Title: The Wonderful Story of Lincoln - And the Meaning of His Life for the Youth and Patriotism of America
Author: Stevens, Charles M.
Language: English
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THE WONDERFUL STORY OF LINCOLN

    "I see him, as he stands,
    With gifts of mercy in his outstretched hands;
    A kindly light within his gentle eyes,
    Sad as the toil in which his heart grew wise;
    His lips half parted with the constant smile
    That kindled truth but foiled the deepest guile;
    His head bent forward, and his willing ear
    Divinely patient right and wrong to hear:
    Great in his goodness, humble in his state,
    Firm in his purpose, yet not passionate,
    He led his people with a tender hand,
    And won by love a sway beyond command."
              GEORGE H. BOKER.


    _Inspiration Series of Patriotic Americans_



    THE WONDERFUL STORY OF LINCOLN

    AND THE MEANING OF HIS LIFE FOR THE YOUTH AND PATRIOTISM OF
    AMERICA

    BY C. M. STEVENS
    _Author of "The Wonderful Story of Washington"_


    NEW YORK
    CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY


    Copyright, 1917, by
    CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY


    Printed in U. S. A.



CONTENTS


    CHAPTER

       I. INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS
        A Personal Life and Its Interest to Americans.
        The Process of Life from Within.
        A Life Built as One Would Have the Nation.

      II. THE PROBLEM OF A WORTH-WHILE LIFE
        The Lincoln Boy of the Kentucky Woods.
        Home-Seekers in the Wild West.
        A Wonderful Family in the Desolate Wilderness.
        Way-Marks of Right Life.

     III. THE LINCOLN BOY
        How the Lincoln Boy Made the Lincoln Man.
        Some Signs Along the Early Way.
        Illustrations Showing the Making of a Man.
        Lincoln's First Dollar.
        The Characteristics of a Superior Mind.

      IV. THE WILDERNESS AS THE GARDEN OF POLITICAL LIBERTY
        Small Beginnings in Public Esteem.
        Tests of Character on the Lawless Frontier.
        The Pioneer Missionary of Humanity.
        Experiences in the Indian War.
        Life-Making Decisions.

       V. BUSINESS NOT HARMONIOUS WITH THE STRUGGLE FOR LEARNING
        Making a Living and Learning the Meaning of Life.
        Out of the Wilderness Paths into the Great Highway.
        Lincoln's First Law Case.
        The Man Who Could Not Live for Self Alone.

      VI. HELPFULNESS AND KINDNESS OF A WORTH-WHILE CHARACTER
        The Love of Freedom and Truth.
        Wit-Makers and Their Wit.
        Turbulent Times and Social Storms.
        The Frontier "Fire-Eater."
        Honor to Whom Honor Is Due.

     VII. SIMPLICITY AND SYMPATHY ESSENTIAL TO GENUINE CHARACTER
        Nearing the Heights of a Public Career.
        Some Characteristics of Momentous Times.
        The Beginnings of Great Tragedy.
        The Life Struggle of a Man Translated Into the Life Struggle
          of a Nation.
        Some Human Interests Making Lighter the Burdens of
        the Troubled Way.

    VIII. THE MAN AND THE CONFIDENCE OF THE PEOPLE
        Typical Incidents From Among Momentous Scenes.
        Experiences Demanding Mercy and Not Sacrifice.
        Humanity and the Great School of Experience.
        Simple Interests That Never Grow Old.
        Some Incidents From the Great Years.

      IX. FALSEHOOD AIDS NO ONE'S TRUTH
        Freedom to Misrepresent Is Not Freedom.
        Homely Ways To Express Truth.

       X. THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY
        The Great Tragedy.
        The Time When "Those Who Came To Scoff Remained
          To Pray."
        Some Typical Examples Giving Views of Lincoln's Life.
        Remembrance At the End of a Hundred Years.

      XI. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS
        A Masterpiece of Meaning for America.
        The Harmonizing Contrast of Men.
        The Mission of America.



LINCOLN AND AMERICAN FREEDOM



CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS


I. A PERSONAL LIFE AND ITS INTEREST TO AMERICANS

"America First" has probably as many varieties of meaning and use as
"Safety First." It means to every individual very much according to
what feelings it inspires in him of selfishness or patriotism. We are
inspired as we believe, and, to be an American, it is necessary to
appreciate the meaning and mission of America.

American history is composed of the struggle to get clear the meaning
of American liberty. Through many years of distress and sacrifice,
known as the Revolutionary War, the American people freed themselves
from un-American methods and masteries imposed on them from across
the sea. Out of that turmoil of minds came forth one typical leader
and American, George Washington. But we did not yet have clear the
meaning of America, and through yet more years of even worse
suffering, involving the Civil War, we freed ourselves from the
war-making methods and masteries entrenched within our own government.
Out of that political turmoil of minds appeared another American,
Abraham Lincoln, whose life represents supremely the most important
possibilities in the meaning and ideal of America. To know the
mind-making process that developed Washington and Lincoln is to know
not only the meaning but also the mission of America.

Every American child and every newcomer to our shores is in great need
to understand clearly and indisputably their interest in American
freedom, as being human freedom and world freedom, if they are to
realize and fulfill their part as Americans.

The American vision of moral freedom and social righteousness can in
no way be made clearer than in studying the process of development
that individually prepared Washington and Lincoln to be the makers and
preservers of a developing democracy for America and for the American
mind of the world.

Lincoln's early life has interest and meaning only for those who are
seeking to understand the pioneer political principles, fundamental
in character and civilization, out of which could develop a mind and
manhood equipped for the greatest and noblest of human tasks. To take
his "backwoods" experiences and their comparatively uncouth incidents,
as interesting merely because they happened to a man who became
famous, is to miss every inspiration, value and meaning so important
in building his way as man and statesman. To read the early incidents
of Lincoln's life for the isolated interest of their being the queer,
peculiar or pathetic biography of a notable character has little that
is either inspiring or informing to a boy in the light of present
experiences and methods of living. Indeed, many social episodes of
pioneer customs are seemingly so trivial or coarse, in comparison, as
to detract in respect from a boy's ideal of the historical Lincoln.

[Illustration: The Birthplace of Abraham Lincoln--Hodgensville, Ky.]

The pioneer frontier was the social infancy of a new meaning for
civilization. Its lowly needs of humble equality were the first social
interests of Lincoln, and the wonderful story of his life in that
place and time, if told as merely historical happenings, incidentally
noticeable only because they happened to Lincoln, becomes more and
more frivolous and disesteeming in interest to boyhood, and to the
general reader, as current social customs develop away beyond those
times. This is why such strained efforts have been made to give the
incidents of his social infancy a pathetic interest, or some other
sympathetic appeal, where everything was so unromantic, industrious,
simple, enjoyable and faithful to the earth.

Those lowly years were sacred privacy to him. He knew there was
nothing in them for a biographer, and he said so. His experience is
valuable only in showing how it developed a man. True enough, the
biographically uninteresting trivialities of his early years were not
from him but from his environment. This is proven from the fact that
two wider contrasting environments are hardly possible than those of
Washington and Lincoln, and yet out of them came the same model
character and supreme American.


II. THE PROCESS OF LIFE FROM WITHIN

Standard authorities have already fully recorded Lincoln's biography
and its historical environment. There yet remains the far more
difficult, delicate and consequential message from generation to
generation, so much needed in patriotic appreciation, to interpret his
rise from those vanished social origins, in order that there may be a
just valuation of his life by American youth.

The schoolboy learns with little addition to his ideals, or to his
patriotism, or humanity, when he reads of a person, born in what
appears to be the most sordid and pathetic destitution of the wild
West, at last becoming a martyr president. The scenes in the making of
Lincoln's life run by too fast in the reading for the strengthening
life-interest to be received and appreciated. The human process of
Lincoln's youth, with its supreme lesson of patience and labor and
growth, is lost in considering the man solely as a strange figure of
American history. If that life can be separated enough from the
political turmoil so as to be seen and to be given a worthy
interpretation, there is thus a service that may be worth while for
the American youth.

Heroes have been made in many a historical crisis and they represent
some splendid devotion to a single idea of human worth, but Lincoln's
heroism was the far severer test of a hard struggle through many
years. He came near encountering every discouragement and in mastering
every difficulty that may befall any American from the worst to the
best, and from the lowliest to the most responsible position.

The poet has expressed these valuations arising through the frailties
and vicissitudes of his long, tragic struggle in the following lines:

    "A blend of mirth and sadness, smiles and tears;
    A quaint knight-errant of the pioneers;
    A homely hero born of star and sod;
    A Peasant Prince; a Masterpiece of God."

Lincoln's life has much more for American youth than the
adventure-story of a backwoods boy of pioneer days on his unknown way
to be a hero of American history. What Lincoln thought he was and what
he made out of his relations with those around him are only incidental
to the inspiring patience with which he kept the faith of high meaning
within him, and the labor with which he strove on until his ideal came
clear as one of the supreme visions of humanity.

Every really ambitious American boy asks himself the question, How did
he do it? The probably correct answer is that he didn't do it. He made
himself the right man and the right people did it.

We do not now hear so much of Lincoln as the "fireplace" student,
because that word no longer carries so pathetic a vision as it did to
the American boy. "Lincoln the railsplitter" has almost disappeared
from the phrases of patriotic eulogy for this great American, because
the task and significance of railsplitting no longer bear the force of
meaning that they did to the boys of Civil-War days. This means that,
if the American boy is to receive any inspiration from the early life
of Lincoln, there must be achieved some new and more significant form
of interpretation from the making of his life and character.

Even the strong description of Edwin Markham becomes more figurative
than concrete in its illustration more poetic than material, when he
says,

    "He built the rail-pile as he built the state,
    Pouring his splendid strength through every blow,
    The conscience of him testing every stroke,
    To make his deed the measure of a man."


III. A LIFE BUILT AS ONE WOULD HAVE THE NATION

Lincoln's life may be prized as much in what he did for himself as in
what he did for his country, because in the course of our interest
they mean the same and become the same. He has shown to every American
boy that the right desire, no matter what the circumstances and
conditions, will invariably lead along the right way to the successful
life, because the successful character is a successful career for a
successful humanity. Very clearly one thing is sure, he was
wonderfully successful in finding the right thing to do and in
finding the right way to do it. That is what humanity wants and such a
man is the human ideal. Accordingly, Lincoln's personal moral
development, apart from his historical public career, is an
introductory story inspiring an interest for the patriotic study of
his statesmanship and the fundamental principles of American life.

Any boy or girl can appreciate the events that entered into the making
of Lincoln's mind and character, but only a student of statesmanship
and history can read beyond this and appreciate the almost superhuman
task which Lincoln carried through to the extinction of slavery and
the preservation of the United States of America.

In that view we are not here writing the biography or history of
Lincoln the Statesman, nor of Lincoln the War President, for that work
has already been exhaustively and nobly done, but to give the
inspiring meaning of his experiences from which arose the boy and man
representing above all others the meaning and mission of Americans and
America.



CHAPTER II


I. THE PROBLEM OF A WORTHWHILE LIFE

Many of the early events entering into Lincoln's life seem too trivial
to mention in the light of his great services to America. But the
human struggle and the moral achievement of a supreme American ideal
cannot be appreciated or understood unless the experiences buffeting
the way to it, and their circumstances, are known for what they mean
to his life. Trivial experiences have very much to do with forming our
lives and without them we can neither appreciate nor understand the
great events that we believe have given us our career and our destiny.

After being nominated for the presidency of the United States, Lincoln
was asked for material from his early life out of which to make a
biography.

"Why," he replied earnestly, as if this was a sacred privacy in his
own profound struggle, "it is a great folly to attempt to make
anything out of me or my early life. It can all be condensed in a
single sentence; and that sentence you will find in Grey's Elegy:
'The short and simple annals of the poor.'"

His early friends all agree that he was lazy and idle, but, when we
ask closer, they tell us that he spent his time "reading and writing
and arguing." One of his most admiring friends hired him for a certain
period and became greatly disgusted at the young man's preference for
idling his time away reading. Another friend one day found him
reading, and, with the intention of severely rebuking him, asked what
he was doing. "Reading law," was the reply, without taking his eye
from the page.

"Almighty Gosh!" was all the disgusted friend could say. Reading was
bad enough waste of time, but to be reading law was beyond all use of
words or censure.

So, it merely proves that no one can be understood by the historical
student, except as the conditions of mental soil in which the
character grew are understood. And especially is it good to learn why
the prophet is without honor in his own country, sometimes not even
known in his own age. Home people rarely or never understand the
unusual worker, because they cannot measure outside of their own
experience, and their opinions rarely give much insight into the great
laborer born among them, with the great urge, if not the vision, of
work and the way.

Lincoln is probably the last Great American who shall ever have to
begin his mind-making as anything less than an "heir of all ages." In
Lincoln's case it seemed as if all else was banished that a mind might
build itself up anew to be a fundamental interpretation of American
civilization. Like the great Newton, he built his world of principle
out of the particulars of original experience, and found that it was
the order of the universe. And yet, it might be said that he was a
failure in particulars and minor matters, for he thought in terms of
general humanity and swung the world into a new consciousness and
vision of the moral law.

As Mr. Herndon says, "His origin was in that unknown and sunless bog
in which history never made a footprint." The social origin and
development of Christ were far less obscure, humble and lowly in
destitute and helpless environment, before the special task of
preserving a meaning in the earth as a home for man.

Julia Ward Howe expresses the seriousness attending the possibilities
of every new-born soul, as she says, of Lincoln,

    "Through the dim pageant of the years
    A wondrous tracery appears:
    A cabin of the western wild
    Shelters in sleep a new-born child,
    Nor nurse, nor parent dear, can know
    The way those infant feet must go;
    And yet a nation's help and hope
    Are sealed within that horoscope."

It was certainly impossible for a pioneer of the early frontier to
imagine how the rich live now, but it is not so hard for any one now
to imagine how people lived then, if he will go into the deep woods
with only a few simple tools and try to live. It can be done and it
will probably be a healthful experience, but not an experience that
any person would be expected to try twice.

It is therefore not needful to the setting of our story about the
making of a man, for any extended description to be made of the
ignorance and the poverty common to those times.

It is enough for us to say with Maurice Thompson in his lines:

    "He was the North, the South, the East, the West;
    The thrall, the master, all of us in one."

