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THE SOLITUDE

OF

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

BY E. J. EDWARDS

Typical Reminiscences Illus-
trating a Life Whose Deepest
Moments Were Lived Alone

Peivately Printed

For Gilbert A. Tracy

By Permission Op The Author

Putnam, Conn.

1916

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2010 with funding from

The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

http://www.archive.org/details/solitudeofabrahaOOedwa

THE SOLITUDE

OF

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

BY E. J. EDWARDS

As time passes the historic Lincoln slowly but
with ever-increasing clearness begins to be apprehend-
ed. The perspective in which history will see him is
now faintly recognized. The superficial and trivial
aspects of his character, mere surface and incidental
traits or habits, were in his lifetime and for a genera-
tion after his death the subject of much that was writ-
ten or said of him. Many men of ability and high culti-
vation who were of Lincoln's generation were unable
to make explanation to themselves, when contemplat-
ing Lincoln's career, of the extraordinary and para-
doxical diversities of his nature. He seemed to be two
personalities, one flippant, often of undignified con-
duct and speech; the other the possessor of as tender
a heart as any of which history has made record, allied
to marvelous intellectual power and the mystic gift of
the seer or prophet. Some men of his day were never
wholly reconciled to the view those who were nearest
Lincoln were compelled to take of his moral grandeur,
intellectual supremacy, ineffable patience, capacity for
enduring suffering without complaint, and of the
supreme solitude in which he lived.

Lincoln's intimate companions were those known
only to his inner nature ; and he possessed to a degree
surpassed by none of the world's great characters the

4 The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln

sense of solitude. Genius has no intimates. The great
soul can make no confession, except to its Maker, of
its aspirations and inspirations.

That sense of Lincoln's solitude was at times pow-
erfully impressed upon his associates in the National
Administration. One or two of them perceived that
his saving grace of humor served to mask or shield
the hermit solitude of his real life, or else to give
momentary relief to it. Charles A. Dana, who was a
keen and accurate observer of men, fathomed much
sooner than did Dana's chief, Edwin M. Stanton, Lin-
coln's Secretary of War, the impulse that led Lincoln
to turn in times of great stress to Petroleum V.
Nasby's brilliantly humorous irony and read it in mer-
riment as though the fate of the nation were not at
issue.

On the evening of the Presidential election of
1864, Lincoln went from the White House to the old
War Office to hear any returns that might be there
received. He sat upon a sofa in Stanton's office, mak-
ing merry over one of Nasby's letters. The grim Sec-
retary of War said to Mr. Dana : "I wish you would
look at Lincoln, sitting on that sofa, roaring over
Nasby's nonsense, while at this moment throughout
the Union they are counting the votes to find out
whether Lincoln has been re-elected, or McClellan has
beaten him. You wouldn't think it mattered the toss
of a copper to him." But Dana knew better, and in
after years he spoke to the writer of the incident.

To him there was infinite pathos that there should
be need for Lincoln to seek relief from the tremendous
strain of that day and from his high sense of the world-
moving responsibility imposed upon him, as he be-
lieved by the Divine Kuler, and by those who would
save the Union. Until late that night Lincoln was in
solitary and solemn self-communion, and what was

The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln 5

then whispered to him could not be translated, for it
was not spoken to his soul in the language of men. Of
that night of solitude one of Lincoln's truest friends,
David Davis, had what he believed to be perfect proof.

Early in Lincoln's first administration he revealed
himself to his Secretary of State, impressively and
with his first understanding, as a man of supreme soli-
tude. For when Seward submitted to the President at
one of the first Cabinet meetings a paper containing
an offer to relieve Lincoln from the responsibility of
conceiving and directing the policy of the Administra-
tion, Lincoln replied with gentleness of speech and
without any resentment, by saying no more than this,
namely, that he must alone decide and do what was
necessary to be decided and done. And Seward then
first caught a glimpse of the solitude and of the moral
grandeur of this man. The Secretary of State then
determined that he would thereafter give loyal, con-
stant, unhesitating support to Lincoln, and to that
pledge Seward was faithful.

