than three millions, of whom one- 
sixth, or near five hundred thousand, were Afri- 
can slaves. That convention was almost unani- 
mously opposed to the continued existence of the 


GROWTH OF BARBARISM. 69 


system of bondage, but they unwisely and un- 
righteously yielded to the determined spirit of 
caste and oppression, and inaugurated those 
wicked compromises with the evil, which have 
borne such bitter fruits of sorrow and blood. 

From this time forward slavery grew in ex- 
tent, in wealth and influence, as it also did in 
the intensity and malignance of its cruel spirit. 
Every department in the organization of society 
was invaded and held. The church was cor- 
rupted, the press subsidized, the highest seats 
of justice occupied, the new territories, as far 
as possible, overrun and secured, popular educa- 
tion suppressed, the freedom of speech and of 
the press abridged, the minds of the people 
poisoned with disloyalty and treason, and finally 
the boundaries and authority of the system de- 
clared to be coextensive and coequal with those 
of the free Republic. 

In pursuance of this arrogant pretension, an 
attempt was made to seize upon the territories 
of Kansas and Nebraska, which had been sol- 
emnly pledged to freedom, and a decision of the 
Supreme Court obtained at the hand of Chief 
Justice Taney, whose memory, by that act, is 
now buried in infamy, known as the Dred Scott 


70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


decision, which rendered the free States them- 
selves slave territory. 

These tremendous strides of usurpation alarmed 
the people of the free States, and in 1854 they 
combined, under the name of the Republican 
party, to resist its further encroachments. 

Stephen A. Douglas, a Senator from Illinois, 
a man of great intellectual power combined with 
political sagacity, though but little influenced by 
moral principle, had become the leader and 
champion of the slave power. He led in the 
contest which resulted in the violation of the 
compact between the free and slave States, 
known as the Missouri Compromise, and had 
much to do in concocting and sustaining the de- 
cision of Judge Taney, before alluded to. At 
the organization of the Republican party, Mr. 
Lincoln at once entered into the spirit of that 
combination, with his whole soul and energy. 
During the years of his seclusion from political 
life, he had grown steadily in intellectual strength 
and resource. His wise, original, and practical 
methods of thought had received rhetorical pol- 
ish, and his delivery, though not that of the 
finished orator, had acquired vivacity and force. 
When, therefore, Mr. Douglas, the "Little Giant," 


STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 71 


as his admirers delighted to style him, returned 
to his constituency to ask their approval of his 
policy, the friends of freedom put Mr. Lincoln 
forth, as the ablest man in their ranks, to grap- 
ple with this champion of the slave power. He 
accepted the task with alacrity. To deal un- 
sparing blows upon oppression, injustice, and 
cruelty, and to advocate the principles involved 
in the Golden Rule, was a work which aroused 
all the enthusiasm of his nature, and armed 
anew every power of his mind. He had for his 
antagonist one esteemed among the first intellects 
of the nation, strengthened by long experience, 
untiring industry, and by unscrupulous cunning, 
and animated by unconquerable ambition. 

The great contestants were not long in com- 
ing in collision. In October, 1864, the State 
Fair for Illinois was held at Springfield, and Mr. 
Douglas improved the opportunity to deliver a 
carefully-prepared and elaborate defense of his 
course. He affirmed that the people of each ter- 
ritory should determine for themselves whether 
they should form a free or a slaveholding State. 
This enunciation he styled the " great principle 
of popular sovereignty." He maintained that 
this Government was instituted solely for the 


72 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


benefit of white people ; that the declaration in 
the Declaration of Independence that " all men 
are born free and equal r only meant that Brit- 
ish subjects in the colonies were equal in their 
rights with British subjects in England; that the 
decision in the Dred Scott case was the supreme 
law, and as such must be respected and obeyed 
by all good citizens ; and denounced the Repub- 
licans as being favorable to the admixture of the 
white and black races. 

Mr. Lincoln replied the following day. The 
Springfield Journal thus pictures the scene : " He 
quivered with feeling and emotion. The whole 
house was still as death. He attacked the Sen- 
ator's Kansas-Nebraska Bill with warmth and 
energy, and all felt that a man of strength was 
its enemy, and that he intended to blast it, if he 
could, by his strong and manly efforts. He was 
most successful, and the house approved the 
glorious triumph of truth by loud and long-con- 
tinued huzzas. He exhibited the bill in all its 
aspects, to show its humbuggery arid falsehood ; 
and when thus torn to tatters and held up to the 
vast crowd, a kind of scorn was visible upon the 
face of the crowd and upon the lips of the elo- 
quent speaker. At the conclusion of the speech, 


POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 73 


every man felt that it was unanswerable ; that no 
human power could overthrow it or trample it 
under foot." 

As a specimen passage from this argument, 
the following may be quoted : " My distinguished 
friend says it is an insult to the emigrants to 
Kansas and Nebraska to suppose that they are 
not able to govern themselves. We must not 
slur over an argument of this kind because it 
happens to tickle the ear. It must be met and 
answered. I admit that the emigrant to Kansas 
and Nebraska is competent to govern himself, 
but (the speaker rising to his full height) I DENY 

HIS RIGHT TO GOVERN ANY OTHER PERSON WITH- 
OUT THAT PERSON'S CONSENT." Never was a 
sophistry more hopelessly impaled than was Mr. 
Douglas's " great principle ' by that one sharp 
and luminous sentence. 

The next discussion was held, a few days after, 
at Peoria. Mr. Lincoln's triumph here was even 
more signal than at Springfield. One of his 
happy rejoinders was as follows : " In the course 
of my main argument, Judge Douglas inter- 
rupted me to say that the principle of the Ne- 
braska Bill was very old; that it originated when 
God made man, arid placed good arid evil before 


74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


him, allowing him to choose for himself, being 
responsible for the choice he should make. At 
the time I thought that this was merely playful, 
and I answered it accordingly ; but in his reply 
to me he renewed it as a serious argument. In 
seriousness, then, the facts of his proposition are 
not true, as stated. God did not place good and 
evil before man, telling him to make his choice. 
On the contrary, he did tell him there was one 
tree of the fruit of which, if he ate, he should 
surely die. I could scarcely wish so strong a 
prohibition of slavery in Nebraska." 

