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LIFE OF
TtBRAHAM
J*
j
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.
' ; :''-' ': 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 a