Ida Tarbell, after her extensive original researches into the early
life of Lincoln, very thoughtfully, says,

"He seems to have had as nearly a universal human sympathy as any one
in history. A man could not be so high or so low that Lincoln could
not meet him and he could not be so much of a fool, or so many kinds
of a fool. He could listen unruffled to cant, to violence, to
criticism, just and unjust. Amazingly he absorbed from each man the
real thing he had to offer, annexed him by showing him that he
understood, and yet gave him somehow a sense of the impossibility of
considering him alone, and leaving out the multitudes of other men as
convinced and as loyal as he was."


II. THE LINCOLN BOY OF THE KENTUCKY WOODS

We may well believe that the little Lincoln boy was thrilled with
stories of noxious "varmints" and wild "Injuns." As the fire crackled
in the wide earthen fireplace and the sparks flew up the broad dirt
chimney, we may well suppose the mystic superstitions of the ignorant
times thrilled the young mind with vague fears and often with
indescribable dread.

Doubtless he often heard his father tell the story of his own
desperate boyhood, how Mordecai, the elder brother, had, just in the
nick of time, saved his life from the tomahawk.

Abe's father when a child went out to their clearing with his two
brothers and their father, whose name was Abraham. We may be sure that
their watchful eyes looked closely into every pile of brush or clump
of bushes that might hide an Indian. But the Indians were trained to
hide like snakes or foxes. So that which was ever expected and feared
happened. There was a shot from an unseen form in the bushes, and the
father of the family fell dead.

Mordecai, the eldest, ran for the cabin, the other boy ran for help,
but the younger boy, too bewildered and not comprehending what had
happened, remained by the side of his fallen father.

As Mordecai looked out through the chinks of the cabin to see the
enemy, which he supposed to be in numbers, he saw a lone Indian come
out and seize the boy. With quick aim he fired and the Indian fell
dead. The little boy, now understanding, began to scream, when
Mordecai ran to him and carried him into the cabin.

It was in the death of this pioneer that the Lincolns became subjected
to such poverty. And yet it is doubtful if their poverty was much
worse than most of those around them. In this vision of frontier life
we can get some idea at what great cost has been achieved the
civilization that composes the foundations of this country.

Lives seem insignificant and their experiences trivial, but in them
are the making of all that is good and great. In the making of typical
lives is to be seen the meaning and the making of the nation. It is
said that Lincoln's first attempts to write his name were made with a
stick upon the ground. Those letters have long since vanished and yet
that name is written in sentiments and deeds of gold throughout the
earth.

Wilbur Nesbit holds up the jewel of Lincoln's life in the following
lines:

    "Not as the great who grew more great,
    Until they have a mystic fame--
    No stroke of pastime or of fate
    Gave Lincoln his undying name.
    A common man, earth-bred, earth-born,
    One of the breed who work and wait,--
    His was a soul above all scorn,
    His was a heart above all hate."


III. HOME-SEEKERS IN THE WILD WEST

Thomas Lincoln became a home-seeking wanderer soon after the death of
his father. According to the laws of that time, all the property went
to the eldest, and it may be supposed that little attention was paid
in that rough destitute life to the raising of Thomas. He grew up
simply "a wandering, laboring boy," whose hard circumstances left
little ambition or hope in him. But, in the course of all wondrous
events and time, he became a carpenter, well respected, and married
his cousin, the niece of the man in whose shop he worked. This niece
was Nancy Hanks, daughter of Joseph Hanks, who had married Nannie
Shipley, a Quaker girl. From all authentic accounts that can be
gathered concerning Nancy Hanks, she was one of God's great women.

This much at least is sufficiently verified that she was a strong,
handsome girl, noted for her religious zeal, and was one of the most
sought-for singers at the marvellous camp-meetings of those days. That
the marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks was regarded as an
important community event is the testimony of several who were
present, for every social enjoyment known to the times was there, and
the occasion was celebrated with unusual demonstrations of good will.

The wedding took place June 12, 1806, and the documents of the
marriage show that she had enough property left her by her father to
require a guardian appointed by the court. The uncle with whom she
lived was her guardian, appointed on the death of her parents when she
was nine years old.

Documents in existence also show that Thomas Lincoln owned a large
tract of land, that he held responsible public position, and was well
respected in his community. The stories of shiftlessness and shame so
long told as truth must be cast out as among the curiosities of
envious gossip, sometimes accepted even by those it injures as true
history.

A year after the marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks their
first child was born, a girl, which they named Nancy. Twelve years
later, after the death of her mother and the marriage of her father to
Sarah Bush Johnson, this daughter renamed herself Sarah, by which name
she was known until her death at the age of twenty.

Sarah was born at Elizabethtown, Kentucky, but soon after the family
moved to a farm, bought several years before by Thomas Lincoln, about
fourteen miles away. There on February 12, 1809, was born one of the
greatest of all Americans, Abraham Lincoln.

The Lincoln home was so rude that descriptions of it, in comparison
with present poverty-stricken homes, sounds like distressful
destitution, but it was the home of frontiersmen in pioneer days. All
testimony agrees that no one suffered and that the boy grew strong
and manly, in the abiding favor of friends, and in the noble
aspirations of a superior destiny.

When Abraham Lincoln was seven years old and his sister Sarah was near
nine, his father desired to seek a better home, which the pioneer
always dreamed of as farther on. He built a flatboat in a creek half a
mile from his house, put his household goods upon it, and floated down
the Rolling Fork on a voyage of discovery to Salt River, and down Salt
River to the Ohio. At Thompson's Ferry on the Indiana shore he landed,
stored his goods, and went back after his family, which he brought
through on horseback.


IV. A WONDERFUL FAMILY IN THE DESOLATE WILDERNESS

Lincoln tells us of one thing his mother said to him which he never
forgot, though he was not yet nine years old. Her thought for him
became his dream of her.

"Mother wants her little boy to be honest, truthful, and kind to
everybody, and always to trust in God."

The words of his "angel mother," as he named her, were always the
guiding star of his life. He always wanted to be what his mother said
was her desire for him to be. He often said, "All I am or hope to be I
owe to my angel mother," and yet, as a poet has said it, that mother

    "Gave us Lincoln and never knew."

An epidemic carried away Lincoln's mother in 1818 when he was nine
years of age. It was the beginning of that great man's acquaintance
with grief, but the impression she had made on him never forsook him.
Her last words to the surrounding friends were, "I pray you to love
your kindred and worship God."

When Elizabeth Barrett Browning asked Charles Kingsley for the secret
of his splendid life, he answered, "I once had a friend." So it was
with Lincoln. He once had a friend, and he always spoke of her as his
"angel mother."

So deeply had she impressed the nine-year-old boy with her religious
faith that he could never be satisfied until he induced a preacher to
preach a sermon and offer a prayer over her grave.

In that profoundly earnest incident of sympathy is to be seen the love
that leavened his life to the making of a man nobler than kings among
men.

Of these early years Lincoln spoke but little, and the gossip of old
people, who might have told interesting incidents, has not proven
altogether reliable. One of these personal incidents told by Lincoln
of his childhood may be regarded as typical of his life. It was from a
dim memory of what he had been taught concerning soldiers and war.

Lincoln said that he had a memory of only one incident relating to the
War of 1812. This happened near the close of the war. He had been
fishing and had caught a little fish. On the way home he met a soldier
returning from the war. He had been told that he must be kind to
soldiers. Thinking of this, he went up to the soldier and gave him the
fish.

Even the wilderness has a succession of new scenes and offers an
endless variety of revelations for the growing mind. Only the will of
disordered interests is able to get bad things into the desires of a
child. The Lincoln boy was fortunate in living with good people. There
was no one to impress him with false ideas of life.

We may be sure that there was something superior in Thomas Lincoln
that he sought out only noble women, and that noble women were willing
to trust their happiness and welfare to him.

Thomas Lincoln could not hope to make a living after his wife died
and care properly for his household needs, including the two
motherless children. His own homeless childhood made him tender toward
his little unmothered family, and, presently, he returned to Kentucky
and married Sarah Bush Johnson, another of God's own mother-women.

She came with abundance of household goods and there was soon a
comfortable Lincoln home. She loved the little boy she found on her
arrival in the Indiana household, and encouraged him in his eager
desire to know things.

The ten-year-old Lincoln was eager to learn of the wondrous world
beyond the woods and he asked many questions of wayfarers passing that
way. One day a very trivial event happened, but in the wondrous
revelation of things to the blooming mind it may have been one of the
greatest in Lincoln's life.

An emigrant wagon broke down near their place. The wife and two little
daughters staid in Lincoln's home two or three days, till the wagon
was repaired.

"The woman had books," so Lincoln tells us about it, "and she read us
stories." It was the first books he had ever seen and the first
book-stories he had ever heard. In fact, it was also the first
educated people he had ever seen. One of the little girls seems to
have impressed him deeply, to have awakened in him a spiritual
reverence for beautiful girlhood, and to have given him a never-dying
vision of possible sympathy and character for a nobler social life.


V. WAY-MARKS OF RIGHT LIFE

Lincoln's new mother had three children of her own, but under her
management they all lived together, in the one-room house, in perfect
harmony and friendship.

Of the little Lincoln boy she said, "His mind and mine, what little I
had, seemed to run together." She said that there had never been a
cross word or look between them and that she loved the little fellow
as her own child. One thing is sure, to the American people, Sarah
Bush Lincoln has forever given a sacred meaning to the name stepmother
and hallowed its duties near to the meaning of mother.

In her old age she was visited by a biographer of Lincoln, to whom she
said, "I had a son John, who was raised with Abe. Both were good boys,
but I must say, both now being dead, that Abe was the best boy I ever
saw, or expect to see."

Lincoln's sister Sarah, or Nancy, as she was also called, was a noble
girl and was of inestimable help to Mrs. Lincoln in the labors of a
pioneer home. She was quick to learn and she did her share in helping
her brother in his desire to learn. There was nothing remarkable about
that brother, he was not wondrous, except in one thing, and that was
his unceasing zeal to have a greater mind, and for that mind to be a
right mind.

His first real school life was to travel a deer path through the deep
woods, nine miles each day, to school.

He had no time to waste on useless knowledge. Josh Billings once
exclaimed, lamenting, "What's the use of larnin' so much that ain't
so." Lincoln thought there was no use in such foolishness, and he
sought to fill his mind only with useful information, valuable toward
a greater life.

For instance, he got hold of a small dictionary and he read it through
and through with the eagerness that many people give to baseball news
or a novel. When the book called the "Statutes of Indiana" fell into
his hands he could hardly eat or sleep till he had read it through.
When he finally got hold of a grammar, it was no dry reading to him
and no task. He literally devoured its information and committed its
principles to memory, as a value of the finest wealth. He was indeed
remarkable or wondrous in nothing but the divine inspiration to
enlarge a useful mind. These are the minds that make life worth living
and invariably characterize the builders of the world.

It appears that the first approach of Lincoln to the formation of a
life-ideal, his first patriotic vision of American citizenship, was
derived from reading a life of Washington. A friendly neighbor loaned
him the book. His book-shelf was a chink in the log house. One night
it rained into his book-shelf and the next morning he found his
borrowed book bucked up into a most unreadable shape. Lincoln's
introduction to Washington was unhappy and significant. Trivial as the
incident might seem, it supplies suggestions of character on the way
of superior worth to civilization. Events, one by one, build up or
tear down together the structure of self or of the public system.

The Lincoln boy could have shielded himself, as to the damaged book,
behind personal irresponsibility for an accident, or he could have
flatly refused to make good. If so, we may well guess that he would
never have been President of the United States, and would never have
served America in its dire peril so as to be honored by the whole
world. He was not that kind of a character. As we trace the steps of
moral integrity, the trivial incident becomes powerfully significant.
The Lincoln boy made good. He worked three days for the owner of the
damaged book, so that another should not suffer loss through any
kindness or good-will to him; also, beyond that, he could have no
rest nor peace while any wrong existed between him and another man.

From that time on he had before him the vision of a great American.
Washington became his ideal type of character, and that ideal no doubt
helped much to make him the patient power he was in the great crisis
of his nation's existence.

The rough and hard never hurt any one if they are healthy interests;
the rude and uncultured wrong no taste if they are moral; and poverty
injures nobody when it is clean and persevering and safe. So the hard
requirements, rude living and destitute means only strengthened the
boy more and more for the heroic responsibilities requiring such a
type of manhood.

It is said that he memorized and often repeated for self-encouragement
the homely old verses of the song, "Try, Try Again."

    "When you strive, it's no disgrace
    Though you fail to win the race;
    Bravely, then, in such a case,
    Try, try again.
    That which other folks can do,
    Why, with patience, may not you?
    All that's been done, you may do,
    If you will but try."

In a copy book the following lines, still preserved, were written by
Lincoln:

    "Abraham Lincoln
    his hand and pen.
    he will be good but
    God knows when."

This pathetic glimpse of the childhood dream may account for his
profound interest in boys and boyhood. When he had reached world-wide
fame he said, "The boy is the inventor and owner of the present, and
he is our supreme hope for the future. Men and things everywhere
minister unto him, and let no one slight his needs."

[Illustration: Lincoln reading by Firelight.]



CHAPTER III


I. THE LINCOLN BOY AND HIS SISTER

The wilderness never brought forth a more wonderful being than the
child that became one of the greatest names in the history of America.
Deep in the wild woods of Kentucky, in the humblest conditions of
nature, farthest from the inventions of society, there arose a mind
that gave great riches of thought to the making of civilization.

Lincoln and his sister "hired out," and the position of servant can
hardly be servile or menial with such an illustrious American example,
unless the master make it so. One woman, whose family had hired them
both, testified to their lovable characters. Lincoln slept in the
hay-loft during the period of his work, and he was noted for being
remarkably considerate in "keeping his place," and for not coming in
"where he was not wanted." It is said that he would lift his hat and
bow when he entered the house, and that he was reliable, tender and
kind, "like his sister." We wonder if his employers had only known of
"the angel" they were "entertaining unawares," what would have been
"his place" and where he would have been "wanted." Every such soul
may, somewhere along the immortal way, be "an angel" "unaware" some
time in the meaning of the great moral universe.

As showing the making of Lincoln's mind, one of his first attempts at
essay writing was on the subject of "Cruelty to Animals" and another
on "Temperance."

During his earliest acquaintance with the first lawyer he had known,
he wrote a paper on "American Government," and he anxiously asked the
lawyer to read it and pass an opinion on its merits. The lawyer did
so, declaring that the "world couldn't beat it," and expressing the
opinion that some day the people would "hear from that boy."