In 1858 occurred the most memorable politi- 
cal canvass, at a State election, that the country 
has ever witnessed. Mr. Douglas's term of office 
as United States Senator was about to expire, 
and it would devolve upon the Legislature of 
the State to be chosen at that election to ap- 
point his successor. The Democratic Convention 
which assembled to nominate State officers also 
named Mr. Douglas as their choice for Senator, 
and the Republicans, following their example, 
nominated Abraham Lincoln. Douglas received, 
soon after, a challenge from Lincoln to canvass 
the State in friendly public discussions. They 
accordingly met and debated the questions at 


DEFEAT AS CANDIDATE. 75 


issue before immense audiences in various parts 
of the State. The manner in which Mr. Lin- 
coln acquitted himself in these debates may be 
judged by the fact that they were collected and 
published in full, giving Mr. Douglas's speeches 
without abridgment, by the Republicans in other 
States, and circulated free as campaign docu- 
ments. 

> J i 

The result of this campaign was that the Re- 
publicans carried the State by about five thou- 
sand majority, but a large number of Democratic 
legislators who had been elected the previous 
year held their offices at the next session, and 
were sufficient to overcome Mr. Lincoln's gain 
and reelect Mr. Douglas. But such was the 
enthusiasm aroused for the defeated aspirant, 
that he was immediately named ii various parts 
of the North as the Republican candidate for 
the Presidency in 1860 rather a remarkable 
result for a defeated politician. 

Mr. Douglas was as able a political debater 
as our country has produced. He had not the 
breadth and stateliness of Webster, nor the finish 
and brilliance of Clay, but in readiness, audacity, 
compression of style, and in dauntless courage 
he had no superior. He lacked nothing to place 


76 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


him among the first of American orators and 
statesmen, except that high moral principle 
which prefers truth and right to every inferior 
consideration. He accomplished much for the 
material prosperity of his State, and for the 
temporary triumphs of his party. He exhibited 
on many occasions the elements of profound 
statesmanship and far-reaching forecast; and 
had the American people been dealing with 
questions of material interest merely, his repu- 
tation would be different from what it now is. 
But the issues contested before the people di- 
rectly involved the laws of God concerning the 
rights of man. With all his sagacity and knowl- 
edge he did not know that those laws are far 
mightier than the ablest inventions of man, and 
that they would vindicate themselves to the 
defeat and shame of any man or party who 
undertook to trample them beneath their feet. 
Mr. Lincoln did most thoroughly understand this 
great truth. He sought footing on those resist- 
less moral forces, God's laws, and by them, not 
by his own intellectual powers, was carried for- 
ward over prostrate opposition to enduring tri- 
umph. On the contrary, Mr. Douglas, with all 
his rare intellectual gifts, his wide influence, his 


STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 77 


oft-repeated political victories, his lite has gone 
into history as one of disappointment and fail- 
ure failure which he deeply and bitterly felt 
during the last few months of his life. 

The history of the past is strewn with such 
wrecks. Every generation presents examples to 
prove beyond cavil the fact that HONESTY, TRUTH, 
JUSTICE, and the other virtues enjoined by the 
Savior, are absolutely essential to a life that can, 
in any true sense, be either successful or happy. 


78 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


CHAPTER X. 

THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST. 

the spring of 1860, Mr. Lincoln re- 
ceived pressing invitations to visit and 
address the people in New York and 
New England. He accepted the call, and was 
heartily welcomed in several Eastern cities. In 
Cooper Institute, New York city, he delivered 
his last and perhaps most brilliant political ad- 
dress as a citizen, and one which, perhaps more 
than any other event, fixed the hearts of the 
people upon him as their choice for the next 
President. 

During his stay in that city, he started out 
one Sabbath morning alone, and wandered into 
a mission Sabbath- school. The teacher, in de- 
scribing the incident, says : " Our Sunday-school 
in the Five Points was assembled one Sabbath 
morning, a few months since, when I noticed a 
tall and remarkable-looking man enter the room 


THE FIVE POINTS MISSION. 79 


and take a seat among us. He listened with 
fixed attention to our exercises, and his counte- 
nance manifested such genuine interest that I 
approached him, and suggested that he might be 
willing to say something to the children. He 
accepted the invitation with evident pleasure, 
and, coming forward, began a simple address, 
which at once fascinated every little hearer and 
hushed the room to silence. His language was 
strikingly beautiful, and his tones musical, with 
intensest feeling. The little faces around would 
droop into sad conviction as he uttered sentences 
of warning, and would brighten into sunshine as 
he spoke cheerful words of promise. Once or 
twice he attempted to close his remarks, but the 
imperative shout, i Go on ! ' ' 0, do go on ! ' 
would compel him to resume. As I looked upon 
the gaunt and sinewy frame of the stranger, and 
marked his powerful head and determined fea- 
tures, now touched into softness by the impres- 
sions of the moment. I felt an irrepressible curi- 
osity to know something more about him, and 
as he was quietly leaving the room, I begged to 
know his name. He courteously replied, ' It is 
Abraham Lincoln, from Illinois.' 

On the 16th day of May the Republican Na- 


80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


tional Convention met at Chicago, Illinois. The 
two most prominent candidates were William H. 
Seward, of New York, and Mr. Lincoln, and 
great efforts were made by the friends of each 
to secure the nomination of their candidate. 
Mr. Seward had thus far in his life been an 
able, tolerably consistent, and very eloquent 
friend of freedom. He was recognized as the 
most accomplished a.nd capable statesman in the 
Republican ranks ; his friends were, therefore, 

numerous and confident of the result. On the 

. 

first ballot he had nearly double the number of 
votes that were cast or Mr. Lincoln, but not a 
majority of all the votes cast. On the second 
ballot, those who had before cast their ballots 
for Mr. Chase, Mr. Wade, and others, combined 
upon Mr. Lincoln, and he was nominated for 
the Presidency. The result was hailed through- 
out the whole North with the ^wildest demon- 
strations of joy. In November he was elected 
by great majorities in every Northern State, his 
vote in the electoral college being 180 to 123. 