An anecdote related to Gen. Thomas L. James at
the time he was Postmaster General in Garfield's
Cabinet illustrates the supreme solitude of Lincoln. A
member of the Senate Committee on the Conduct of
the War in Lincoln's first Administration said to Gen-
eral James that as time passed the world would have
clearer understanding of Lincoln's solitude, and the
Senator went on to say, that his first understanding
of Lincoln as a man of solitude was upon an occasion
when the Senator was serving as a member of the
Senate Committee on the Conduct of the War.

"You remember, doubtless," said the Senator to
General James, "that during a crucial period of the
war many malicious stories were in circulation, based
upon the suspicion that Mrs. Lincoln was in sympathy
with the Confederacy. These reports were inspired

6 The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln

by the fact that some of Mrs. Lincoln's relatives were
in the Confederate service. At last reports that were
more than vague gossip were brought to the attention
of some of my colleagues in the Senate. They made
specific accusation that Mrs. Lincoln was giving im-
portant information to secret agents of the Confed-
eracy. These reports were laid before my committee
and the committee thought it an imperative duty to
investigate them, although it was the most embarras-
sing and painful task imposed upon us.

"I had of course often met President Lincoln at
the White House and been impressed by his command
over himself and by the sense of authority and
strength which he imparted to all who were in touch
with him on matters of public business. I never saw
the patient, anxious and wearied expression which
some of my associates now and then noticed, but I did
see and hear some of the unconventional ways and
speech, of which the public heard so much.

1 ' One morning our committee purposed taking up
the reports that imputed disloyalty to Mrs. Lincoln.
The sessions of the committee were necessarily secret.
We had just been called to order by the Chairman,
when the officer stationed at the committee room door
opened it and came in with a half -frightened, half-em-
barrassed expression on his face. Before he had
opportunity to make explanation, we understood the
reason for his excitement, and were ourselves almost
overwhelmed by astonishment. For at the foot of the
table, standing solitar3% his hat in his hand, his tall
form towering above the committee members, Abra-
ham Lincoln stood. Had he come by some incantation,
thus appearing of a sudden before us unannounced, we
could not have been more astounded.

"The pathos that was written upon Lincoln's
face, the almost unhuman sadness that was in his eyes

The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln 7

as he looked upon us, and above all an indescribable
sense of his complete isolation — the sad solitude which
is inherent in all true grandeur of character and intel-
lect— all this revealed Lincoln to me and I think to
every member of the committee in the finer, subtler
light whose illumination faintly set forth the funda-
mental nature of this man. No one spoke, for none
knew what to say. The President had not been asked
to come before the committee, nor was it suspected
that he had information that we were to investigate
the reports, which, if true, fastened treason upon his
family in the White House.

"At last Lincoln spoke, slowly, with infinite sor-
row in his tone, and he said —

" 'I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United
States, appear of my own volition before this Commit-
tee of the Senate to say that, I, of my own knowledge,
know that it is untrue that any of my family hold
treasonable communication with the enemy.'

"Having said that, Lincoln went away as silently
and solitary as he came. We sat for some moments
speechless. Then by tacit agreement, no word being
spoken, the committee dropped all consideration of
the rumors that the wife of the President was betray-
ing the Union. We had seen Abraham Lincoln in the
solemn and isolated majesty of his real nature. We
were so greatly affected that the committee adjourned
for the day."

While speaking of Lincoln nearly twenty years
after Lincoln's death Judge Davis said that as time
passed he more and more realized what during his inti-
mate association with Lincoln he did not perceive,
namely, that it was the unconscious and unreasoned
recognition of the deeper and the real character of
Lincoln that gave him his unquestioned leadership

8 The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln

among the plain people. They penetrated beyond the
mask and shield with which Lincoln protected his soli-
tude of mind and soul. The plain people did this with
keener, surer insight than that of many with whom he
was brought into professional association.

So acute a man as Edwin M. Stanton was had not
the slightest understanding of Lincoln, until after
Stanton served under Lincoln as Secretary of War.
And it was Judge Davis's opinion that in no way did
Lincoln reveal his supreme ability as a leader as well
as his moral greatness, better than when he named
Stanton for Secretary of War, not permitting the sad
recollection of the snub and sneer with which Stanton
had once received Mm as associate counsel to affect
his judgment of Stanton's ability.