His repugnance toward acts of cruelty is shown by the first fist fight
he ever had.

Some boys had caught a mud-turtle and were having great sport in
putting a coal of fire on its back to see it open up its shell and
run. Lincoln was then not as large as some of the tormentors of the
poor animal, but, coming by and seeing what they were doing, he dashed
in among them, knocked the firebrand from the boy's hand, and fought
them all away from the turtle. Then he gave them a fierce scolding for
their cruelty. With tears in his eyes he declared that the terrapin's
life was as sweet to it as theirs was to them. His appeal was
successful and there was freedom henceforth in that community for the
American turtle.


II. HOW THE LINCOLN BOY MADE THE LINCOLN MAN

The American boy, seeing anything of great interest accomplished,
wants to know how it was done. That is true all the way from winning
some game at play to making a million in some great enterprise. But
far more, in fact immeasurably more, is the making of a masterful
mind, the development of a nation-making character, and of a
world-historical man. Such was Abraham Lincoln, who was built up from
what seems to be nothing on to the very highest worth of mankind. How
did he do it? "If I only knew how," said a philosopher-mathematician,
"I could turn the world over with a lever." "If I only knew how," said
a philosopher-farmer, "I could make a three-year-old calf between now
and next Christmas." In other words, the belief has always prevailed
that by thought made into will anything can be accomplished, provided
thinking perseveres in the right way for the right thing. Successful
"might" always promotes the belief that it is right because it is
successful, but the "successful" is no more than a temporary expedient
toward coming failure, if it is not the righteousness of an immortal
social system.

So let us see how Lincoln did it. It is not much of a mystery how he
became a masterful man. There must be a beginning place, and, for such
a person, it must be a divine beginning place. He had a loving mother
and a home. It was the basis of his belief in humanity. The heart of
the world he believed to be like the two noble-souled women who
mothered his young heart and growing mind. He says himself that he
didn't do it but that they did it. So, the first thing for a boy who
wants to be a masterful man is to take the advice of Oliver Wendell
Holmes to have the right kind of ancestors. At least, it seems quite
necessary for him to choose a loving mother and it will be a lightened
task for him to do the rest.

In 1823, while going to the Crawford school, there occurred an
incident representing his invariable sense of honor. A buck's head was
nailed to the wall and one day, probably experimenting as all boys
do, he pulled too hard on one of the horns and broke it off. No one
saw him and when the teacher inquired for the mischief maker Lincoln
promptly told how it happened. The teacher believed him and said no
more about it.

The first reprehensible thing known of the Lincoln boy was done soon
after the death of his sister. She married at nineteen and died the
next year. Lincoln believed, as most others believed, that she died of
ill-treatment. There was no way to express his fierce resentment but
in writing, and he wrote some scurrilous letters to the ones against
whom he was so angry. Some biographers, in the supposed cause of
history, have published some alleged copies of those letters, but at
worst they merely show what a boy could do in the distress occasioned
by what he believed to be the murder of his sister, whom we may
believe was the one great love of his life after the death of his
mother.

Being a good penman, Lincoln was often called on to write a line in
copybooks. Among the proud possessors of a copybook so favored was Joe
Richardson. In his book Lincoln wrote these commonplace, yet
significant lines:

    "Good boys who to their books apply
    Will all be great men by and by."

Lincoln was brought up in the midst of superstitions that prevailed in
every act of life, but they seem to have made no impression on him.
Many of the most estimable people believed the sun went round the
earth, from the indisputable fact that in the morning it was on one
side of the house and in the afternoon was on the other side. Many
also believed the earth to be flat, because any one trying to go so
far as to go around it would naturally become lost, travel in a
circle, as all lost people do, and come back to the same place,
thinking they had gone around the world.

People who argued otherwise were merely "stuck up" and "just proud to
show themselves off." Doubtless, his belief about the sun and earth
lost him his first love affair.

He was going to school to Andrew Crawford, who also taught good
manners, when he began to exchange special attention with Miss Roby, a
fine lass of fifteen. He especially had her gratitude for some help he
gave her in a spelling class. When she was about to spell "defied"
with a "y," he pointed to his eye, just in time to save her from
disgrace with the teacher, and from losing her place in the class.

But one day as they were walking along the road she made a remark that
brought up an unfortunate subject.

"Abe," said she, "look yonder, the sun is going down."

"Reckon not," was the unfortunate reply. "It's us coming up. That's
all."

"Don't you suppose I've got eyes," she answered indignantly.

"Reckon so," he replied, "but the sun's as still as a tree. When we're
swung up so's the shine's cut off, we call it night."

"Abe," said she, "you're a consarned fool," and away she went, leaving
him to the glory of his "stuck-up larnin'."


III. SOME SIGNS ALONG THE EARLY WAY

The Lincoln boy impressed all who knew him as being different from
other boys, though they did not know just how. We now know that the
difference consisted in his having a purpose to have a mind rather
than to have a good time. And yet, Lincoln loved joyful sports and he
was a favorite in all the social gatherings of the community. But his
mind was not composed of sport experience, nor his interest in life
inspired by sport success. The world-mind of books contained more
value and richer promise than the turmoil of happenings among
companions, or than those who were juggling interests in the hope of
events.

Lincoln's books were very limited in number but exceedingly wide in
their humanity. Weems' "Life of Washington" seems to have given him
his ideal of American character and statesmanship, while the "Statutes
of Indiana" aroused his interest in civil law and the American
government.

When addressing the senate of the state of New Jersey, in 1861,
Lincoln said, "May I be pardoned if, on this occasion, I mention that
away back in my childhood, the earliest days of my being able to read,
I got hold of a small book, such a one as few of the younger members
have ever seen, 'Weems' Life of Washington.' I remember all the
accounts there given of the battlefields and struggles for the
liberties of the country, and none fixed themselves upon my
imagination so deeply as the struggle here at Trenton, New Jersey. The
crossing of the river, the contest with the Hessians, the great
hardships endured at that time, all fixed themselves in my mind more
than any single revolutionary event; and you all know, for you have
all been boys, how these early impressions last longer than others. I
recollect thinking then, boy even though I was, that there must have
been something more than common that these men struggled for. I am
exceedingly anxious that that thing shall be perpetuated in accordance
with the original idea for which that struggle was made."

Lincoln told one of his friends that he read through every book he had
ever heard of in his surroundings for a distance of fifty miles. The
industry with which he sought to learn and his unceasing endeavor to
build up his mind were marks of the genius that possessed him, the
spirit that made him one of the strongest men of a world-wide work.

In the whole country round there was only one newspaper subscriber,
and that was in Gentryville, Indiana, for a weekly paper from
Louisville. Lincoln walked to town every week to see that paper and
discuss the news. By the time he had become a man, in Menard County,
Illinois, his neighbors went to him in order to know things, and he
was a good custodian of the knowledge he had gained. His opinions
coincided with common sense. So, common sense made him President of
the United States, saved a United Nation, and gave Lincoln a
never-dying place in the love and honor of mankind.

Lincoln walked six miles to borrow a grammar, and he studied it till
he mastered the principles of the English language. Many another boy
has thought that he had few troubles more unbearable than the study
of composition, but many another boy has not been prepared to speak
the world-stirring speech, such as was spoken by Lincoln at the
dedication of the battlefield of Gettysburg.


IV. ILLUSTRATIONS SHOWING THE MAKING OF A MAN

Lincoln, very early in life, believed that witnesses must tell the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Matilda Johnson, his stepsister, was very fond of him, and she often
ran away from the house to be with him where he was at work. Lincoln
would rather tell her stories than work, so the mother forbade the
child from following him to work. But, one morning, she disobeyed and
ran after him. She tried to surprise him by jumping up at his back,
and catching him by the shoulders. In doing so the axe was swung
around so that it severely cut her ankle. Matilda screamed with pain
but Lincoln soon had the bleeding stopped and the wound bound. Then
came the problem.

"Tilda," he exclaimed, "I am astonished at you. How could you disobey
your mother? Now, what are you going to tell her?"

"I'll tell her I did it with the axe," she said in the midst of her
crying. "That will be the truth, won't it?"

"Yes," replied the boy, "that's the truth as far as it goes, but it is
not all of the truth. You tell the whole truth and trust your mother
for the rest."

Tilda went home limping and weeping with the whole truth, and the good
mother thought she had been punished enough.

The self-possessed way in which Lincoln conducted himself is well
illustrated in his experience with the boaster who was telling of his
horse-race, and especially endeavoring to impress his story upon the
youthful Lincoln.

Uncle Jimmy Larkins, the boastful owner of the fast horse, was much of
a hero in the eyes of a small boy who grew up to be Captain John
Lamar, the man who tells the story.

Lincoln paid no attention to the boasting. Uncle Jimmy did not like
this and the Lamar boy thought it very rude in Lincoln. Finally Uncle
Jimmy said, "Abe, I've got the best horse in the world: he won that
race and never drew a long breath."

But Abe still paid no attention. Uncle Jimmy didn't like it some more
and the Lamar boy was disgusted that Lincoln did not give due respect
for something so important.

"I say, Abe," repeated Uncle Jimmy emphatically, "I have the best
horse in the world; after all that running he never drew a long
breath."

Then Abe had to say something, so he said, "Well, Uncle Jimmy, why
don't you tell us how many short breaths he took."

"Everybody laughed and Uncle Jimmy got all-fired hot," says Captain
Lamar. "He spoke something about fighting Abe, and Abe said, 'If you
don't shut up, I'll throw you into the pond,' and Uncle Jimmy shut
up."

Captain Lamar, in concluding his comments, said, "I was very much hurt
at the way my hero was treated, but I have lived to change my ideas
about heroes."


V. LINCOLN'S FIRST DOLLAR

Lincoln enjoyed the commonplace interests of ordinary life, and much
that we know of him is from conversations with friends over the early
lessons of his youth.

One day while he was president, as he was talking with Secretary
Seward over weighty affairs of state, he suddenly broke from the
subject they were discussing and said, "Seward, do you know how I
earned my first dollar?"

The well-to-do and rather aristocratic Secretary of State replied that
he did not know.

"It was this way," Lincoln continued. "I was about eighteen years of
age and had succeeded in raising enough produce to justify a trip down
the Ohio to the markets at New Orleans. I made a flatboat big enough
to hold the barrels containing our things and was soon ready for
loading up and starting on our journey.

"There were few landing places for steamers, and, where passengers
desired to get on to one of the passing boats, they had to be taken
out into the river in order to get aboard.

"While I was looking my boat over to see if anything more could be
done to strengthen it, two men came down to the shore in a carriage,
with their trunks, for the purpose of boarding a passing steamer. They
looked the boats over and came down to me.

"'Who owns this boat?' they asked.

"I very proudly answered, 'I do.'

"'Will you take us and our trunks out to the steamer?'

"I was glad for a chance to earn something and I soon had them and
their trunks loaded into my boat. I soon sculled them out to the
steamer. They climbed aboard and I lifted their trunks on deck. I
expected them to hand me a couple of bits for my work, but both seemed
to have forgotten their dues to me. The steamer was about to start,
when I called out to them, 'You have forgotten to pay me.'

"Each took a silver half-dollar and threw it over into the bottom of
my boat. I could scarcely believe my good fortune. That seems like a
little thing but it was one of the most important incidents in my
life. I could hardly believe that I had been able to earn, by my own
work, a dollar in less than a day. I now knew that such things could
be done. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time."

Lincoln received eight dollars a month for his trip down the Ohio and
Mississippi from Indiana, but he probably got much priceless value out
of it in the broader view of life it gave him. He had already prepared
himself to think on what he saw, and, from all attainable evidence
from every side, to reach reasonable and justified conclusions.

This voyage was comparatively uneventful except that one night, after
the little boat crew of three men had sold their goods, they were
attacked by seven negroes, who came aboard intending to kill and rob
them. But, after a lively fight, the assailants were driven off and
the boat was swung out into the river.

One cannot help thinking about what a difference it would have made to
the negro race if those negroes had killed the man whom destiny had
then started on the way to make their people free.


VI. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A SUPERIOR MIND

The boy who reads the story of Lincoln, desiring to get real help in
building his life, will find no miracle nor any short-cuts to get
easily the ambitions of life. Lincoln did not know the office he
wanted to hold, but he knew the kind of man he wanted to be and he
worked unceasingly to reach that ideal of mind and manhood. In
proportion, it is no harder now to know more than others, in order to
be correspondingly useful to others, than it was in Lincoln's time.

Lincoln said that he went to school by "littles" altogether not more
than a year, but no one ever thinks of him as anything less than a
learned man. All records show that he was intellectually at home in
company with any worldly-wise men. It was in the prudent selection of
interests nobly directed in honorable ways that gave him world-wisdom
from the most limited supply, while now the multiplication of great
books has made the diffusion of knowledge almost unlimited for anyone
who seeks to be worth while. But it was in his high moral nature where
was to be found the secret of his unwavering progress. Numerous
characteristic incidents illustrate how little he was disturbed by the
ill-nature of others.

That Lincoln was above "holding spite" or "bearing a grudge" is shown
in his experience with the noted Kentucky lawyer, John Breckenridge.

There had been a murder at Boonville, Indiana, and Lincoln went to
hear the speech made to the jury by the defense. He had never before
heard a learned and eloquent man. The powerful plea of the
silver-tongued John Breckenridge went through the sensitive soul of
Lincoln like heavenly music. Forgetting his backwoodsman appearance,
he rushed forward with others at the close of the speech to express
his admiration.

Breckenridge was a "gentleman" of the South, not used to being
familiarly addressed by anyone having the appearance of being "poor
white trash." He gazed in insulted amazement at the presumptuous youth
and strode indignantly away.

This was probably the first knowledge Lincoln had of the artificial
social barriers set up by men developing antagonizing classes. Here he
first met the great problem of the ages in a land where all are born
free and equal before life and law. It was a social partisanship not
only contrary to common sense and moral law, but in violation of the
Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States,
and the entire meaning of America. This is the great significance of
Lincoln, that his life so unmistakably refuted so many un-American
ideas of society and civilization.

In 1862 this same Breckenridge, now an humble petitioner for
presidential favors, was introduced to President Lincoln, who then
completed his expression of admiration for the excellent speech made
by Mr. Breckenridge in the Indiana murder case. The able lawyer was
indeed dumbfounded and it gave him a new vision of Lincoln, if not of
the relationship of men. That equality of mind and opportunity which
Lincoln represented was the master meaning of America, disclosing that
in its freedom there is opportunity for the poorest to become the
greatest through human values the most lasting and worthwhile.