The slaveholding States had not only antici- 
pated this result, but did indirectly what they 
could to secure it, intending to make it a pre- 
text for rebellion. No sooner was the result 


SLAVERY IX ARMS. 81 


announced than the slave States at once began 
the most vigorous preparations for war. In 
December South Carolina seceded, and seized 
upon Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor. Dur- 
ing January the other States lying upon the 
Gulf (except Texas, which followed the first day 
of the next month), seceded, and seized upon 
the forts and arsenals within their limits ; and 
on the 9th of February the rebel government 
was organized at Montgomery, Alabama, by the 
election of Jefferson Davis as President. War 
was inevitable, and the weak and corrupt old 
politician James Buchanan, then President, per- 
mitted every influence of his high office to be 
used by his traitorous officials in strengthening 
the rebel cause and in preparing to overthrow 
the Government. 

Mr. Lincoln foresaw the tremendous ordeal 
through which he was called to pass as the Pres- 
ident of the nation, but calmly awaited, at his 
home in Springfield, till the time should come 
when his work was to begin. He had foreseen 
it clearly before his election, and relied upon 
the almighty arm of God with implicit confi- 
dence, and with the humble dependence of a 

little child. In a most serious conversation with 
6 


82 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


a friend, a few days before the election took 
place, he alluded to the fact that many promi- 
nent ministers of the Gospel and professing 
Christians of his own town intended to vote for 
the pro-slavery candidates. "I have carefully 
read the Bible, and I do not so understand this 
book," he said, as he drew from his bosom a 
pocket Testament. " These, men well know that 
I am for freedom in the territories, for freedom 
every-where, as far as the Constitution and laws 
will permit, and that my opponents are for 
slavery. They know this, and yet, with this 
book in their hands, in the light of which human 
bondage can not live for a moment, they are 
going to vote against me. I do not understand 
it at all." With cheeks wet with tears, and a 
trembling voice, he continued: "I know there is 
a God, and that he hates slavery and injustice. 
I see the storm coming, and I know that his 
hand is in it. If he has a place and work for 
me, and I believe he has, I believe I am ready. 
I am nothing, but truth and justice are every 
thing. I know that I am right, because I know 
that liberty is right ; for Christ teaches it, and 
Christ is God. I have told them that a house 
divided against itself can not stand, and Christ 


GOD AGAINST SLAVERY. 83 


and reason say the same, and they will find it 
so. Douglas does not care whether slavery is 
voted up or down, but God cares, and human- 
ity cares, and I care ; and with God's help I 
shall not fail. I may riot see the end, but it 
will come, and I shall be vindicated ; and these 
men will find that they have not read their 
Bibles aright." Pausing a moment, and walk- 
ing to and fro across the room in silence, he 
resumed : " A revelation could not make it 
plainer to me than that slavery or the Govern- 
ment must be destroyed. The future would be 
something awful to me but for this rock upon 
which I stand [holding up the Testament in his 
hand]. It seems to me that God has borne with 
this thing [slavery] until the very teachers of 
religion claim for it a divine sanction and char- 
acter; and now the cup of iniquity is full and 
the vials will be poured out." 

In alluding to his secret feeling to this friend, 
he said : " I think more on these subjects [the 
providence, protection, and justice of God] than 
upon all others, and have done so for years." 
These years of thoughtful contemplation of the 
justice, faithfulness, and sovereignty of God 
were not an hour longer than was needed to 


84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


establish his mind and prepare him to look 
calmly and fearlessly into the black future that 
lay before him. One ray only lit up the gloomy 
prospect, but that was the light of God. Lin- 
coln fixed his eyes upon it and stepped forward, 
" without fear and with a manly heart." * 

The hoarse roar of treason, falsehood, and 
rage arose from the Atlantic to the Mississippi ; 
such, in fact, as we may imagine arises from 
that congregation of evil ones to which God for- 
ever banishes his implacable enemies and the 
enemies of mankind. The nations awaited with 
absorbing interest the impending burst of the 
tempest. In the midst of it he prepared for his 
departure for Washington, arid on the llth of 
February bade good-bye to his home and friends, 
whom he was never again to visit while living. 
Addressing them, he said : " My friends, no one 
not in my position can appreciate the sadness I 

* The question whether Mr. Lincoln was truly a con- 
verted man at this time has given rise to difference of 
opinion. His intellectual belief in our Lord Jesus Christ 
was clear and strong, and his confidence may have been 
based upon logical conclusions concerning God's attributes 
and providence, without any experimental knowledge of his 
saving love. This interesting subject will be more fully 
discussed in a succeeding chapter. 


RELIANCE UPON GOD. 85 


feel at this parting. To this people I owe all 
that I am. Here have I lived for more than a 
quarter of a century. Here my children were 
born, and here one of them lies buried. I know 
not how soon I shall see you again. A duty 
devolves upon me which is greater, perhaps, 
than that which has devolved upon any other 
man since the days of Washington. He never 
would have succeeded except for the aid of Di- 
vine Providence, upon which he at all times 
relied. I feel that I can not succeed without 
the same divine aid which sustained him, and 
on the same almighty Being I place my reliance 
for support; and I hope you, my friends, will 
pray that I may receive that divine assistance 
without which I can not succeed, but with which 
success is certain. Again I bid you an affec- 
tionate farewell." 

As he progressed in his journey he was re- 
ceived with the grandest displays of affection 
and honor by a nation who felt that, under God, 
their lives, and liberties, and national existence 
were in his hands. 

Intense anxiety pervaded the nation to dis- 
cover the feelings and plans of the new Presi- 
dent. He was called upon at almost every 


86 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


station for a speech ; and as he could not 
prudently divulge any plans he may have enter- 
tained, or use expressions which might be con- 
strued to inflame to a greater degree the malig- 
nant passions of the rising rebels, or otherwise 
complicate the difficulty, his brief addresses were 
necessarily tame and unsatisfactory, and calcu- 
lated to fill the hearts of patriots with anxious 
forebodings. 