And when Lincoln selected McClellan for the
Commander of the Army of the Potomac, Judge Davis
recalled the brusque and arbitrary treatment of Lin-
coln by McClellan a few years earlier, for Judge Davis
had personal knowledge of that incident. Then Lin-
coln was esteemed as no more than a prairie lawyer,
while McClellan had already gained national reputa-
tion as the engineer who constructed a bridge over the
Mississippi.

These and others who were numbered among the
able men of that day were partly blinded to the funda-
mental moral and mental greatness of Lincoln, for his
solitude concealed it, but the plain people had clearer
vision. And that, Judge Davis said, has been true of
all the leaders truly great since history was first writ-
ten.

Gilbert Finch is now spending the years of his old
age in comfortable retirement at his boyhood home in
Connecticut. He was for nearly fifty years a conductor
on the Chicago and Alton Railroad. Many times Lin-
coln was a passenger on Mr. Finch's train. A cordial

The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln 9

acquaintance was established between them. So also
Mr. Finch carried Stephen A. Douglas and Lyman
Trumbull and Norman Judd and David Davis and
others of the group of brilliant Illinois politicians of
Lincoln's day.

Mr. Finch, who now frequently relates to his
friends something of the personality of these men, all
of whom except Lincoln are almost forgotten, recently
said :

"Lincoln was the most folksy of any of them. He
put on no airs. He did not hold himself distant from
any man. But there was something about him which
we plain people couldn't explain that made us stand a
little in awe of him. I now know what it was, but
didn't then. It was because he was a greater man than
any other one we had ever seen. You could get near
him in a sort of neighborly way, as though you had
always known him, but there was something tremen-
dous between yon and him all the time. I have eaten
with him many times at the railroad eating houses,
and you get very neighborly if you eat together in a
railroad restaurant, at least we did in those clays.
Everybody tried to get as near Lincoln as possible
when he was eating, because he was such good com-
pany, but we always looked at him with a ldnd of
wonder. We couldn't exactly make him out. Some-
times I would see what looked like dreadful loneliness
in his look, and I used to wonder what he was thinking
about. Whatever it was he was thinking all alone. It
wasn't a solemn lo"ok, like Stephen A. Douglas some-
times had. Douglas sometimes made me think of an
owl. He used to stare at you with his great dark eyes
in a way that almost frightened you. Lincoln never
frightened anybody. No one was afraid of him, but
there was something about him that made plain folks
feel toward him a good deal as a child feels toward his

10 The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln

father, because you know every child looks upon his
father as a wonderful man. ' '

Gilbert Finch, the veteran of the Chicago and
Alton Railroad, is after his years of varied experience
in Illinois still one of the plain people.

When Lincoln went to New York City to deliver
the now traditional Cooper Union address on Febru-
ary 27, 1860, Cephas Brainerd, one of the foremost
lawyers of New York, and in 1860 a member of the
so-called Young Republican Association, was Chair-
man of the committee appointed to receive and enter-
tain Lincoln. It was Lincoln's expectation that the
address would be delivered in Plymouth Church,
Brooklyn, but the plans were altered.

At that time it was the expectation of the Repub-
licans of New York that William H. Seward would be
nominated for President by the convention which was
to meet at Chicago in the Spring of 1860 and that
Abraham Lincoln would be nominated for Vice-Pres-
ident.

Lincoln, in his debates with Stephen A. Douglas
in 1858, gained the first recognition by the Republi-
cans of the East. It was therefore partly due to the
expectation that Lincoln would be named for Vice-
President with Seward as candidate for President, and
in part to the echoes of the renown Lincoln had gained
in the West in the series of joint debates with Douglas,
that Lincoln's visit to New York by invitation to speak
on the moral and political issues of the time was
deemed the political event of that Winter. It was
expected that his speech, or lecture, as Lincoln called
it, would in some measure open the National Republi-
can campaign. Yet there was a half expectation that
the great men of New York would be disappointed,
and that it might be discovered that what passed for
great public speaking on the prairies of Illinois would

The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln 11

not meet the high standard established in New York
by William M. Evarts and William H. Seward.