Lincoln could have satisfied a righteous resentment against such
haughty treatment toward the poor as was shown by Breckenridge to him
at Boonville, and he could have given a deserved rebuke to pride in a
land where pride of that kind is unpatriotic as well as immoral, but
Lincoln chose the better part. It reminds us of the words of Ralph
Waldo Emerson, "Lincoln's heart was as large as the world, but nowhere
had any room for the memory of a wrong."



CHAPTER IV


I. THE WILDERNESS AS THE GARDEN OF POLITICAL LIBERTY

The pioneer and frontiersman of early America are very strange beings
when viewed from our present social customs, or as studied from the
so-called refinements of modern interests and conveniences, but, no
doubt, the problem is now before us, which shall be the makers of
America, the pioneer view of freedom and right, or influence from the
present methods of material distinctions and individual success. We
may be sure that whichever one of these ideas gets first to the heart
of the American boy, that is the ideal that will make of him the
resulting man. The American boy loves to go to the bottom of things
and so the submarine idea of interests is full of fancies. He likes to
get to the top of things and the airship carries him away on the wings
of adventure. But this all is merely because he likes freedom and
conquest. There is a limit to the submarine and the airship, as there
is to all machinery ideals, but there was no limit to the
frontiersman and the pioneer. The boy wants no limit, and there is the
same opening now to be a frontiersman and a pioneer in human values as
there ever was, provided they are human values and not individual
aggrandizement. The only consideration is that the scenes have changed
and the obstacles known as "things in the way" are different.

The pioneer and the frontiersman were laboring to achieve something
far more important than clearing away trees, killing wildcats or
subduing the wild men of the wilderness. Such dangerous and exciting
work was but an incident in the great struggle. They were striving for
a safe, free and sufficient living for family and home. But far
greater than the economic interest was the ideal interest of freedom
from the will of overlords. That sublime goal of human endeavor is
probably no nearer the heart's desire now than it was then. Society is
not yet out of the wilderness of wildcat schemers and wild men
monopolists.

The American boy has an immeasurably greater opportunity to continue
the heroic and patriotic work of the frontiersman and pioneer. The
safety, freedom and sufficiency of America is merely well started on
its second period. The first great epoch of American humanity became
symbolized in the life of Washington and the second in the life of
Lincoln. If there is a third great symbolic character, it is yet to
come. The American boy must feel the meaning combined in Washington
and Lincoln if he is to be a pioneer civilizing, socially and
politically, the frontier of America for a nobler world.


II. SMALL BEGINNINGS IN PUBLIC ESTEEM

The wilderness family was humble as its needs. It was as least as good
as its neighbors. One thing we should appreciate as significant, in
the destitution of the times, the Lincoln family was adventurous and
enterprising until it arrived for final settlement in the richest
soil-regions of the Mississippi valley, and the freest mind-regions of
political America.

In the spring of 1830, on account of ill health in the neighborhood,
Lincoln's father decided to move from the unpromising forests of
Indiana to the fertile prairies of Illinois. Friends and relatives had
already preceded him, and had sent back glowing accounts of the
prairie lands. When the family arrived in Illinois, Lincoln was
probably as near destitute as ever in his life, and he entered into a
contract "to split four hundred rails for every yard of brown jeans
dyed with white walnut bark that would make a pair of trousers."

Lincoln was now past twenty-one, and, it may be said, not until his
arrival at New Salem had he found firm ground on which to begin
building to some plan of life. Undoubtedly, his vision of the future
was one of very vague dreams. That he was adventurous and looked
beyond his community for the fulfillment of his fortunes is shown in
his effort at commercial enterprise with nothing as his capital. He
now arranged to take a second raft of home goods to New Orleans. Such
a venture required no small amount of courage and self-reliance.

Wide observation with suitable thinking seems to give one prudence and
steadiness of mind in emergencies. In several trying instances this
proved to be true in Lincoln's experience, long before the
civilization of America was depending upon his warm heart and clear
head. Many such instances seem as trivial as the trimmings of a
sapling, but they are the perfecting process that makes possible the
great oak.

When his flatboat was finished at New Salem, it was necessary to have
a canoe that was to trail along behind the boat. The canoe was made
from a dugout log. When it was shoved into the booming Sangamon
river, his two friends, John Seamon and Walter Carmon, sprang into it
for the first ride, but the stream was too swift for them. The current
began to sweep them away down stream.

"Head up stream," Lincoln shouted, "and work back to shore."

But they could not beat the rush of water. Nearing the wreck of an old
flatboat, they tried to pull the canoe in among the timbers and hold
themselves fast. Seamon caught hold of a stanchion as they came by and
the canoe was overturned, leaving Seamon clinging to the timber and
Carmon being borne down stream, clinging to the slippery log.

Lincoln yelled for Carmon to swim for the branches of an elm tree that
swung in the high water near the shore. Carmon did this. Lincoln then
called to Seamon to swim for the tree with Carmon and they could be
rescued together.

It was a very cold April day and the men were in danger of becoming
too benumbed to hold on. By this time the whole village of New Salem
was gathered at the bank.

Lincoln procured a rope, which he fastened to a large log. The log was
pushed into the water and a venturesome young fellow named Jim Darrell
bestrode the log that was to be floated down stream to the rescue.

The log went straight to the tree all right, but the young man was too
eager to help his fellows. In the struggles the log was turned and so
caught in the current that it was swept away from them and there were
now three to be rescued from the tree.

The log was towed back. Lincoln tied another rope to it, and held the
end of the rope in his hand. He then mounted the log to take the
dangerous ride himself. As the log came into the tree, he threw the
rope around a limb and held fast. In another minute all three of the
shipwrecked men were safely astride the log. He then told the people
to let go the guiding rope. The well-calculated result was that the
current against the log, and the pull on the rope fastened to the
limb, swung them safely around to the shore.

Strange and foreign as it may seem, numerous clear-headed exploits
like this made his neighbors believe in him. Such belief encouraged
him to believe in himself, and, trivial as the analogy may seem, and
unworthy as the comparison might be, it doubtless had much to do in
strengthening his ambition to surpass his surroundings and gain the
larger fields of service. It is said that no one ever learned faster
in any situation than Lincoln. He never "lost his head" in any whirl
of events, and always before the crisis arrived he was facing it as
master.

[Illustration: Lincoln's Residence at Springfield, Illinois.]

Lincoln's raft from New Salem arrived in New Orleans in May, 1831. At
that time it seemed as if all the adventurers in the world had
gathered there, and it was probably the wickedest city on earth. It
was the gathering place of pirates, robbers and wild boatmen of the
river and gulf.

The city in its wild prosperity and barbarity must have made a strong
impression on Lincoln. Worst of all was its hideous slave market. Here
men and women were herded together like animals and sold like cattle.
Here he saw negro girls, many of them nearly white, treated like
beasts. At the auctioning off of a mulatto girl he turned away from
the revolting spectacle, saying to his companions, "Boys, let's get
away from this. If I ever get a chance to hit that thing (meaning
slavery), I'll hit it hard."

And to him was given the chance, through the terrible ordeal of civil
war, to drive that shame forever from the land of freedom. Only in the
light of twentieth century developments can we look back and see what
a desperate condition America would be in if the Southern half of the
United States had succeeded in becoming a separate slave-nation. Great
evils were involved and great wrongs had to be worked out from among
the passions and prejudice of the times, but we can now all believe,
no matter how meritorious was state patriotism, or how sincere the
faith of the people, or how correct their interpretation of the
original Union, that we have a greater America, destined to take a
better part in making a nobler civilization for a more progressive
world.


III. TESTS OF CHARACTER ON THE LAWLESS FRONTIER

There were gangs of good-natured rowdies, and there were roughhouse
communities in pioneer days.

Such a community and such a gang was in the neighborhood of New Salem,
known as Clary's Grove and the Clary Grove Boys. They delighted in
being rough and coarse, though, it is said, to their credit, that they
were generous and most faithful friends.

Denton Offutt for some reason liked to boast to them of his hired man.
He seemed to believe that it shed glory on himself as an employer. He
told the Clary Boys that his man could lift more, throw farther, run
faster, jump higher and wrestle better than any man in Sangamon
County. This hurt the Clary boys' sense of superiority. They decided
to test it out. Accordingly, they appointed Jack Armstrong as their
best man to prove their right to the championship.

Lincoln objected to the "tussle and scuffle" ideas of the time, he
disbelieved in the honors won by "wooling and pulling," but the age of
"fist-and-skull" duels was not yet at an end, and the question of best
man had to be tried out.

Clary's Grove came one day to back their man as representative of
themselves, and New Salem turned out to back the other. It was to be
"catch-as-catch-can and the best man wins."

The task to represent New Salem against the neighboring rowdydom was
not an easy one. But such is human nature that who can say what effect
it would have had on Lincoln's future if he had been beaten and
bullied over in that fight. Perhaps it shows how needful it is to do
well everything at hand to be done, because we do not know how it may
be part of our way to the unknowable future.

The champions came together according to the "fair play" of the time.
They clinched and swayed, those two strong men, but neither could be
moved from his feet. Each side was yelling itself hoarse, as the one
who was to be the greatest of Americans strove with the one who would
long ago be as forgotten as his dust, except for the struggle he made
and for the conquest.

Feeling himself being defeated, one of them did not play the game
fair. It was not Lincoln. The champion of the Clary gang played a
trick, and Lincoln caught him by the throat, holding him out at arm's
length, where he could only kick, and squirm and beat the air, but
could do nothing against that long, strong right arm. The Clary gang
rushed to the rescue, and it looked as if he would have to fight them
all when Armstrong declared that he had enough, and that Lincoln was
the "best fellow that ever broke into camp."

Not long after this the Clary gang elected Lincoln as Captain of their
sports and henceforth were among his most faithful friends. The fact
that Lincoln could hold the political support and good-will of both
the best and the worst shows that there was a reliability in his
character to which they could together safely give allegiance.

The friendship of Jack Armstrong and his family, after the fight,
never swerved, and the time came when Lincoln repaid their kindness
and their simple loyalty in a great way. Years afterward, when Lincoln
had become a renowned lawyer, Jack Armstrong's son was accused of
murder. They went for Lincoln and Lincoln came. He studied the case
and became convinced that the son of his old friend was innocent.

There had been a quarrel among some young men one night near an
out-of-door camp meeting, and one had been stabbed to death.

Young Armstrong was arrested on the testimony of one who claimed to
have seen the blow struck by the light of the moon.

Lincoln made the witness repeat his testimony about the moon and then
began his address to the jury. He told of his relations to the
prisoner's father, of the kindness of the mother, and how he had
played with the boy as a child. Then he said that he was not there as
paid attorney but as a friend of the family. With that explanation, he
reviewed the testimony showing that all the evidence depended on what
the witness had seen by the light of the moon. At this point he
produced an almanac showing that there was no moon on the night of the
murder. The jury took only a very short consultation to bring in a
verdict of "Not Guilty."

This story has often been told in which the almanac is represented as
having been an old one, thus winning the case by a trick of falsehood,
but investigation has proven this to be untrue, accordingly supporting
the statement that Lincoln never used such tactics to win a case.

We have learned that no character in history can be understood except
in relation to its surroundings. Otherwise, Lincoln's fight with the
backwoods' ruffians might now seem vulgar and lawless, but it was in
truth a powerful factor in building his life for its supreme service.
It not only helped to establish his own conscious integrity, but it
was planting respect for him among his neighbors, which was as
necessary for his growth of reputation as anything at any time in his
career. The time when a boy can afford not "to care what people think"
depends very much not only upon the boy and the people, but also upon
what is meant by the "care" and the "think."


IV. THE PIONEER MISSIONARY OF HUMANITY

The pioneer West was indeed uncouth, but there were many noteworthy
redeeming features in the zeal of the better classes for ideal
interests. Doubtless, Lincoln was often inspired by such a fair view
of humanity. Many an incident is told of the unselfish devotion among
the people with whom Lincoln lived.

The zeal in having a mission in those days was something that is
almost unimaginable in these days. It is illustrated by the following
incident told by Milburn of the useful men of those days in touch with
the Lincoln life.

A young travelling preacher, and the preachers of that period in those
regions were really all travelling if they were preachers, for they
had no abiding place, was so much beloved by a man who had acquired a
large amount of land, that the man made the young preacher the present
of a deed to half a section of land. The young man, being destitute,
was much rejoiced to receive the gift of three hundred and twenty
acres of good prairie soil. He went away with a grateful heart toward
his generous benefactor. Three months later he returned, and, as he
greeted the generous friend at the door, he handed back the deed,
saying, "Here, sir, I want you to take back your title-deed."

"What's the matter," asked the surprised friend. "Anything wrong with
it?"

"No," replied the young man, as if somewhat ashamed to give his
reason.

"Isn't the land good enough?"

"Good as any in the state."

"Are you afraid it is a sickly place?"

"Healthy as anywhere."

"Do you think I am sorry I gave it to you?"

"I haven't the slightest reason to doubt your whole-hearted
generosity."

"Then why in the thunder don't you keep it?" inquired the dumbfounded
benefactor.

"Well, sir, if I must tell you," said the young preacher, "you know I
am very fond of singing, and there's one hymn in my book, which has
been one of my greatest comforts in life, and it is not so any more. I
have lost the joy of singing it, and it has killed so much other joy
that I can no longer endure the privation. I will sing you one verse."

Then he sang:

    "No foot of land do I possess,
    No cottage in the wilderness;
    A poor wayfaring man.
    I lodge awhile in tents below,
    And gladly wander to and fro,
    Till I my Canaan gain;
    There is my house and portion fair,
    My treasure and my heart are there,
    And my abiding home."

"Please take your title-deed," he exclaimed. "I want to have the joy I
used to have in singing that song. I'd rather sing it with a clear
conscience than to own America."

It was among such people sacrificing themselves for humanity that
Lincoln found his great inspiration from the sordid and mean that are
ever to be found muckraking at the bottom. The family may be in a good
home, safe for its children, but the good home must be in a good
community or they are not safe. In fact, we cannot be sure of a good
home unless its good community is in a good world. Good people in a
good community are of priceless help to a good mother bringing up a
good boy, with the biggest meaning of life in the word good.