At Philadelphia, as he was about to leave the 
loyal States and take his journey through a 
part of the country where slavery prevailed, he 
learned of the discovery of a conspiracy at Bal- 
timore to assassinate him. Taking a train the 
evening before the day on which he was expected 
in that city, he passed through in safety. 

The aged hero and patriot WINFIELD SCOTT, 
then Commander-in-chief of the United States 
Army, was in Washington during the inauspi- 
cious months between Mr. Lincoln's election 
and his inauguration. He did all he could to 
induce the weak and traitorous President, James 
Buchanan, to prepare the country for the im- 
pending storm of war, but without avail. On 
learning the approach of Mr. Lincoln, he gath- 
ered the few soldiers stationed at Washington, 


THE INAUGURATION. 87 


and organized them for the protection of the 
Government, and arranged with such patriotic 
citizens as were to be found in the city for 
volunteer reinforcements, should the emergency 
require them. Mr. Lincoln, on his arrival, was 
conducted to a public hotel, and the following 
day the usual ceremonies of the inauguration 
proceeded without disturbance. Chief Justice 
Taney, though very old, still discharged the 
duties of his high office, and administered the 
oath to Mr. Lincoln. As he thus legalized the 
stamp of condemnation which the people had 
placed upon his wicked decision, his reflections 
must have been gloomy. He could not but fore- 
see that his name would go down to posterity 
inseparably associated with the infamous attempt 
he had made to destroy justice and establish 
oppression upon the prostrate rights of man. 

The inaugural was delivered in a clear and 
distinct tone, touched, at times, with pathos and 
softened with expostulation. In it the new 
President exhausted all his powers of reason 
and persuasion, in an effort to disabuse the minds 
of the rebels, and bring them peaceably back to 
their allegiance. His absorbing desire to avert 
the horrors of war overshadowed every other 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


thought, and he plead with those determined trai- 
tors as a father would plead with his wayward 
sons. He concluded by saying: "In your 
hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and 
not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 
The Government will not assail you. You can 
have no conflict without being yourselves the 
aggressors. You can have no oath registered 
in heaven to destroy the Government, while I 
have the most solemn one to ' preserve, protect, 
and defend' it. 

"I am loth to close. We are not enemies, 
but friends. We must not be enemies. Though 
passion may have strained, it must not break 
the bonds of affection. The mystic cords of 
memory, stretching from every patriot grave 
and battle-field to every living heart and hearth- 
stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the 
chorus of the Union when touched again, as 
they surely will be, by the better angels of our 
nature/" 

These solemn and touching words were re- 
ceived by the rebels and their friends in Balti- 
more, Cincinnati, Richmond, Charleston, and 
elsewhere, with outcries of vituperation and con- 
temptuous sneers. God had " prepared to pour 


PREMATURE EXULTATIOX. 89 


out his vials of wrath." The tongue of an angel 
could not have softened those traitor hearts. 

Mr. Lincoln proceeded to organize his cabinet 
and prepare for the trying emergencies which 
obviously hastened upon him, trusting, however, 
that some peaceable exit might be found from 
the difficulties which beset the Government. 
Meantime the fully-organized "Confederacy" at 
Montgomery used every exertion to concentrate 
and strengthen their cause, and to make their 
first intended blow fatal to the Government. 
Their newspapers and orators were full of boast- 
ing and intimidation. They sang the triumph- 
ant songs of victory before the battle began, and 
gloated in imagination over the prostrate land 
of liberty : 

"In dreams through camp and court they bore 
The trophies of the conqueror." 

Abraham Lincoln and the loyal Christian peo- 
ple of the land labored and prayed as Ameri- 
cans never labored and prayed before. On the 
17th of April the storm burst on Sumter, envel- 
oping that fortress in a shower of bombs and 
wrapping it in consuming fire. 

We have now arrived at a period in the life 


90 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


of Abraham Lincoln where the grandest events 
crowded thick and fast upon him and upon the 
country. To write his life as it transpired dur- 
ing the succeeding four years, would be to write 
the history of the greatest civil war ever waged 
upon the globe. And were such a task within 
the capacity of this volume, or of the writer, it 
would be wholly beyond the object sought in this 
biography. Let us trace only such incidents as 
more directly illustrate his character and the 
principles by which he was actuated. 


THE CALL TO ARMS. 91 


CHAPTER XI. 


THE CALL TO ARMS. 


|;P HE news of the bombardment of Sumter 
flew on the wings of the lightning to 
every hamlet and home in our broad 
Union, and instantly patriotic millions sprang to 
their feet, looking eagerly to Mr. Lincoln, and 
ready for his word of command. He hastily 
drew up his proclamation for seventy-five thou- 
sand men, a number which, in the light of later 
events, appears strangely inadequate to the task 
before them. Mr. Douglas, the life-long politi- 
cal antagonist of Mr. Lincoln, and the cham- 
pion of this very power now in arms, could not 
resist the appeal. On the evening before it was 
issued, he visited Mr. Lincoln at his private 
apartments, listened to the proclamation, and 
gave it his hearty approval, except in the num- 
ber of men called to arms, which he recom- 


92 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


mended should be made at least two hundred 
thousand. The two former rivals and contest- 
ants sat in earnest consultation, Mr. Lincoln 
listening with gratified and eager interest to the 
advice which Mr. Douglas, from his intimate 
acquaintance with the leaders in his great con- 
spiracy prepared him well to give. They parted, 
and with the President's call, the next morning, 
went the cheering intelligence that Lincoln and 
Douglas were standing side by side and shoulder 
to shoulder in the support of the Government. 
This was almost the last, and was the most hon- 
orable act, of Mr. Douglas's life. Within a few 
weeks he returned on a visit to his home in 
Illinois, where he became sick and died. 