Mr. Brainerd discovered while giving courteous
and cordial reception to Lincoln some hint of that
inner and fundamental quality of Lincoln's nature.
The unconventional manner did not conceal the sub-
lime dignity that lay behind it. Mr. Lincoln met an
old acquaintance while Mr. Brainerd was escorting
him through Wall street. Mr. Lincoln was in high
good spirits. He asked his old friend how he had
done since he had entered Wall street to make a for-
tune, and was told that the fortune had at last reached
a hundred thousand dollars.

"Isn't that enough?" Mr. Lincoln asked. "I
should call myself a rich man if I had that much. I've
got my house at Springfield and about three thousand
dollars. And if they make me Vice-President with
Seward, as some say they will, I expect to save enough
to make me feel comfortable the rest of my life."

Lincoln said that in sincerity, and Mr. Brainerd
wondered how it could be that a man who was success-
ful enough to be thought worthy to be made Vice-Pres-
ident with Seward could look upon so small a sum as
sufficient fortune.

Lincoln went to his hotel to prepare for the
severely critical test that was to be made of him that
evening by the foremost intellects of New York; yet
he showed no concern. Mr. Brainerd wondered wheth-
er or not Lincoln realized that the standard by which
New York would measure him that evening, was very
high and that he must stand or fall by the measure-
ment. Lincoln had spoken of the address to no one
except Horace Greeley, and to him simply to arrange
for the publication of the speech from the manuscript
in The Tribune next morning and further to inquire at

12 The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln

what hour he could call at The Tribune office to look at
the proof slips.

Some who were with Lincoln at the hotel and who
were to share in the escort of him to Cooper Union
were astonished that he should be without anxiety and
free from nervous apprehension. Had he been about
to take a pleasure excursion he could not have been
less concerned.

A few moments before Lincoln was introduced to
the Cooper Union audience, which was representative
of the highest intellectual power in New York, Mr.
Brainerd observed a slight and very subtle change in
Lincoln's manner. There came a prophet-like serenity.
The superficial attitude was gone. It had been thrown
off like a cloak, and there was not one in that great
audience who did not on the instant fyid himself in the
presence of a master mind and a great soul.

The penetrating eyes of the leaders of the Ameri-
can bar, some of whom were to be spokesmen for
Seward at the National Convention, were fixed steadily
upon Lincoln. The great lawyers seemed so fascinated
by the prairie lawyer that it was impossible for them
to take their eyes off him.

The perfect rhetorical form of the address, the
crystalline clearness of the verbal expression, the lack
of sentimental appeal or of cheap rhetorical flourish,
the steady appeal of reason to the intellect, and the
supreme art of speaking, which is the art of persuad-
ing and convincing, and a solemnity of manner and
utterance which with overwhelming force conveyed
the sense of the tremendous issues involved — namely,
that the Nation could not endure half slave, half free
— all this demonstrated to the men of New York who
then heard Lincoln that the standard that they had
fixed was too slender and slight a standard by which
to measure Lincoln, and that he had established anoth-

The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln 13

er standard beyond the capacity of any man of New
York to measure up to. Throughout the address there
were glimpses of the immense solitude in which tins
man lived.

The manuscript of the Cooper Union address was
tossed into the Tribune's composing room waste paper
bin after the proof slips had been read and revised.
A half hour before midnight Lincoln called at The
Tribune office and was shown to the little room where
the proof-readers scrutinized the galley proofs. The
proof-reader who was comparing the proofs with Lin-
coln's manuscript was the late Amos J. Cummings,
who afterward represented a New York City district
in Congress for several terms. Lincoln drew a chair
beside Cummings, adjusted his glasses and under the
glare of the gas light read each proof with scrupulous
care. Never before had he opportunity to witness the
throbbing life of a great newspaper at the hour when
the tension is most tense — the hour before the presses
begin to whirl with fierce energy.

But the animation, the hurried steps, the clanging
of the form, the vizored compositors clicking the type
in their composing sticks, and the vast, orderly con-
fusion of midnight in the composing room of a great
newspaper did not distract or in any way interest
Lincoln. His manner was that of a man accustomed
to these midnight sights and sounds.