V. EXPERIENCES IN THE INDIAN WAR

Great events probably have less effect in shaping one's life than the
little incidents that compose them. It seems so with Lincoln.

The confidence and appreciation of his friends (note that it was not
his self-seeking aggressiveness) caused him to believe that he should
try to become their representative in the state legislature. He was in
the midst of this, his first political campaign, which was at the age
of twenty-three, when Black Hawk, the Indian warrior, crossed the
Mississippi River, April 6, 1832, with his five hundred followers and
began what is known as the Black Hawk War.

The white settlers had gradually occupied the Indians' land, and the
government by treaties had caused the Indians to be removed to
territory west of the Mississippi. Black Hawk, a leader of the Sacs
and Foxes, believed the Indians to be mistreated and so resolved to
drive the white settlers back to the treaty line.

"My reason teaches me," he wrote to the government, "that land cannot
be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon, and
cultivate, as far as is necessary for their living; and so long as
they occupy and cultivate it they have a right to the soil, but, if
they willingly leave it, then any other people have a right to settle
on it. Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away."

There are now several social theories based on this idea that the
earth belongs to the people who use it. The theory of right things
governs the minds of all who think, even of the wild men in the
wilderness.

When the news arrived that the Indians had declared war against the
whites, with the appeal from Governor Reynolds for volunteers, Lincoln
dropped his canvass for the legislature in order to enlist for the
defense of his country.

The man-making incident in this important event was Lincoln's election
as captain of his home company. If there had been one thing which
Lincoln had not studied, that was the tactics of a soldier. He knew
nothing about military orders, and yet the time was coming, all too
soon, when he was to be chief of the greatest military organization
then in the world.

A sawmill owner named Kilpatrick was pushing himself forward to be
made captain. This man owed Lincoln two dollars for work and would not
pay it.

Lincoln got an idea and he said to his friend Greene, "Bill, I believe
I can now make Kilpatrick pay that two dollars he owes me. I'll run
against him for captain."

When it came to the vote, the two candidates stood out in the open,
and the men were told to stand up by the man they wanted to be
captain. More than three-fourths of them gathered around Lincoln, and
he became Captain Lincoln. He tells us himself that he never had any
success in life which gave him more satisfaction. It was a vote of
confidence in the reality of a man.

In telling of his ignorance of military command, he says that he was
marching his company across a field when they came to a gate. "I could
not for the life of me remember the proper word of command for getting
my company endwise, so that the line could get through the gate; so,
as we came up to the gate, I shouted, 'This company is dismissed for
two minutes, when it will fall in again on the other side of the
gate.'"

He was also totally unfamiliar with camp discipline, and he once had
his sword taken from him for shooting off his rifle within limits. At
another time his company stole some whisky, and, during the night,
became so drunk that they could not fall in line the next morning. For
this neglect of discipline Lincoln had to wear a wooden sword for two
days. But his men respected him and were his devoted friends. They
knew he meant what he said, and whatever they saw of him was the
truth.

His firmness in the right "as God gives us to see the right," even
against his associates, is illustrated in the incident of saving an
Indian's life.

The frontiersman's standard of morality toward an Indian was that the
only good Indian is a dead Indian.

One day an Indian was brought into camp. He was trying to cross the
country and return to his tribe. To do this was his privilege and
General Cass had given him an order of safe conduct. But the
frontiersmen had come out to kill Indians and this was their first
chance. Lincoln stood up by the side of the red man, and boldly took
the Indian's part. Some rebellious ones determined to take the Indian
and kill him, even if they had to fight Lincoln to do it. But Lincoln
stood up by the side of the red man and gave them to understand that
it could be done only over his dead body. They knew that he meant it.
The result was that the Indian was allowed to go his way, and the
resolute Captain never lost a friend for it. Many an act of mercy in
keeping with this one has made his name beloved throughout the earth.
His soldiering lasted three months, but it doubtless gave him many
ideas for use in the greater events of after years.


VI. LIFE-MAKING DECISIONS

At the close of his unsuccessful canvass, in August of 1832, for the
Illinois Assembly, he was out of anything to do, and he seriously
considered the advice of his friends to become a blacksmith. This was
a suitable trade for him, they said, because he was so strong armed.
But this work gave him no leisure for study and he decided against it.
The only thing he knew was store-keeping and he decided to buy a
store. The opportunity was open for him to buy a half interest with
William Berry and he did so, giving notes for the goods. Business
prospered rapidly while the enthusiasm was on, but Berry loved whisky
as much as Lincoln loved books, and between the one who squandered
time and money on liquor, and the one who neglected business for
books, there could not be expected any results more natural than that
business should finally go to pieces.

It was in the midst of these conditions that Berry took out a tavern
license for the firm. It is understood that this was not for the
purpose of keeping a liquor grocery, but to enable them to sell the
stock on hand that had come to them from the stores they had bought
out, and probably to get the much needed money to conduct their
business. In those days a store could get no business if it had no
liquor to sell. The personal morality of a thing must be considered in
relation to the times. The selling of liquor by the quart was then as
unquestioned propriety as selling potatoes or flour. Liquor was sold
in all grocery stores as a part of the general business of the store
the same as tobacco or sugar.

But it should be noted that the license was taken out in the name of
Berry and that Lincoln's name was signed by some other person to the
bond.

Among the characteristic incidents told of Lincoln during this period
is that of his encounter with a swaggering stranger who came into the
store and used his choicest oaths in the presence of some women.
Lincoln asked him to stop but he paid no attention. At the second
request, more firmly given, he declared that nobody could dictate his
style of language in a free country.

"Well," said Lincoln, as the newcomer continued swearing, "if you must
be whipped, I suppose I might as well whip you as any other man."

The man believed he could "whip" Lincoln and vindicate the freedom of
speech and the rights of man. According to his theory, right was on
his side, and it could be vindicated by battle. Lincoln's more
concrete object was to prevent swearing in the presence of women. So
they went outside to begin the war. The obliging persons present
formed a ring around the combatants to insure fair play, and the
freedom of decency began its war with the freedom of speech, according
to the ancient wager of battle.

New Salem had little doubt about which would win. In a minute Lincoln
was rubbing smartweed into the eyes of the freedom of speech, and the
rights of man was bellowing for mercy.

New Salem was at bottom composed of real men and they liked that sort
of thing. The champion of genuine human freedom and real rights in New
Salem was building his unknown way to be the champion of the same
fundamental human interests in the capital of his nation.

It is very likely that those who feel little think even less, because
those wideawake enough to think much must have imagination, which is
the mother of sympathy. Many stories are told of Lincoln's deep
feeling of sympathy for those about him, and especially he was the
friend who believed in decency and loved moral order.

"Honest Abe" is a name that would be generally regarded now as a
"nickname" expressing a kind of good-natured contempt. Justice now
wades deep streams in the adjustments of big business. But Abraham
Lincoln had a musical soul and the color harmony of a great scenic
artist for humanity. He might not have an eye for fitness in clothes
or the idealism of pretty things, but his soul was in pain over any
mistreatment of human beings. He could not endure the discordant note
in any dishonest transaction, and he could not stand for any blur on
the canvas in the scenes of mercy and justice. Like great standards of
right-life waving in the breeze were many acts of Lincoln endearing
him to the confidence of his people. As an illustration may be
mentioned the incident of his taking six and a quarter cents too much
from a customer. He walked three miles in the evening after the store
closed, in order to restore the money. Another time he weighed out
half a pound of tea and afterward discovered that a four-ounce weight
had been on the scales. He weighed out the extra four ounces and
closed the store so he could promptly deliver the remainder of the
tea. This was probably poor business, but it meant much for human
liberty that the people believed in him, and that he always made good
in fulfillment of that belief.

Any one doing these things now would very likely be playing the game
of getting a reputation for honesty as the best policy for the sake of
the policy, and if he required such strictness of dealing with himself
he would be regarded merely as a miser. Only bankers, the post office
and big business are expected legitimately to hunt for the lost cent
all night before the account books can be closed. But this was
Lincoln's whole life and his neighbors knew it. They told other people
that he was a man to be trusted until at last the whole world knew it,
and the historians recorded it among the imperishable records of
civilization.

A nation is rich as it has such ideals of character, especially in
this kind striving on from the lowliest to the highest, through the
destitution and discouragement that may drag down the aspiring dream
of better life.

Robert Browning appreciates the honored names when he says,

    "A nation is but an attempt of many,
    To rise to the completer life of one;
    And they who live as models for the mass
    Are simply of more value than they all."



CHAPTER V


I. BUSINESS NOT HARMONIOUS WITH THE STRUGGLE FOR LEARNING

The people believed in Lincoln and that made him believe in himself,
but they would never have believed in him if they had not seen the
unchanging conduct that is necessary for human confidence. If the
people had not believed in him he would never have had the confidence
to develop his way of life, able at last to face the world-making
problems of the great Civil War, and thus to hold to a course of
conduct, which he knew to be right, against the hisses, slander and
desperate intrigue of men and masses, who knew that he was making a
civilization in America contrary to their mercenary interests and
their customary moral standards.

Business men are devoted to the business game. Otherwise the play is
poor business. So, the man whose happiness was in learning could not
be a business man. The store did not pay. As Lincoln was compelled to
earn his living at other work, the management of the store was
entirely in the hands of Berry, with whom it went from bad to worse
until two brothers offered to buy out the business. The store was
sold, not for cash, but for notes covering the amount.

When the notes became due, the two brothers fled. The store was closed
by the creditors, the goods were auctioned off, and a heavy remaining
debt was against Berry and Lincoln. Soon after this Berry died and all
the debt was against Lincoln. Now was the time for him "to skip the
country," as was the custom. But he did not "clear out" and therewith
beat his creditors out of the debt of eleven hundred dollars.

Lincoln told a friend that this debt, in many ways an unjust one,
because he did not make it, was "the greatest obstacle I ever met in
life. I had no way of speculating, and could not earn money, except by
labor; and to earn by labor eleven hundred dollars, besides the
interest and my living, seemed the work of a lifetime." It did,
indeed, take all he could earn above his living for seventeen years.
But he did it. He paid the debt in full. The moral system in his soul
was never sold for the mess of pottage in any temporary distress. "To
thyself be true," says Shakespeare, "and it follows, as the night the
day, thou canst not be false to any man." Many think themselves to be
an emotion, or a tired feeling, or a fool ambition, or a will to do
something, but it is not so. My self is a system, an identity, an
integrity, a consistency, that has no hour, or day, or year, but at
least a life time.

One of Lincoln's creditors, who was like Shylock, demanded his exact
dues the exact time they were due. He sued Lincoln and got judgment,
so that the surveyor's tools, and everything by which he made his
living were seized and put up for sale by auction.

Lincoln's friends gathered at the sale without saying anything about
what they would or would not do. The demand was for one hundred and
twenty dollars. Very few could spare any such sum. But the things,
horse, saddle, surveying instruments, etc., were all bought in by
James Short, a farmer living on Sand Ridge, just north of New Salem.
Then this farmer turned them all over to Lincoln. That benevolent
farmer did not know what he was doing for his country when he did
that, but it was a great deed.

A few years later James Short moved out to California. For some reason
he had lost most of his property and had become a poor man. When
Lincoln became president he heard of the distress "Uncle Jimmy" was in
and one day the old man received a letter from Washington. Opening
it, he found an appointment from Lincoln as commissioner to the
Indians.


II. MAKING A LIVING AND LEARNING THE MEANING OF LIFE

Lincoln belonged to the Whig political party, but he was appointed
postmaster by the Democratic administration in 1833. That there was
not much mail may be inferred from the fact that it would cost
twenty-five cents, in those scarce times, to send a letter or the
ordinary magazine of today from any distance around of four hundred
miles. His kindliness of spirit is well illustrated in the fact that
he delivered most of the mail himself, knowing how precious it was to
the person addressed.

As postmaster, Lincoln had to make an accounting to the government for
its share of money received, and this was to be receipted for by the
postoffice agent. There was much chance for graft, and especially so
in this case, as the agent to settle the business did not appear. It
was not till Lincoln became a practicing lawyer in Springfield that
the agent called upon him to close up his accounts as postmaster at
New Salem.

The postoffice inspector produced a claim for seventeen dollars.
Lincoln paused a moment as if perplexed to remember just what it was.
A friend, seeing this, thought it was because Lincoln did not have the
money, and so offered to lend him that amount. Without answering,
Lincoln went to his trunk and brought out a package containing the
exact amount, put away all that time, awaiting the business call of
the postoffice agent.

As he turned over the money and received the receipt, he said, "I
never use any man's money but my own."

It is interesting to note that both Washington and Lincoln became
surveyors just before the opening of their great careers. It can be
reasonably said that, by analogy, and even by contrast, they were also
great surveyors for the rights of mankind.

Sangamon County was settling up so rapidly that John Calhoun, the
official surveyor, could not do the required work. He had heard of
Lincoln as being capable of doing almost anything required, so he sent
for him to come and take the position of deputy surveyor.

Lincoln, so far, had studied human beings and law. He knew nothing
about mathematics, much less about surveying, probably not more than
he knew about military tactics when he was elected captain. But he
knew he could learn what any one else had learned. He bought a book on
surveying and stayed with it almost day and night. He borrowed
wherever he could hear of a book on surveying. In six weeks he had
mastered the subject so that the many surveys he afterward made were
never disputed and were always found to be correct.

It is said that he was too poor at first to buy a surveyor's chain and
so used a grapevine. But even a grapevine in the hands of Lincoln told
the truth about measurements, and the town of Petersburg, Illinois, is
proud of having been surveyed and laid out by Lincoln.


III. OUT OF THE WILDERNESS PATHS INTO THE GREAT HIGHWAY

The Great Teacher in his "Sermon on the Mount," said, "Blessed are
they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be
filled." If that destitute boy had not hungered and thirsted after
right knowledge, the whole history of America, after his time, would
have been different. But what boy would read, or what other boy ever
did read such a book as the "Revised Statutes of Indiana?" To be sure,
not the boy who is most interested in getting merely the most pleasure
out of life, but the one who has a great desire to be useful and
worthwhile in the world.

The next book that deeply impressed his career and probably had most
to do with developing him to influence profoundly the history of our
country was that beginning of every lawyer's life, "Blackstone's
Commentaries."