With the answering thousands to Mr. Lincoln's 
proclamation came cares and duties to his office 
more arduous and wearing than had ever crowded 
upon any former Chief Magistrate. Where 
hundreds were expected, thousands flew to the 
rescue of the imperiled Government. These 
raw volunteers had to be armed, clothed, organ- 
ized, and led. The civil officers, to a great ex- 
tent, were filled with traitors ; these had to be 
removed and true men appointed. The vast 
army rising quickly, almost as a vision, must be 


ARDUOUS LABORS. 93 


officered ; and for the vacancies in these two 
departments came thousands of applicants, who 
beset Mr. Lincoln by night and by day, and he 
gave audience and a word to all who could crowd 
into his presence. The rebels were powerful in 
numbers, and led by men of surpassing ability. 
The Democratic party of the North was suspi- 
cious of their late political antagonists, and had 
to be managed with caution and profound states- 
manship. The governments of Europe, with the 
single exception of the Emperor of Russia, were 
delighted at the prospective downfall of free 
government, and sought opportunity and pretext 
to take part in its destruction and share in its 
spoils. A navy had to be built, arms provided, 
and, in fact, every thing necessary to convert a 
peaceable, unarmed nation into a vast military 
power was to be done, and done quickly. To 
accomplish all this, a sum of money was to be 
provided and expended, in comparison with 
which the revenues and wealth of King Solomon 
were but a pittance. Such was the task which 
fell upon Mr. Lincoln, and ipon men laboring 
under his authority. He earned with him into 
his labors not only a hopeful heart, but a con- 
stitution of iron strength and endurance. Both 


94 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


were needed, and both were taxed to the utmost 
by these diversified and urgent cares. 

The first battles of the war resulted disas- 
trously to the Union armies. After vast prep- 
arations, and with confident hopes of victory, 
the first battle was fought at Bull Run, resulting 
in a most disgraceful defeat and rout of the 
Union troops, who fled frantically back upon 
Washington. Under this and the great disasters 
which afterward occurred, Mr. Lincoln bore up 
with unfailing faith in his cause and confidence 
in its success. When the tide turned, and vic- 
tory followed victory in resplendent succession, 
he did not suffer himself to be unduly exalted 
or jubilant. Hopeful in disaster, humble in 
triumph, laborious at all times, he worked out 
the mission appointed for him of God. 


LINCOLN AND SLAVERY. 95 


CHAPTER XII. 

MR. LINCOLN AND SLAVERY. 

URING the first year and a half of the 
war, the policy of the Government was 
to conciliate the pro-slavery element 
both North and South. Mr. Lincoln was care- 
ful to show that he respected the rights guaran- 
teed to slavery by the Constitution. Pro-slavery 
generals were placed in command. McDowell, 
Patterson, McClellan, Buell, and others an- 
nounced that they would not only respect prop- 
erty in slaves, but assist in putting down an in- 
surrection of slaves against the rebels I Rebels' 
horses and corn were to be confiscated, while 
they were to be aided in retaining their bond 
men. Slaveholders impudently entered the Union 
armies to search for their lost human chattels. 
The Hutchinson Family of minstrels volunteered 
to cheer the soldiers in the Army of the Poto- 


96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


mac with their heart-easing songs. One of these, 
by the patriot poet Whittier, was as follows : 

What gives the wheat-fields blades of steel ? 

What points the rebel cannon? 
What sets the roaring rabble's heel 
On the old Star-Spangled pennon ? 
What breaks the oath 
Of the men o' the South ? 
W^hat whets the knife 
For the Union's life? 
Hark to the answer : SLAVERY ! 

Then waste no blows on lesser foes 

In strife unworthy freemen; 
God lifts the veil to-day and shows 
The features of the demon ! 
0, North and South, 
Its victims both, 
Can ye not cry, 
Let slavery die, 
And Union find in freedom ? 

W r hat though the cast-out spirit tear 

The nation in his going? 
We who have shared his guilt must share 
The pangs of his o'erthrowing. 
Whate'er the loss, 
Whate'er the cross, 
Shall they complain 
Of present pain 
Who trust in God's hereafter? 


LINCOLN AND SLAVERY. 97 


For giving voice to these beautiful and heroic 
lines, General McClellan ordered the Hutchin- 
sons to be expelled at once from the army, and 
it was done. The liberty-loving people were in- 
dignant and clamorous. General Butler eluded 
the pro-slavery influence by declaring the slaves 
contraband of war, and, therefore, liable to con- 
fiscation confiscation, of course, meaning eman- 
cipation. Generals Hunter and Fremont broke 
over the restraint and issued emancipating proc- 
lamations of their own, and were both removed 
from command for so doing. But as defeat -fol- 
lowed defeat, and disaster trod upon the bloody 
heels of disaster, the cry came forth, " LET MY 
PEOPLE GO ! ' To every just mind the alterna- 
tive was riot only obvious but the result near at 
hand justice or total national destruction. A 
year and a half was spent in this useless strife 
against God and the rebels, when the Proclama- 
tion of Emancipation sounded clear and strong 
over the nation. Then the Sun of Righteous- 
ness broke upon the land in victory and justice. 

How shall the sincerity and integrity of Mr. 
Lincoln's character be reconciled with his toler- 
ance of such a course on the part of his sub- 
alterns ? He was one of the first American 
7 


98 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


statesmen to announce that there was an irre- 
pressible mortal conflict between slavery and 
freedom one or the other must perish. As we 
have seen, before his election he had declared, 
with tearful earnestness, " God cares, and hu- 
manity cares, and / care, and with God's help 
I shall not fail." On his journey to Washing- 
ton to assume the Presidency, in his speech 
delivered at Philadelphia, alluding to the prin- 
ciple of the Declaration of Independence, he 
said : " If this country can not be saved without 
giving up that principle, I would rather be as- 
sassinated on the spot than to surrender it." 
" I have said nothing but what I am willing to 
live by, and, in the pleasure of Almighty God, to 
die by" He had from childhood hated and 
fought against oppression ; and now that slavery 
had lifted its knife against the heart of the 
nation, this double crime must have intensified 
his hatred of it, as it did the abhorrence of 
every just man in the civilized world. The facts 
will show that Mr. Lincoln did not design that 
slavery should live ; that he did not renounce 
for an hour his conviction, long before expressed, 
that slavery or liberty must perish, utterly and 
forever, from the country. 