When the proofs were read and corrected, revised
proofs were prepared for him, and these he read with
care. After that he said a pleasant word or two to
Mr. Cummings,* and then went away unescorted

The proof-reading of the address in The Tribune office by Mr.
Lincoln on the evening of its delivery in Cooper Union and the loss
of the manuscript are incidents which were related with much detail
by Mr. Cummings to Mr. Edwards and assure their authenticity.

14 The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln

through Printing House Square, and across City Hall
Park to the Astor House.

In another place some of the great intellects that
heard Lincoln speak that night were confiding to one
another the sense of marvelous intellectual power with
which the address impressed them. Mr. Evarts invit-
ed a few friends to go with him to his house at Four-
teenth street and Second avenue, a short distance
from Cooper Union. They were among the elect of
New York's intellect, and they talked with one another
until long past midnight of the serene intellectual
grandeur of which the address gave competent evi-
dence.

There was always eager curiosity to learn how
and when Lincoln prepared this address, but that curi-
osity was never gratified. The solitude of Lincoln when
in the presence of great opportunity and responsi-
bility was the isolation in which he lived when prepar-
ing the Cooper Union address. So far as is known he
consulted no one, when preparing it, nor did he read
it in whole or in part to any one, before he spoke upon
the Cooper Union platform.

David Davis, Lincoln's early and life-long friend,
whom Lincoln nominated for Justice of the United
States Supreme Court, said to the present writer that
aside from the statement Lincoln made to his Illinois
friends that he had accepted an invitation to speak to
the Republicans of New York City, he made no other
allusion to the address.

He did say to Judge Davis, by way of explaining
the invitation, that some one in New York had learned
that it was his intention to pay a visit to his son, who
was a student at Harvard, some time in February. To
this Lincoln said he owed the invitation to stop over
in New York, so that the Republicans of that city might

The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln 15

hear what he had to say upon the issues that people
were then facing.

The suspicion was aroused that, impelled by his
supreme instinct for great politics, Lincoln determined
to find a way by which he might, without seeming to
volunteer, speak to the Republicans of the East. Ex-
cepting in the campaign of 1848, when Lincoln was an
obscure member of Congress, he had never visited the
Eastern States. In that campaign he spoke at Wor-
cester, Mass. David Davis was always convinced that
the contemplated speech was the inspiration for his
visit to Harvard.

Lincoln had no other material for the preparation
of the Cooper Union address than the reports of the
proceedings and debates in the convention that framed
the Constitution of the United States, several of the
speeches of Webster, and two or three of the decisions
written by Chief Justice Marshall of the Supreme
Court. These he must have absorbed by prolonged
and intense study, although no one knew that he was
thus occupied. He was in perfect mental solitude. His
companions were these few books and his thoughts.
In that isolation he prepared the address by which he
conquered the intellect of New York.

In this solitude all of his addresses were prepared,
and he made confidants of no one excepting in two
instances. The Emancipation Proclamation was read
to his Cabinet, not for approval or disapproval, but
only for suggestions for verbal changes. One change,
counseled by the Secretary of the Treasury, Judge
Chase, was accepted by Lincoln.

Four years earlier he confided to some of his
friends a portion of his speech prepared for delivery
in the Illinois campaign for the election of a successor
to Stephen A. Douglas in the Federal Senate. Lincoln

16 The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln

was the candidate of the Republicans, Douglas of the
Democracy.

The friends counseled Lincoln against delivering
the portion of the speech which he repeated to them,
saying, "It will defeat you and re-elect Douglas to the
Senate."

And Lincoln replied: "Yes. But if Douglas
takes that shoot, he can never be elected President."
And it was as Lincoln predicted. Douglas was re-elect-
ed Senator, but he took the "shoot" in replying to
Lincoln, and thereby split the National Democracy. No
one knew that Lincoln had prepared the now tradi-
tional Chicago speech, beginning, "A house divided
against itself cannot stand."

In his solitude Lincoln wrote that sentence, and no
man heard it until it was delivered. Yet if he were
then nursing ambition to be President, he risked it
upon that speech.