This is the way Lincoln tells it himself: "One day a man, who was
migrating to the West, drove up in front of my store with a wagon
which contained his family and household plunder. He asked me if I
would buy an old barrel, for which he had no room in his wagon, which
he said contained nothing of value. I did not want it, but, to oblige
him, I bought it, and paid him, I think, a half-dollar. Without
further examination I put it away in the store, and forgot all about
it. Some time after, in overhauling things, I came upon the barrel,
and, emptying it upon the floor to see what it contained, I found at
the bottom of the rubbish a complete edition of Blackstone's
Commentaries. I began reading those famous works and the more I read
the more intensely interested I became. Never in my whole life was my
mind so thoroughly absorbed."

[Illustration: First Inauguration of Lincoln as President.]

It was that interest which made the man and the great historical
character of Lincoln. One lives according to his interest in life, and
the meaning realized in him as humanity.

In 1834 Lincoln again tried for the legislature, and this time was
elected. This gave him his long desired opportunity to study law. He
borrowed books and read them incessantly until he mastered them. He
never studied law with any one, as was the custom in those days. He
did not require a teacher to lay out or explain his mental tasks.

To a young man who asked him, twenty years later, how to become a
successful lawyer, he said, "Get books. Read and study them carefully.
Work, work, work is the main thing."


IV. LINCOLN'S FIRST LAW CASES

One of the first important law cases of Lincoln in its claims sounds
remarkably like the unsolved problems of today, and shows how rights
have to be developed year by year, how the public mind has to be built
up from idea to idea like an individual mind.

A public-spirited attempt was made to build a bridge across the upper
Mississippi. The boatmen declared it to be an invasion of human
rights, as they had vested interests at stake in the business they had
built up, ferrying people across the river. They declared that a man
was an enemy of the people who would try to destroy business. But
Lincoln won the case against them in favor of building the bridge for
the larger interest of the people.

In another significant case he set a legal precedent. A negro girl had
been sold in the free territory of Illinois. A note had been given for
her but the maker of the note could not pay it when it became due and
was sued for it.

Lincoln defended the maker of the note on the ground that the note was
invalid because a human being could not be bought and sold in
Illinois. The case was carried to the Supreme Court, where it was
decided that Lincoln's view of the case was correct law.

Another experience has still greater significance as to the
professional character of Lincoln. He was engaged as counsel in a
reaper patent case. It was to be tried at Cincinnati. The opposing
counsel was an eminent lawyer from the East. Lincoln's friends were
eager for him to win this case, as it would give him great renown and
prestige.

His client had four hundred thousand dollars at stake, an enormous
sum at that time, and the capitalist became frightened at the great
talent arrayed against Lincoln. He called in the services of a
correspondingly great Eastern lawyer, Edwin M. Stanton. This eminent
man was shocked at the sight of his colleague, Lincoln. He took entire
control of the case and not only ignored Lincoln, but openly insulted
him. Lincoln, through an open door in the hotel, heard Stanton
scornfully exclaim to the client who had employed Lincoln, "Where did
that long-armed creature come from and what can he expect to do in
this case?"

At another time Stanton spoke of Lincoln as "a long, lank creature
from Illinois, wearing a dirty linen duster for a coat, on the back of
which the perspiration had splotched wide stains that resembled a map
of the continent."

Lincoln, completely discouraged and thrown out of any possible council
with a man thus against him, quit the case and sorrowfully returned to
Illinois.

And yet, only a few years later, in the great crisis of approaching
disunion, Lincoln became President of the United States and he made
Stanton his Secretary of War. Very soon Stanton learned to prize "the
long-armed creature" as one of the noblest and greatest men in the
world. No one of Lincoln's colleagues ever questioned his superior
leadership as the supreme chief in a struggle profoundly affecting
all civilization and human government.

When we consider how Lincoln worked his way up, through such
destitution of knowledge and means, in twenty-five years,
from a five-dollar suit before a justice of the peace to a
five-thousand-dollar fee before the Supreme Court of the United
States, we know that such progress does not come about by accident nor
political fortunes, but by sheer interest and work.


V. THE MAN WHO COULD NOT LIVE FOR SELF ALONE

Henry Cabot Lodge says, "Lincoln could have said with absolute truth,
as Seneca's Pilot says, in Montaigne's paraphrase, 'Oh, Neptune, thou
mayest save me if thou wilt; thou mayest sink me if thou wilt; but
whatever may befall I shall hold my tiller true.'"

The moral process of his life, in which the recorded incidents are
only way-marks, is the only worthwhile interest for the American youth
or for the newcomer to our shores.

Lincoln's life-creed may be taken from a statement he has made of his
personal duty. "I am not bound to win," he said, "but I am bound to be
true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to the
light I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right. I must
stand with him while he is right, and I must part with him when he is
wrong."

That this does not mean infallible individual judgment executed at any
cost as imperial individual will may be inferred from the beginning of
the statement, but it does mean the infallible integrity of honest
conscience and character.

Lincoln had a conscience that was like harmony in music, and he could
not uphold a wrong thing any more than he could intentionally use a
wrong figure and hope to solve correctly his problem.

As an illustrating incident, one of his clients wanted to bring suit
against a widow with six children for six hundred dollars.

"Yes," said Lincoln, "there is no reasonable doubt that I can win this
case for you; I can set the whole neighborhood at loggerheads; I can
greatly distress a widow and her six fatherless children, and thereby
gain six hundred dollars for you which I can see belongs to them with
about as much right as to you, but I'll give you a little advice for
nothing. Try some other way to get six hundred dollars."

Like the rich man who went away so disturbed from the advice of
Christ, this man went away sorrowing.

In another instance Lincoln started in with a case believing his
client innocent, then he reached the belief that the man was guilty.
Turning to his associates in the case, he said, "Sweet, this man is
guilty. You defend him. I can't." The large fee in the case was
forfeited, but his self-respect, that nobility which carried him
through many great dark hours, was saved.

Once, when out with his lawyer-companions, he climbed a tree,
searching for a bird's nest, out of which two fledgelings had fallen.
His companions made sport of him for giving so much time and work to
such worthless things, but he exclaimed with such genuine feeling as
to silence them, "I could not have gone to sleep in peace if I had not
restored those little birds to their mother."

Lincoln liked to argue, and, to pass the time in a certain stage-coach
ride, he was arguing that every act, no matter how kind, was always
prompted by a selfish motive. About this time the stage passed a ditch
in which a pig was stuck fast in the mud. Lincoln asked the driver to
stop. He then jumped out and rescued the pig.

The passenger with whom Lincoln had been arguing thought that he now
had proof for his own side of the case.

"Now look here," he said as Lincoln climbed back into the stage, "you
can't say that was a selfish act."

"Yes, I can," replied Lincoln. "It was extremely selfish. If I had
left that little fellow sticking in the mud, it would have made me
uncomfortable till I forgot it. That's why I had to help him out."

General Littlefield says that one day a client came in with a very
profitable case for Lincoln. He told Lincoln his story. Lincoln
listened a little while and his look went up to the ceiling in a very
abstract way. Presently, he swung his chair around and said, "Well,
you have a pretty good case in technical law, but a pretty bad one in
equity and justice. You'll have to get some other fellow to win this
case for you. I couldn't do it. If I was talking to the jury in favor
of your case, I'd all the time be thinking, 'Lincoln, you're a liar,'
and I believe I'd forget myself and say it out loud."

Coleridge in his "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" might well have had
Lincoln in mind when he wrote,

    "Farewell! Farewell! but this I tell
    To thee, thou wedding guest!
    He prayeth well who loveth well
    Both man and bird and beast.

    "He prayeth best who loveth best
    All things both great and small
    For the dear God who loveth us,
    He made and loveth all."

That was Lincoln's religion, to love his fellow-men and his country.
In the turmoil of wrongs infesting the confusions that were
bewildering all minds at the close of the Civil War, all now know that
both North and South lost the noblest and most valued friend, the
ablest and wisest restorer, anywhere to be found in all the vast
regions of pain.



CHAPTER VI


I. HELPFULNESS AND KINDNESS OF A WORTH-WHILE CHARACTER

It would take a whole book to tell the stories of kindness and
sympathy told by those who were neighbors and friends of Lincoln. All
who knew him agree in saying how much he loved children and how
considerate he was for the comfort of others.

While living in the Rutledge tavern he often took upon himself all
kinds of discomforts to accommodate travellers. The Great Book says,
"He who loses his life for my sake shall find it." Lincoln seemed most
of the time to forget that he had any life of his own in trying to do
good to others. Many times he served ungrateful people, and many
persons mistreated him who mistook his kindness for servility, but
that didn't change Lincoln. He kept right on doing good to others,
until at last he lost his life, in the full meaning of that phrase,
but we may be sure that somewhere else he has found it.

If a traveller became stuck in the mud, literally or figuratively,
Lincoln always seemed to be the first to see his need. If widows and
orphans were suffering, he was the first to know it and relieve their
wants.

Deeds of kindness often look like "bread cast upon the waters," but we
are assured that such is not lost, for it "shall return after many
days."

The effective way in which Lincoln sometimes turned upon those who
"run him down" by sarcastic references to his poverty or looks is
illustrated by his reply to George Forquer. Lincoln was to make his
first speech in the Court House at Springfield, and he was to be
answered by Forquer, a rather aristocratic citizen of the town who had
been a Whig, but who had recently turned over to the Democrats and
received the appointment to an important office. Incidentally, he had
also put up a lightning rod to protect his rather showy house, and
this fact was quite well known, because it was the first lightning rod
to be put upon a house in that county.

Forquer rose to speak as Lincoln sat down, and his smile of derision
seemed to show that he expected to demolish with ridicule the
backwoodsman from New Salem.

Turning to Lincoln, he said, "The young man must be taken down, and I
am truly sorry that the task devolves upon me."

He was a witty and sarcastic speaker. He did not try to argue but
ridiculed Lincoln in the most offensive way. Lincoln's friends feared
for this onslaught, not knowing what Lincoln could say. But Lincoln
said it so effectively in a few words, as he always seemed able to do,
that his opponent lost and never recovered.

In closing a very short reply, Lincoln said, pointing his long,
accusing finger at Forquer in a scathing rebuke:

"Live long or die young, I would rather die now than, like this
gentleman, change my politics, and with the change receive an office
with a salary of three thousand dollars a year, and then feel obliged
to erect a lightning rod over my house to protect a guilty conscience
from the fear of an angry God."


II. THE LOVE OF FREEDOM AND TRUTH

Lincoln's fairness for all men, even when they were his opponents and
the enemies of his cause, may be seen in his defense of Colonel Baker.

There was a bitter political campaign in progress, and Colonel Baker
was making a speech to a rough crowd in the courthouse. This building
had been built to be a storehouse and directly over the speaker was a
loft with a stairway near the speaker's stand. Lincoln was sitting on
the platform above as a more convenient place to hear the speaker than
from the crowded floor below.

The speaker began to say things that annoyed the crowd. Suddenly the
yell was raised to take him off the stand and put him out. The crowd
surged forward when Lincoln's long legs were seen to swing over the
edge of the opening at the head of the stairs as if he had no time to
use the steps. He alighted on his feet by the speaker's side.

"Gentlemen," cried Lincoln as he raised his hand to stop the oncoming
rioters, "let us not disgrace the age and country in which we live.
This is a land where the freedom of speech is guaranteed. Mr. Baker
has a right to speak, and ought to be permitted to do so. I am here to
protect him, and no man shall take him from this stand if I can
prevent it."

The sudden appearance of this champion of human rights dropping down
from above so unexpectedly, his perfect calmness and fairness and the
well-known fact that he was no idle boaster, quieted the outbreak, and
Colonel Baker finished his address in peace.

Joshua Speed tells how Lincoln rode into Springfield on a borrowed
horse to attend his first session of the legislature with all his
earthly possessions packed into his saddle bags. Lincoln came into the
store owned by Speed and asked the price of a bedstead with its
equipment of bedding. The price was named, Lincoln said that was no
doubt cheap enough but that he could not buy it unless the storekeeper
could wait for part of the pay until the money was earned.

Speed was greatly impressed with the earnest young man. He offered to
share with him the room which he used over the store. He pointed to
the stairway leading up to the room.

Lincoln went up the stairs and in a moment appeared at the stairway
with beaming face.

"Well, Speed," he said, "I am moved."

Thus he made friends of all persons at once and they were not
fairweather friends, but lifetime friends.

The homely old copybook text so familiar to our grandmothers, "Beauty
is as beauty does," applies well to the appearance of Lincoln, and to
the first impressions received by those who saw him. Paraphrasing the
poet, "none knew him but to love him, none knew him but to praise." He
was like one transformed in the animation and zeal of expressing his
profound sentiments of freedom, humanity and truth.

One who knew Lincoln well says, "He was one of the homeliest men ever
seen when walking around, but while he was making a speech he was one
of the handsomest men I have ever known."


III. THE WIT-MAKERS AND THEIR WIT

Lincoln's quick wit never contained any sting and he lost no friends
by it. On one occasion several of his friends got into an argument
about the proper proportions of the body. They could agree on their
theories in all respects excepting the relative length of the legs.
Lincoln listened gravely to their arguments, and, as usual, some one
asked him his opinion.

"It is of course one of the most important of problems, and doubtless
was a source of great anxiety to the maker of man. But, after all is
said and done, it is my opinion that man's lower limbs, in order to
combine harmony and service, should be at least long enough to reach
from his body to the ground."

At another time a very unhandsome man stopped Lincoln and peered
offensively into his face.

"What seems to be the matter, my friend," inquired Lincoln.

"Well," replied the stranger, "I have always considered it my duty if
ever I came across a man uglier than myself to shoot him on the spot."

Lincoln took his hand in friendly agreement.

"Stranger, if this is really true, shoot me. If I thought I was uglier
than you, I'd want to die."

Senator Voorhees of Indiana said that he once heard Lincoln defeat a
windy little pettifogging lawyer by telling a story. After showing how
the fellow's arguments were only empty words, he said, "He can't help
it. When his oratory begins it exhausts all his force of mind. The
moment he begins to talk his mental operations cease. I never knew of
but one thing that was similar to my friend in that respect. Back in
the days when I was a keel boatman I became acquainted with a puffy
little steamboat, which used to bustle and wheeze its way up and down
the Sangamon River. It had a fivefoot boiler and a seven-foot whistle,
so that every time it whistled that boat stopped."

Even in business Lincoln could not refrain from expressing himself in
a humorous way. A New York firm wrote him to know the financial
reliability of one of their customers. He replied:

     "I am well acquainted with your customer and know his
     circumstances. First, he has a wife and baby: these ought to be
     worth not less than $50,000 to any man. Secondly, he has an
     office in which there is a table worth $1.50, and three chairs
     at, say, $1.00.