LINCOLN AND SLAVERY. 99 


He found, in looking about for the means to 
resist and destroy the rebellion, that the utmost 
prudence and caution would be requisite to unite 
the remaining strength of the nation against it. 
The great Democratic party was, as such, pro- 
slavery a large part of it so much so as to side 
with and strive, by any means in their power, 
to secure the triumph of the rebellion. The 
Republican party, which had elected him, were 
but half-hearted in their opposition to it. Had 
he issued his Proclamation of Emancipation any 
time during the year 1861, the Democrats -would 
have almost unanimously refused further part in 
the struggle, unless to go in a body to the other 
side. The border States, then fully half for the 
Government, would have become as intensely 
rebellious as South Carolina. So powerful was 
the pro-slavery influence, even in the party or- 
ganized to oppose it, that the Republican jour- 
nals and leaders, during the first eighteen months 
of the war, indignantly denied that the abolition 
of slavery formed any part of their motives for 
prosecuting hostilities ; and had the rebels, at 
any moment during that time, signified their 
willingness to return to the Union with slavery 
unimpaired, public opinion, in all parties, would 


100 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


have compelled the Government to receive 
them. To have adopted radical measures against 
slavery in rebellion before the public mind was 
educated to the necessity of so doing, would 
have proved destructive of the cause of emanci- 
pation and of the Republic itself. Just and wise 
men, who clearly saw the end of the struggle 
from the beginning and confidently predicted 
the destruction of slavery, were alarmed at the 
possibility that Mr. Lincoln, after all, might 
yield to temporizing expediency and betray the 
cause of justice, and by betraying, indefinitely 
delay it; but their fears were groundless. It 
was acknowledged by those very men that Mr. 
Lincoln's course was the best course by which 
the result, so long and so earnestly desired 
and prayed for, could have been accomplished. 
God's hand directed the cause of emancipation, 
and when the hour of destiny came, Abraham 
Lincoln, with a willing hand, struck the fatal 
blow ; and the death struggles of that mightiest 

svstem of wickedness that the world ever saw 

/ 

was visible to all beholders. Mr. Lincoln's 
policy was not dilatory, not temporizing, but 
wisely patient in abiding the propitious moment. 
When the proclamation was directed against the 


LINCOLN AND SLAVERY. 101 


institution it did not fall short, as feebly hurled 
by the arm of one man, but went crashing to 
the heart of the mail-clad monster, driven by 
the mighty power of a united and an indignant 
nation.* 

In a conversation with George Thompson, the 
distinguished English abolitionist, Mr. Lincoln 
thus expressed himself: "It is my conviction 
that had the Proclamation [of Emancipation] 
been issued even six months earlier than it was, 
public sentiment would not have sustained it. 
Just so as to the subsequent enlistment of the 
blacks in the border States. The step, taken 
sooner, could not, in my judgment, have been 
carried out. A man watches his pear-tree, day 
after day, impatient for the ripening of the fruit. 
Let him attempt to force the process, and he 
may spoil both fruit and tree. But let him pa- 


* In a conversation with a committee of clergj'men from 
Chicago, after he had his proclamation written, they not 
knowing his intentions, urged the necessity of liberating 
the slaves, Mr. Lincoln said: "I do not want to issue a 
document that all the world will see must necessarily be 
inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the comet," add- 
ing, " Whatever shall appear to be God's will, that I will 
do." 


102 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


tiently wait, and the ripe pear at length falls 
into his lap. I can now solemnly assert that I 
have a clear conscience in regard to my action 
on this momentous question." 

Who can doubt this? And yet it must be 
admitted that the delay was unnecessarily pro- 
tracted. The people were in advance of their 
honest, true-hearted Lincoln. The pear was 
ripe before it fell. 


HIS RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 103 


CHAPTER XIII. 


HIS RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 


most Beautiful moral specta- 
cles to be found upon earth is that of a 
Christian wife and mother. He'r heart 
softened in a Savior's love, her faith reaching be- 
yond the valley, her gentle hand leading the little 
ones to the God who gave them, adding sweet- 
ness to childish joy, soothing childish sorrow, 
enshrined in a husband's love, she is the cen- 
tral object of all that is purest and sweetest in 
human society. She gathers to herself the 
deepest and strongest aifections of the human 
heart. Even the hardened and the depraved, 
the lost to every other noble emotion are hushed 
into respect in her presence. Her influence, 
strong in life, grows stronger when her quiet 
hands lie moldering in the grave. We cherish 
the memory of her loving life, her words, 


104 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


assiduous affection, her advice and instruction, 
as we do no other treasures that lie within the 
grasp of the mind. How often have those who 
resisted her influence while she yet lived, and 
rushed madly down the broad track to destruc- 
tion, been arrested in their career by a mother 
who long since passed away and has been for- 
gotten by the world ! 

As no position can be more elevated and hon- 
orable, so none entails responsibilities more pro- 
found. The Bible impresses this truth with 
great clearness, and history continues to verify 
it in ever-recurring pages. Lincoln's mother 
had been called to her rest when her little son 
was scarcely ten years old, and yet his charac- 
ter was formed and his course in life fixed and 
bounded. He left her hand true to his destiny 
as the arrow from the hand of the trusty archer. 
Almost unseen and unknown in that isolated 
cabin, she clothed his arm with those mighty 
principles of Christian truth with which she 
smote the chains from millions of slaves and 
rescued an imperiled country. And thus, could 
we trace to their origin the great and noble deeds 
which here and there light up the history of our 
race, nearly all would be found due to impres- 


HIS RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 105 


sions received in childhood. Nancy Lincoln 
knew nothing of profound ethical or political 
principles. The history and science which lay 
outside of the lids of her Bible were in regions 
of thought where she had never trod; and yet as 
a Christian she possessed knowledge and moral 
power for good greater than the learning of the 
universities could, without this knowledge, afford. 