Judge Davis spoke of the two inaugural addresses,
that with which Lincoln began his first, and the brief
and beautiful words spoken at his second inaugura-
tion. Lincoln must have written the first inaugural
address at odd moments in the early Winter of 1861.
Yet few leisure moments were permitted him. Many
politicians visited him at Springfield, and came away,
as the late Judge Kelley of Pennsylvania did, in much
perplexity and anxiety. Judge Kelley took life and his
long service in Congress very seriously, and when the
President-elect turned the visit of Judge Kelley into
something like boys' play, for he asked the Judge to
measure height with him, standing back to back, the
Pennsylvania Republican wondered what manner of
man this prairie lawyer was, and whether he was to
take the horse play of the prairies into the White
House.

The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln 17

Years afterward Judge Kelley said to the writer :
1 ' I now understand what then seemed to me an amaz-
ingly undignified performance for a man who was to
be President in a few months. Lincoln in this way
threw me off. He did not want to talk politics with any
one, for he was in perfect communion with himself."

In the choice of his Cabinet Lincoln was relieved
of embarrassment by deciding to invite each one of
those who had received a considerable vote for nomina-
tion for the Presidency at the Chicago Convention.
Seward he was to name Secretary of State, Chase
Secretary of the Treasury, Judge Bates Attorney
General, and Simon Cameron Secretary of War, in
recognition of the vital support Pennsylvania gave
Lincoln 's candidacy at the very critical moment of the
convention. Thus the Cabinet almost formed itself,
although first formed mentally by Lincoln. But Lin-
coln was much occupied for some weeks in inducing
Seward to accept the offer of the State Department.

With the exception of formal and perfunctory
communications, which may have been prepared by a
secretary, all of Lincoln's correspondence at that time
was written by himself, and must have required sev-
eral hours each day. These letters of the Winter of
1861 are good evidence of the perfect mental solitude
in which Lincoln dwelt in those momentous months.
Not one of them discloses what was in his mind. He
wrote to be informed of men and of situations, but he
gave no hint of his reason for wishing the information.
There is stupendous solitude behind them.

Yet at some time between January and mid-Feb-
ruary, 1861, Lincoln prepared the inaugural address.
No one knows when. None can tell, although possibly
the late John Hay could have done so, what hours he
set apart for the writing of it. The exquisite beauty
and perfect dignity of the language used, the kindli-

IS The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln

ness tempered with sadness that ran through the
address, the fundamental thought, solemn and defiant,
giving warning that the duty, namely, to preserve the
Union, was his highest obligation under his oath of
office — these came from that solitude in which the
address was prepared. That, at least, was the view
of Judge Davis.

So, too, the second inaugural, with its matchless
prose, its pathos and glowing hope of a speedily re-
stored Union, was conceived in solitude, penned with
no eye to see or ear to hear. It was presumed that the
brief Gettysburg oration would become the classic
American utterance, and that Lincoln in it had mas-
tered the supreme art, wherein prose is greater than
any poetry. Yet one passage in the second inaugural
is esteemed worthy to stand engraved beside the few
words spoken on the Gettysburg battlefield.

Various versions of the preparation of the Get-
tysburg address have been given. Although these
versions differ in narrating the time and manner of
writing the address, yet all are in agreement upon
the important and characteristic points. Whether
Lincoln wrote the address in a railway train while on
the way to Gettysburg, or penned it in the White
House on the morning of that dedicatory day, or spent
some part of the evening before in preparing it, is of
little interest. Wherever he composed it, whenever he
put it upon paper, it was conceived and perfected in
solitude. He read no famed funeral oration that he
might get inspiration. He consulted no books. The
English of the Bible and of Shakespeare had been
absorbed by him, so that he spoke and thought in it,
and this was his vehicle of expression. He told no one
any secret of the composition. Many inquiries were
made. He was content to let the address give the only

The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln 19

answer. And, as was said of Shakespeare, so it might
be said of Lincoln :

"Others abide onr question. Thou art free.

We ask and ask — Thou smilest and art still.

Self-schooled, self-scanned, self-honored, self-se-
cure. ' '

Edward McPherson, member of Congress from
the Gettysburg district, said to the writer that Lincoln
rode with him from Washington to Gettysburg on the
morning of the dedication day. At some time on the
trip Mr. Lincoln took a sheet of note paper from his
pocket and resting that upon his knee penciled a few
lines upon it. From this paper Lincoln read the
address, for Mr. McPherson recognized the sheet of
paper.