     "Last of all, there is in one corner a large rathole, which
     will bear looking into.
                                      "Respectfully,
                                         "A. LINCOLN."

All the great contemporaries who heard Lincoln tell stories agree that
he never told one merely for the sake of the story or to raise a
laugh, but always to carry some useful point or impress an idea. The
aptness and wit of his stories often were more convincing than any
argument or logic. We may be assured that any other kind of a Lincoln
story is spurious, and none of his.

He had a case where two men had got into a fight. It was proven that
Lincoln's man had merely defended himself against the other's attack.
But the other attorney insisted that Lincoln's man could have defended
himself less violently.

Lincoln closed out the argument and won his case with a story.

"That reminds me," said Lincoln, "of the man who was attacked by a
farmer's dog. He defended himself so violently with a pitchfork that
he killed the dog.

"'What made you kill my dog?' demanded the angry farmer.

"'Because he tried to bite me,' replied the victim.

"'Well, why didn't you go at him with the other end of the pitchfork?'
persisted the farmer.

"'Well, I would,' replied the man, 'if he had come at me with the
other end of the dog.'"


IV. TURBULENT TIMES AND SOCIAL STORMS

One of the most singular, as well as undignified, experiences of
Lincoln is closely involved in the most important measures of his
life. This refers to the duel which he never fought with a man who was
a stormy disturber for many years in many exalted yet unbecoming
affairs.

In 1840 Lincoln became engaged to Miss Mary Todd of Lexington,
Kentucky, who was visiting her sister, Mrs. Ninian Edwards of
Springfield. She came of a noted and rather aristocratic family of
Kentucky. That two persons, so unlike in ancestry, in social
experience, and in education, should be attracted to each other has
seemed to be mystery enough to breed much speculation, a great number
of curious stories, and much ungracious comment.

Lincoln was aware of these differences as much as any one, and this,
if there were no other cause, would account for his seeming
uncertainties, his hesitation and the delays in his courting affairs
which have been the source of so much elaboration and explanation.

Lincoln had much social self-depreciation and he had a poetical fancy
idealizing his own sensitiveness toward women. It may well be
concluded that his judgment was helplessly unsettled from the
impossibility of any foresight in a matter of such vital
life-importance. The endless gossip that swarmed about Lincoln's love
affairs may well be dismissed as worthless in the presence of the
facts.

Lincoln married Mary Todd November 4, 1842. During the summer before,
in commercial and political affairs, there had arisen the greatest
dissatisfaction with the money-interests and currency of the state.
The current money had depreciated to half its value. Though the people
had to use that kind of money in all their transactions, the state
officers required their salaries to be paid in gold.

The auditor of the State was a young Irishman named James Shields. He
was exceedingly vain, pompous and of violent temper. Therefore, he
was a shining mark for the wit of those opposed to the present
management of the state.

In the "Sangamo Journal" there appeared an article of witty satire,
ridiculing Shields and the financial methods of his political
associates. It was signed, "Rebecca from Lost Townships."

Shields became furious and demanded to fight the man responsible for
it. The significance of this is rather in the peculiar popularity and
yet unpopularity of such a man as Shields. His reckless adventures,
his incessant boasting, and his whirlwind career of turmoil all loaded
him with praise and ridicule for many a year.

Shields went into the Mexican War and came out with his own brand of
glory. But it won popularity enough to make him Senator of the United
States. As an indication of his amazing character, he wrote a
preposterous letter to the man he defeated, declaring, that if Judge
Breese had not been defeated, Shields would have killed him.

It can be imagined what the fury of such a man must have been against
the "Rebecca" letters.

The next week another "Rebecca" letter appeared which was this time
unmistakably written by some mischief-loving woman. She offered to
settle the quarrel by marrying the aggrieved gentleman. This was too
much for Shields and he stormed the newspaper office to know whom he
should hold responsible for the "Rebecca letters."


V. THE FRONTIER "FIRE-EATER"

The public taste and the public requirements of its individuals
change, as all know, from generation to generation. The development of
Lincoln's life can be appreciated only as the community in which he
lived is understood. The public custom is necessary to explain
Lincoln's part in this peculiar episode.

The truth in this clownish affair was that Lincoln had written the
first letter, and two young ladies, one of them Mary Todd, were the
authors of the second letter. Mary Todd was at that time estranged
from Lincoln, and probably did not know that he was the writer of the
first "Rebecca Letter."

Shields sent his friend, General Whiteside, with a fiery demand to the
editor of the paper to know the authors of the "Rebecca letters." The
editor at once consulted Lincoln, who told the editor to tell General
Whitesides that Lincoln held himself responsible for the "Rebecca
letters."

Nothing suited Shields better. He began at once to make public the
most insulting letters to Lincoln and to issue the most fiery
challenges to a duel.

Though duelling was at that time forbidden by law, yet so strong was
public opinion that the one who refused to fight a duel was branded as
a coward and would not only lose his usefulness with the public, but
his opponent would thus gain corresponding prestige.

Lincoln so far conceded to this demand as to accept the challenge, but
on such terms as to make the battle ridiculous rather than heroic. He
had the right to choose the weapons and the conditions, so he chose
"cavalry broadswords of the largest size," and the fight was to be
"across a board platform six feet wide."

Lincoln felt keenly the stupidity of the whole affair, but it would be
degrading to his political standing to refuse. Fortunately, Lincoln
had a friend in Doctor Merryman, who was not only a witty writer, but
he loved a fight, and he used his wit with a fervor that overwhelmed
even such men as Shields and Whitesides in the final roundup.

However, the duel progressed so far that the parties thereto went to
Alton and crossed over to Missouri for the fight. But friends arrived
and persuaded Shields to withdraw the challenge. The next week Shields
wrote a bombastic article in the "Sangamo Journal" crowning himself
as a hero and Lincoln as a coward. Then Dr. Merryman came to the
rescue. The next week the "Sangamo Journal" had another version of the
now ridiculous duel. It showed up the Shields' side as so utterly
absurd that the humor and tragic aspect of the affair among such
prominent people became the sensation of the day. General Whitesides
challenged Doctor Merryman and Merryman responded, with the
declaration that his selection would be rifles at close range in the
nearby fields. This would not do, because duelists could not hold
office in Illinois and Whitesides was fund commissioner. His boasts
proved that he was not afraid to lose his life but he did not want to
give up his fat office.

The same thing happened to Shields. He challenged Mr. Butler, one of
Lincoln's close friends. Butler accepted at once, choosing "to fight
next morning at sunrise in Bob Allen's meadow, one hundred yards'
distance with rifles."

Shields declined.

It was a burlesque and a comedy farce, and so it ingloriously ended.

But Shields had no less singular luck than he had singular friends. He
was commissioned Brigadier-General in the Mexican War while still
holding a state office and before he had ever seen a day's service.
At Cerro-gordo he was wounded and that wound was doubtless what made
him United States Senator from Illinois. After serving one term in
constant commotion with his associates, he removed to Minnesota and
from there was returned to the Senate of the United States.

In the War of the Rebellion Lincoln appointed him Brigadier-General
and he was again wounded in battle when his troops defeated Stonewall
Jackson.

He moved into Missouri and from there was sent for the third time to
the United States Senate. A few years later he became the subject of
one of the bitterest and most disgraceful controversies in Congress
over the question of voting him money and a pension.


VI. HONOR TO WHOM HONOR IS DUE

Lincoln always seemed to be far more proud of his fist fight with Jack
Armstrong of the Clary gang than of his near-duel with Shields and his
political ring. He had many an occasion to refer to the Clary boys,
but never to the Shields crowd.

It was not Lincoln's disposition to have personal quarrels.

Only one other is known. He got into a verbal encounter with a man
named Anderson at Lawrenceville. Anderson wrote him a harsh note
demanding satisfaction.

Lincoln replied, "Your note of yesterday is received. In the
difficulty between us of which you speak you say you think I was the
aggressor. I do not think I was. You say my words 'imported insult.' I
meant them as a fair set-off to your own statements, and not
otherwise; and in that light alone I now wish you to understand them.
You ask for my 'present feelings on the subject.' I entertain no
unkind feeling toward you, and none of any sort upon the subject,
except a sincere regret that I permitted myself to get into such
altercation."

Mr. Anderson was "satisfied" and henceforth counted himself as one of
Lincoln's friends.

Another example shows Lincoln's idea of quarrels. It ought to be
impressed upon every boy's mind, as the belief of this great leader of
men.

In the midst of the war a young officer had been court-martialed for a
quarrel with one of his associates, and Lincoln had to give him an
official reprimand. It was as follows:

"The advice of a father to his son, 'Beware of entrance to a
quarrel, but, being in, bear it that the opposed may beware of thee!'
is good, but not the best. Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make
the most of himself can spare time for personal contention. Still less
can he afford to take all the consequences, including the vitiating of
his temper, and the loss of self-control. Yield larger things to which
you can show no more than equal right; and yield lesser ones, though
clearly your own. Better give your path to a dog than to be bitten by
him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure
the bite."

[Illustration: Lincoln and His Cabinet at the First Reading of the
Emancipation Proclamation.]

But the Shields' quarrel and its skyrocket burlesque had another
effect probably of priceless consequence to Lincoln. There was a
certain whole-souled, self-effacing championship in it of the two
girls who had written the last "Rebecca letter." Mary Todd appreciated
it, and she had to express her appreciation to the man whom she knew
loved her, but who feared that he could not make her happy. Merely to
be made happy is not all that a real woman of true womanhood is
concerned with in her choice of a husband. Doubtless, she saw in him
qualities to love rather than form or manners. She had abundance of
time to consider all things and we may well believe that she was wise
and good in her choice. Considering their differences, it is really a
great testimony and tribute to her that so little could ever be found
for cruel gossip about incompatibility and unhappiness in the Lincoln
household.

Mary Todd ignored the coldness that Lincoln's sensitiveness had
brought between them, in the mutual adjustment of courtship, and she
thanked him for keeping her out of the Shields' gossip and
controversy. The coldness disappeared and never returned. They were
married, and we must believe that humanity owes her a priceless debt,
that she was one of the three great souls who made the immortal man,
that together in glory are three great names, Nancy Hanks Lincoln,
Sarah Bush Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln.



CHAPTER VII


I. SIMPLICITY AND SYMPATHY ESSENTIAL TO GENUINE CHARACTER

Greatness of mind, valued as worth while in historical characters, has
always been characterized by simplicity and sympathy, especially as
interested in children and in those without means for the needs of
life. Lincoln said pityingly of the poor that the Lord surely loved
them because he had made so many.

That Lincoln understood children and could talk to them is shown in
his visit to Five Points Mission, then the most miserable spot in all
the poverty-stricken sections of New York City. No one knows why he
went there, alone and unannounced. Perhaps, knowing what was the
lowest possible poverty in the frontier forests, he wanted to see what
it was in the midst of the greatest wealth in America.

The manager of the Mission, seeing a stranger, in the rear of the
house, who had been such an earnest listener to their exercises, asked
him if he would like to speak a few words to the children.

We can hardly imagine his feelings as he arose to speak to those
suffering little ones, so like his own hard childhood and yet subject
to such different causes and conditions.

Feeling that he had used up his time, after speaking a few minutes, he
stopped but they urged him to go on. Several times he ended his talk,
but every time they cried out so persistently for him to go on that he
spoke to them long over time.

No one knew who he was, but so impressive had been what he said that
one of the teachers caught him at the door, begging to know his name.
He replied simply, "Abraham Lincoln of Illinois."

Adversity only made Lincoln stronger. In the midst of defeat he was at
his best. In the midst of great moral success, in the profound trials
of his country, his heart was mild and gentle as a child, and his eyes
misty with supreme dreams of beauty and peace to lessen the suffering
of humanity.

Once when Lincoln was speaking for Fremont, a brazen voice in the
audience roared out above his own, "Is it true, Mr. Lincoln, that you
came into the state barefoot and driving a yoke of oxen?"

The interruption had come in the midst of his strongest argument and
was intended to throw him off of his subject.

His reply came back with a bound that it was true and he believed he
could prove it by at least a dozen men in the audience more
respectable than the speaker. Then he seemed inspired by the question
into a vision of this country as the home of the free and the land of
opportunity.

In a great burst of eloquence, that carried the people with him, he
showed how oppression had injured the oppressor as much as the
oppressed, even as slavery had injured the master as it did the slave.

"We will speak for freedom and against slavery," he said, "as long as
the Constitution of our country guarantees free speech, until
everywhere on this wide land the sun shall shine, and the rain shall
fall, and the wind shall blow upon no man who goes forth to unrequited
toil."

This was before he had spoken in New York, where his speech at the
Cooper Institute awoke the people of the Eastern States to realize
that an intellectual political giant had at last come out of the West.


II. NEARING THE HEIGHTS OF A PUBLIC CAREER

Lincoln's long struggle to know and to be worth while culminated at
last in a political career. The good opinion of associates grew into
the favorable friendship of his neighbors and that confidence widened
to the community, then to the political district and so on.

In this age when thousands of dollars, and, in some instances, many
hundred thousands of dollars used for campaign expenses is a common
occurrence, it is interesting to read how Lincoln managed such things.
He was elected four times to the Illinois legislature. One time the
Whigs made up two hundred dollars to pay his campaign expenses. After
the election he returned one hundred and ninety-nine dollars and
twenty-five cents, to be given back to the subscribers, in which he
explained, "I did not need the money. I made the canvass on my own
horse; my entertainment, being at the house of friends, cost me
nothing; and my only outlay was seventy-five cents for a barrel of
cider, which some farm hands insisted I should treat them to."

The history of Lincoln's political battles belongs to those who would
comment on his part in public affairs. We are interested here in a
moral consideration of what built him up to a life used in the
preservation of his nation, the intimate personal interests of his
wonderful story, and how he stands as an ideal character of American
manhood.

It is therefore sufficient for us to pass over the great political
struggles that proved him to be the "Giant of the West," and begin
with him on the way to the White House.

Lincoln was not exactly as the prophet without honor in his own
country, for he was beloved wherever he was known, but his neighbors
were struck with surprise when he was nominated to be President of the
United States.

One fine old gentleman, recently settled in Springfield from England,
who had brought his old country ideas of propriety with him, was
covered with astonishment.