The Bible is so replete with precious promises 
to Christian parents, and these promises are so 
often, against apparent probabilities, fulfilled, that 
the truly faithful parent may lay hold of them 
with perfect assurance. It is even a cause for 
hope when the object of these prayers and labors 
has passed to his account. 

It has been said that if Lincoln's life and char- 
acter do not furnish evidence that he was a 
Christian, we may look in vain for such evi- 
dences anywhere among men. Secretary Sew- 
ard said : " He is the best man I ever knew." 
Dr. Bellows, who knew him intimately, said : 
"He is the purest-hearted man I ever knew." 
The people know him to have been marked with 
more humility than any man they ever elected 
to high office. No man since Cromwell (and we 
doubt the justice of excepting him) so entirely 


106 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


distrusted his own ability to meet future emer- 
gencies, or so wholly disclaimed the glory of past 
triumphs by referring all to the beneficent power 
and providence of God. " I should be the most 
presumptuous blockhead upon this footstool," he 
once said, " if I for one day thought that I could 
discharge the duties which have come upon me 
since I came to this place, without the aid and 
enlightenment of One who is stronger and wiser 
than all others." 

And yet had he glided quietly down the stream 
of life, he would have been regarded as a man 
full of generous virtues, of high-toned and inflex- 
ible morality, but not a Christian. It required 
the tremendous ordeal through which he passed, 
like the refiner's fire, to consume the dross and 
bring forth the fine gold. It is possible to be 
very near the kingdom of God, and yet lack one 
thing needful. If he had truly consecrated him- 
self to the Lord Jesus before that trial of his 
faith came, the probabilities are strong that he 
would have openly and publicly professed his 
name and acknowledged his claims. The Savior 
has made it a duty to unite with his visible 
church. Greater duties than that may be vio- 
lated by a man who is truly a disciple of Christ, 


HIS RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 107 


and yet it is not the neglect of duty alone in 
this particular which gives it its weight in de- 
termining Christian character. The fellowship 
of the saints is the natural element of the con- 
verted man. He is impelled by his wants and 
desires, to seek their companionship and commun- 
ion. When the man's heart is warmed by the 
love of Jesus, he wants every other man to love 
Jesus, and will do all he can to impart his joy to 
others. He thirsts for more light and knowledge 
on this absorbing interest, and hears with avidity 
the Christian experience of Christian people. 

Nothing of all this is seen in Lincoln's life 
until shortly before his first election to the Pres- 
idency. With a grasp of intellect which our 
ablest statesmen do not seem to have possessed, 
he had seized upon the character of slavery, the 
relations it bore to the will and attributes of 
Almighty God, the immense power in which it 
was intrenched, and from these facts and the 
signs of the times was convinced that the tre- 
mendous contest was near at hand. He knew 
intellectually that " our God is a mighty tower," 
and then, as we believe, and as he himself 
thought, it was that he first earnestly desired 
security within its impregnable \valls. 


108 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


It may be asked, How could a man think 
more upon the subjects of God's justice and 
providence, and the desirableness of faith in 
Christ than upon all others for years, and yet 
have no love for God? What hidden motive 
would impel him to carry the Testament, in his 
bosom, and how could he truly describe it as 
his rock without having felt its shadows above 
his head and its firm footing beneath his feet ? 
Does any man habitually for years employ a 
large proportion of his thoughts upon God's 
perfections and providence unless he loves God ? 
We may not know that dividing line which is 
known only to the Father of spirits ; yet " no 
man lighteth a candle and putteth it under a 
bushel." "My sheep hear my voice, and they 
know me and they follow me. He that confess- 
eth me before men him will I confess before my 
Father." God knows our time and our future, 
and in his own good time and way brings his 
saints into his kingdom. 

Mr. Lincoln once asked a lady connected with 
the Christian Commission for her idea of true 

Christian experience. " Mrs. ," said he, 

" I have formed a high opinion of your Chris- 
tian character, and now, as we are alone, I wish 


HIS RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 109 


you, in brief, to give me your idea of what con- 
stitutes a true religious experience." The lady 
replied that, in her judgment, "it consisted of a 
conviction of one's own sinfulness and weakness, 
and personal need of the Savior for strength and 
support ; and that when one was brought to feel 
his need of Divine help, and to seek daily the 
aid of the Holy Spirit for strength and guidance, 
it was satisfactory evidence of his having been 
born again." Mr. Lincoln replied, earnestly : 
" If this is really a correct view of this great 
subject, I think I can say, with sincerity, that 
I hope I am a Christian. * * I think I can 
safely say that I know something of that change 
of which you speak ; and I will further add, 
that it has been my intention for some time, at 
a suitable opportunity, to make a public relig- 
ious profession." 

Afterward, referring to a change of heart, he 
said he could not mention any particular period 
when he experienced such a change, except so 
far that he thought it became manifest to him at 
the period of his first election to the Presidency, 
and that in the crisis immediately following, his 
mind became more confident and fixed upon this 
subject. 


ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


\ 


In a conversation with Hon. H. C. Deming, 
of Connecticut, he said : " I have not united 
myself to any church, because I have found 
difficulty in giving my assent, without mental 
reservation, to the long-complicated statements 
of Christian doctrine which characterize their 
articles of belief and confessions of faith. When 
any church will inscribe over its altar the Sav- 
ior's condensed statement of both law and gos- 
pel, i Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
mind, and thy neighbor as thyself/ that church 
will I join with all my heart and with all my 
soul." 

A clergyman, who, if his expression correctly 
indicated his feelings, must have been a doubt- 
ing Thomas, once remarked to Lincoln that he 
" hoped the Lord was on our side in this con- 
test." The reply was as characteristic as it 
was epigrammatic and noble : " I am not at all 
concerned about that," said he, " for I know the 
Lord is always on the side of the right ; but it is 
my constant prayer and anxiety that I and this 
nation should be on the Lord's side." That sen- 
tence contains the kernel and essence of all true 
statesmanship. 