But if Mr. McPherson 's memory actually recalled
the circumstance, yet Lincoln was merely putting upon
paper what he had already written mentally. That
was a mere clerical matter. The immortal oration was
written in solitude.

Lincoln rarely made any allusion to the time or
the place of writing, and he never spoke of the inspir-
ation that was behind any of his addresses. It is
probable he could have clone so only in the vaguest
way. For solitude like that with which he was encom-
passed is not to be interpreted by any words. It is
beyond language.

Of the New England States, New Hampshire,
Rhode Island and Connecticut held annual elections
until recent years in the early Spring. These elections
in the year 1860 were of more than local or State conse-
quence. They were to be the first test of public senti-
ment that would have ultimate expression at the Presi-
dential election in the Fall. Connecticut was to make
the severest test, since in that State there was no
stable, dependable majority for either the Republican

20 The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln

or the Democratic Party. The annual election in that
State took place on the first Monday of April. The
Rhode Island election and that of New Hampshire
occurred about the same time.

So profound was the impression made by Lin-
coln's Cooper Union address that the managers of the
Republican campaign in Connecticut and Rhode Island
earnestly invited him to make two or three speeches in
each State. There appeared to be abundant opportun-
ity to speak in Connecticut and Rhode Island if Lin-
coln could make a leisurely itinerary from New York
to Cambridge. He was able to promise three speeches
in Connecticut and one in Rhode Island. The Connec-
ticut committee selected New Haven and Hartford,
then the two capitals of the State, and Norwich. The
candidate for Governor, William A. Buckingham, was
a citizen of Norwich. He was then Governor and a
candidate for re-election.

Incidentally it may be of present interest to report
that there was no question in Connecticut on the day
after the election that the addresses made by Lincoln
saved the State to the Republicans. The majority was
slender, a little over 500, but it was interpreted
throughout the country as foreshadowing the vote of
the Northern States in the Presidential election in
November. In this brief campaigning excursion in
Connecticut Lincoln received constant assurances that
the Connecticut Republicans would support him for
the Vice-Presidential nomination.

At the Norwich meeting Lincoln and Gov. Buck-
ingham met for the first time. They were to meet
many times during Lincoln's Presidency, and were to
establish intimate relations, for Buckingham was
known as one of the great War Governors. At the
first instant of the meeting between Lincoln and Gov.
Buckingham the Governor could not escape some sense

The Solitude of Abraham Lincoln 21

of disappointment, wondering if it were trne that this
was the man who had overthrown "The Little Giant"
in the terrific verbal combat in Illinois, the man who
had delivered the widely-famed "House Divided
Against Itself" speech and the man who had gained
the amazing triumph on the Cooper Union platform.

The Connecticut Governor was a courtly gentle-
man of the so-called ' ' old school, ' ' and he differed not
from the men of ability in New England in esteeming
elegance and conventional propriety of manners as
some part of the equipment of those who of right com-
manded homage for their intellectual achievements.

Lincoln greeted the Governor in a whimsical,
homespun way, so that the Governor was momentarily
distressed, but later, when listening to Lincoln, Gov.
Buckingham found himself thinking, "What manner
of man is this who speaks? Is this the man whom I
saw this afternoon! It is he, yet another and a won-
derful man, such as I never before saw or heard."
That was what Gov. Buckingham said some years later
was impressed upon him as he listened to Lincoln. And
so profound was the impression made by Lincoln upon
the audience that when he closed and turned to quit the
platform no man moved, none cheered, nor was there
any applause by hand -clapping or stamping of the feet.
It was the perfect tribute of silence. The recognition
of intellectual supremacy and moral sublimity is best
acknowledged in that way. But when applause did
begin it was overwhelming.

The proof welding of the address in The Tribune
office by Mr. Lincoln on the evening of its dei, $ i

L oper Union and the loss of the manuscript ; >ci-

lents which were dated with much detail by "* am-

] "igs to Mr. Edwards and assure their authenticity.

THE OBSERMER COMPANY, PUTNAM

"?/„ 2-£>&c?