HIS RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. Ill 


Let us trace Mr. Lincoln's Christian character 
by the light of other events. Armies, both as 
such and as individuals, have always been prone 
to disregard the obligations of the Sabbath. 
This gave Mr. Lincoln great pain. So much 
was his feelings enlisted by the wanton viola- 
tions of the Lord's day, that on the 16th of 
November, 1863, he issued a circular, saying: 
" The importance for man and beast of the pre- 
scribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Chris- 
tian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference 
to the best sentiment of a Christian people, and 
a due regard for the Divine will, demand that 
Sunday labor in the army and navy be reduced 
to the measure of strict necessity. * * The dis- 
cipline of the national forces should not suffer, 
nor the cause they defend be imperiled, by the 
profanation of the name or the day of the Most 
High." We need not allude to the joyous proc- 
lamations of thanksgiving sounded forth by him 
at various times when God gave us victory, be- 
cause the rebel chief blasphemously sought, by 
similar proclamations, to implicate God in his 
burnings and butcheries for the establishment of 
slavery ; and we have, within a brief period after 
his departure, heard devout proclamations from 


112 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


lips foul with falsehood and odorous from the 
carousal; but we know that from him they were 
the outburst of emotion from a sincerely-thank- 
ful heart. 

When the great battle of Stone River was in 
progress, Mr. Lincoln was informed of it, and 
became so anxious that he could not eat. A 
lady friend told him that he must trust in God, 
and at least could pray. " Yes," he said, " I 
can,'* and, taking up his Bible, left the room. 
The news of the rout of Bragg soon followed, 
and Lincoln came in, exclaiming, " Good news ! 
Good news ! The victory is ours, and God is 
good." " Nothing like praying," said the lady. 
" Yes, there is," said Lincoln " PRAISE prayer, 
and praise." 

In February, 1862, he lost a little son, in 
whose life his affections were bound up by the 
tenderest ties of parental love little WILLIE. 
His loss afflicted Mr. Lincoln deeply. A Chris- 
tian lady told him the people were praying for 
him. "I am glad to hear that," he said; "I 
want them to pray for me ; I need their prayers;' 
and added, " I will try to go to God with my 
sorrows." Afterward he said : " I think I can 
trust in God; I wish I had that childlike faith 


A RELIGIOUS REBEL. 113 


you speak of, and I think God will give it to 
me." What language could be more childlike 
in faith than this ? 

We select illustrations without regard to 
chronological order. A few members of the 
Christian Commission, in whose labors he took 
unflagging interest, in conversing with him one 
day, referred to the trust they could repose in 
God's providence. Mr. Lincoln replied : " If it 
were not for my firm belief in an overruling 
Providence, it w r ould be difficult for me, in such 
a complication of affairs, to keep my reason on 
its seat. But I ain confident that the Almighty 
has his plans and will work them out. * * I 
have always taken counsel of him, and referred 
to him my plans, and have never adopted a 
course of proceeding without being assured, as 
far as I could be, of his approbation." 

Mr. Lincoln had a supreme contempt for hy- 
pocrisy in religion, and many were the times, in 
his professional career as a lawyer and a poli- 
tician, that he subjected it to his merciless ridi- 
cule. Of this we give a single illustration. The 
wife of a rebel officer, imprisoned on Johnson's 
Island, beset him for his release, alledging that 
her husband was a " very religious man ! ' Mr. 
8 


114 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


Lincoln could not but be touched with the ridic- 
ulous nature of this appeal, and said : " Tell him 
that, in my opinion, the religion that sets men 
to fight and rebel against their Government be- 
cause, as they think, that Government does not 
sufficiently help them to eat their bread in the 
sweat of other men's faces, is not the sort of re- 
ligion upon which men can get to heaven." 

We may farther trace the religious tendencies 
and character of Lincoln's mind by his literary 
preferences. In a conversation with Mr. F. B. 
Carpenter,* the artist, he remarked : " There are 
some quaint, queer verses, written, I think, by 
Oliver W. Holmes, entitled ' The Last Leaf,' one 
of which is to me inexpressibly touching ; it is this : 

"The mossy marbles rest 
On the lips that he has pressed 

In their bloom, 

And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 

On the tombl" 

* Mr. Carpenter was employed, for a period of six months, 
in producing his great picture, " The First Reading of the 
Emancipation Proclamation," during which time he was on 
intimate relations with Lincoln. He has since produced a 
book of extraordinary interest, "Six Months at the White 
House," to which we are indebted for the above, and also for 
some incidents hereinafter related. 


HIS FAVORITE POEM. 115 


" For pure pathos," said he, " there is noth- 
ing finer than these six lines in the English 
language." 

His " favorite poem," now so widely known, 
he clipped from the columns of a newspaper 
while a young man, and by frequent readings 
came to know it by heart. It was written by 
William Knox, a young man who died in Edin- 
burgh, Scotland, in 1825. This poem Mr. Lin- 
coln recited to friends at various times. It is 
as follows : 

WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD? 

O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? 
Like a swift-flying meteor, fast-flying cloud, 
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 
He passes from life to his rest in his grave. 

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, 

Be scattered abroad and together be laid, 

And the young and the old, and the low and the high, 

Shall molder 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 blessed, 
Each, all are away to their dwelling of rest. 

The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye 
Shone beauty and pleasure, her triumphs are by; 


116 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 


And the memory of those who loved her and praised 
Are alike from the minds of the living erased. 

The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne, 
The brow of the priest that the miter 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 go, like the flower or the weed 
That withers away to let others succeed : 
So the multitude come, even there we behold, 
To respect every tale that has often been told. 

For we are the same that our fathers have been; 
We see the same sights that our fathers have seen; 
We drink the same stream, we view the same s.un, 
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 ; 

To the life we are clinging, they also would cling, 
But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing. 


NEVER READ A NOVEL. 117 


They loved but the story we can not 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 glad