"What!" he exclaimed, "Abe Lincoln nominated for President of the
United States! A man that buys a ten-cent beefsteak for his breakfast,
and carries it home himself! How is it possible!"

Lincoln's vision of himself, expressed during a debate with Douglas,
was not much more hopeful. Ponder over these words in which Lincoln
with mingled humor, pathos and insight contrasted his own appearance
with that of his adversary in the famous debates:

"There is still another disadvantage under which we labor.... It
arises out of the relative positions of the two persons who stand
before the State as candidates for the Senate. Senator Douglas is of
world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party ... have
been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the
President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly,
fruitful face, post offices, land offices, marshalships and Cabinet
appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting
out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy
hands. On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President.
In my poor lean, lank face nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were
sprouting out. These are disadvantages all, taken together, that the
Republicans labor under. We have to fight this battle upon principle
and upon principle alone."

But the people were in earnest. It was realized by all that the
fundamental interests of American progress were in the midst of a
great crisis. They needed a reliable man and Lincoln was that man.

Campaign songs are usually very flat reading after the campaign is
over, but they were then the carriers of the enthusiasm for a great
cause.

The song sung in the state nominating-convention at Springfield,
Illinois, had for its first verse and chorus the following lines:

    "Hark! Hark! a signal gun is heard,
    Just beyond the fort;
    The good old Ship of State, my boys,
    Is coming into port,
    With shattered sails and anchors gone,
    I fear the rogues will strand her;
    She carries now a sorry crew,
    And needs a new commander.

    Chorus

    "Our Lincoln is the man!
    Our Lincoln is the man!
    With a sturdy mate
    From the Pine-Tree State,
    Our Lincoln is the man!"


III. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MOMENTOUS TIMES

Reference to a few of his speeches, made before his election to the
presidency, will give a clear idea of his political Americanism, to
which was entrusted the definition and the destiny of the greatest
democracy in the world.

The Illinois legislature of 1854, by the union of Whigs and
Know-Nothings, indorsed him for senator and sent a committee to notify
him. The Know-Nothings were especially strong on the slogan of
"America for Americans," and wanted to shut out immigration.

In the reply to the delegation or committee of notification, he said,
"Who are the native Americans? Do they not wear the breech-clout and
carry a tomahawk! Gentlemen, your principle is wrong. It is not
American. For instance, I had an Irishman named Patrick working my
garden. One morning I went out to see how Pat was getting along.

"'Mr. Lincoln,' he said, 'what d'ye think of these Know-Nothing
fellers?' I explained their ideas and asked him if he had been born in
America."

"'Faith, to be sure,' Pat replied, 'I wanted to be, very much, but me
mother wouldn't let me. It's no fault of mine.'"

Lincoln and Pat thus together believed that every baby, born anywhere
on earth, is a good American until its mind is moulded into some
man-made shape.

Referring to the thirteen original colonies and what they stood for,
he said, "These communities by their representatives in old
Independence Hall said to the world of men: 'We hold these truths to
be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' This was their lofty and
wise and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to his
creatures. In their enlightened belief nothing stamped with the Divine
image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on and
degraded and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the race
of men then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the
farthest posterity. They created a beacon to guide their children and
their children's children, and the countless myriads who should
inhabit the earth in other ages."

Among the many familiar quotations from these great speeches that made
him known to the nation may be mentioned a few that should never be
forgotten.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Let none falter who believes he is right."

"Let us have faith that right makes might."

"Freedom is the last, best hope of earth."

"Disenthrall ourselves, then we shall save ourselves."

"Come what will, I'll keep my faith with friend and foe."

"For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they
like."

"I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was
yesterday."

"No man is good enough to govern another without the other's
consent."

"Would you undertake to disprove a proposition in Euclid by calling
Euclid a liar!"

"Familiarize yourself with the chains of bondage and you prepare your
own limbs to wear them."

       *       *       *       *       *

In pioneer days it was very common for individuals to conclude any
personal controversy by resort to the settlement of "fist and skull,"
and, on the far frontier of the Wild West, the convincing evidence
that brought peace was often the quickest and most skillful use of the
gun.

We are now in that pioneer day and wild-west age of nations whose
"fist and skull" arguments and wild-west "gun-play" must end. This is
what Lincoln thought of it in the midst of the Civil War. It was
written to the Springfield convention.

"Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon
and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future
time. It will then have been proved that among freemen there can be no
successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who
take such an appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost."

It is interesting here, as he came up out of the darkness into the
dawn of his supreme humanity, to know what the greatest men of his
times thought of him, when that great day of human service closed
down over him, in the martyrdom of assassination. It is not eulogy,
but an estimate of values in a personality, and as appreciation of
righteousness exalting a man into an ideal of his age.

Lord Beaconsfield, addressing the House of Commons, said, "In the life
of Lincoln there is something so homely and so innocent that it takes
the subject, as it were, out of the pomp of history, and out of the
ceremonial of diplomacy. It touches the heart of nations, and appeals
to the domestic sentiments of mankind."

John Stuart Mill, one of the most distinguished philosophers of the
last century, speaks in his writings of Lincoln as "The great citizen
who afforded so noble an example of the qualities befitting the first
magistrate of a free people, and who, in the most trying
circumstances, won the admiration of all who appreciate uprightness
and love freedom."

D'Aubigne, the historian of the Reformation, wrote,

"While not venturing to compare him to the great sacrifice of
Golgotha, which gave liberty to the captive, is it not just to recall
the word of the apostle John (I John 3:16): 'Hereby perceive we the
love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay
down our lives for the brethren.' Among the legacies which Lincoln
leaves to us, we shall all regard as the most precious his spirit of
equity, of moderation, and of peace, according to which he will still
preside, if I may so speak, over the destinies of your great nation."


IV. THE BEGINNINGS OF GREAT TRAGEDY

As we all now know, there was never a more fearless man than Abraham
Lincoln, but so bitter and so threatening were his enemies that it was
believed by his friends that the Presidency should not be endangered
by taking any chances as to his assassination on the way to
Washington, for his inauguration. Open boasts were widely made that he
would never be inaugurated. Assassination was especially threatened if
he should pass through Baltimore, and it was thought best by the
managers of his transportation that it should not be known when he
passed through Baltimore.

Evidence was uncovered that a band of sworn assassins, headed by a man
calling himself Orsini, was to throw the train from the track
somewhere between Philadelphia and Baltimore, and then do their
monstrous deed. If this failed, they were to mingle with the crowds
about the carriage and at the first chance assassinate him, by
discharging pistols at him and then throwing hand grenades. In the
confusion they expected to make their escape to a vessel awaiting them
in the harbor.

The plot was defeated by the managers of the journey sending Lincoln
back to Philadelphia from Harrisburg, while all who might be watching
him as spies for the plotters thought him to be asleep in a Harrisburg
hotel. At Philadelphia he was placed on board a night train for
Washington, where he arrived safely the next morning.

It was here at Baltimore, where there was such opposition to the
preservation of the Union, that a delegation was some time later sent
to Lincoln, demanding that no more troops pass through Maryland.
Lincoln replied that the troops had to go to their destination, and,
since they could neither go under nor over Maryland, they would have
to go through it. Another delegation demanded that all hostilities
should cease, and the controversy be left in the hands of Congress,
otherwise seventy-five thousand men would oppose any more troops going
through Maryland.

President Lincoln assured them that hostilities would not cease until
the rebellion was ended, and that he supposed they had room on the
soil of Maryland to bury seventy-five thousand men.

This unequivocal language ended such conferences and deputations.

These stupendous difficulties crowding upon Lincoln in the opening of
the war, the opposition of powerful men, and the chaos into which the
country had been thrown by the slavery agitation are subjects for
political history, and were the trying out of the great soul which
seemed to have been built up for that purpose from every experience in
the living of men.

General Scott had charge of the inaugural ceremonies and the baffled
conspirators, scattered by the police, left their hideous work to be
done for a no less monstrous purpose four years later.


V. THE LIFE STRUGGLE OF A MAN TRANSLATED INTO THE LIFE STRUGGLE OF A
NATION

Lincoln, in his speeches before the beginning of the war, cleared the
public mind as to the fundamental issues and made it plain that the
first sublime task was to save the Union. In a vague manner all men
knew that the establishment of a national slave-labor absolutism in
the South meant the development of an aristocratic slave-made
oligarchy that would cause perpetual war, or, otherwise, bring about
the slave-holding mastery of America. Perhaps no clearer illustration
of his mission, as he saw it, is in evidence than may be taken from
one of the many characteristic incidents. While en route to Washington
for his first inauguration the train conveying Mr. Lincoln came to a
temporary stop at Dunkirk, N. Y., and an old farmer in the crowd
surrounding the train shouted:

"Mr. Lincoln, what are you going to do when you get to Washington?"

Reaching for one of the little flags that decorated the train, he held
it aloft and said:

"By the help of Almighty God and the assistance of the loyal people of
this country I am going to uphold and defend the Stars and Stripes."

The preservation of the Union, regardless of all the turmoil and
clamor on other issues, was the one clear-sighted object of Lincoln.
It is quite true that up to the beginning of the war there was little
sentiment in the North for the abolition of slavery. It was the
beginning of war that crystalized resentment against slave-holding
power, because it was thus capable of destroying the union in the
furtherance of its own dominion. But never was a nation more divided
into mutually injurious confusions. It is always so in democracies
where every one thinks, talks and acts. Authority was regarded as
tyrannical and Lincoln soon became widely berated as a despot. But
his patience and devotion never swerved. He had already experienced
the life-long lessons of holding true. The situation is well
represented in the way General McClellan treated Lincoln. He began to
show contempt for his commander-in-chief by causing Lincoln to wait
outside like any other caller, and once he went to bed ignoring
Lincoln's call.

General McClellan seemed to believe himself so much greater than
Lincoln that he more and more publicly ignored the President. When the
mistreatment became notorious, Lincoln replied, "I will hold
McClellan's horse if he will only bring success."

"On to Richmond," was the cry of the nation, but McClellan remained
preparing in what was bitterly called "masterly inactivity."

Lincoln said one day sadly, "McClellan is a great engineer, but his
special talent is for a stationary engine."

One of the popular songs of the time, reflecting the bitterness of the
seemingly interminable delay, has for its first and last stanzas the
following:

    "All quiet along the Potomac, they say,
    Except now and then a stray picket
    Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro,
    By a rifleman hid in the thicket.

    "His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim,
    Grows gentle with memories tender,
    As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep,
    For their mother, may Heaven defend her."

Washington's struggle and patience against adversities and confusions,
through his long career as leader in the making of the Union, was
doubtless an ever present example and consolation to Lincoln in the no
less stupendous task of preserving the Union.

Laboulaye, the French Statesman says, "History shows us the victory of
force and stratagem much more than of justice, moderation and honesty.
It is too often only the apotheosis of triumphant selfishness. There
are noble and great exceptions; happy those who can increase the
number, and thus bequeath a noble and beneficent example to posterity.
Mr. Lincoln is among these. He would willingly have repeated, after
Franklin, that 'falsehood and artifice are the practice of fools, who
have not wit enough to be honest.' All his private and all his
political life was inspired and directed by his profound faith in the
omnipotence of virtue."


VI. SOME HUMAN INTERESTS MAKING LIGHTER THE BURDENS OF THE TROUBLED
WAY

Great minds always see a ridiculous aspect in the midst of every human
crisis, even as Franklin did in the signing of the Declaration of
Independence when he said, "We must all hang together or we will all
hang separately."

The President on a certain occasion was feeling very ill and he sent
for the doctor, who came and told him that he had a very mild form of
smallpox.

"Is it contagious?" he asked.

"Yes, very contagious," replied the doctor.

A visitor was present who was very anxious to be appointed to a
certain office. On hearing what the doctor said, the visitor hastily
arose.

"Don't be in a hurry, sir," said Lincoln, as if very well intentioned
toward him.

"Thank you, sir, I'll call again," said the retreating office seeker,
as he vanished through the door.

"Some people," said Lincoln, laughing at the hurried exit of his
friend, "do not take kindly to my Emancipation Proclamation, but now I
am happy to believe I have something that everybody can take."

Once, when Charles Sumner called upon him, he found Lincoln blacking
his boots.

"Why, Mr. President," he exclaimed, "do you black your own boots?"

With a vigorous rub of the brush, the President replied,

"Whose boots did you think I blacked?"

The way Lincoln answered unjustified people is illustrated in his
response to a delegation asking the appointment of a certain man to be
commissioner to the Sandwich Islands. After praising his
qualifications for the place, they urged the plea of his bad health.

The President said, "Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that there are eight
other applicants for that place, and they are all sicker than your
man."

Lincoln, in the great receptions, often heard flattering remarks that
had been made short so as to be delivered quickly. But his apt replies
were always equal to the remark. On one occasion, as the handshakers
came by, an elderly gentleman from Buffalo said, "Up our way we
believe in God and Abraham Lincoln." To which the President replied as
he took the next hand, "My friend, you are more than half right."

Somewhat similar is a noble reply of Lincoln to some over-zealous
religious friends which has become justly famous. A clergyman, heading
a delegation with one of the many immature and injudicious appeals,
said sadly, "I hope, Mr. Lincoln, that the Lord is on our side."

"I am not at all troubled about that," was the instant reply, "for I
know that the Lord is always on the side of right. But it is my
constant anxiety and prayer that this nation and I should be on the
Lord's side."



CHAPTER VIII


I. THE MAN AND THE CONFIDENCE OF THE PEOPLE

Abraham Lincoln, as President of the United States and
Commander-in-Chief of its army and navy, never seemed to know that he
was any more bound to look out for the good opinion of the world than
at any time before. To him there was no such thing as presidential
attitude or pose. He did not see that he had any part to act out more
than he had always had. Life might be a stage, as Shakespeare had
described it, and Lincoln had played many parts, but it was always as
a man.

"Nothing was more marked in Lincoln's personal demeanor," says one of
his intimate friends, "than his utter unconsciousness of his position.
He never seemed aware that his place or his business was essentially
different from that in which he had always been engaged. All duties
were alike to him. All called equally upon him for the best service of
his mind and heart, and all were alike performed with a conscientious,
single-hearted devotion."

Mr. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, says, "The great predominating
elements of Mr. Lincoln's peculiar character were: First, his great
capacity and power of reason; second, his excellent understanding;
third, an exalted idea of the sense of right and equity; and, fourth,
his intense veneration of what was true and good."

Thackery expresses a vision of character that might well be used to
describe the motive-interest of Lincoln, and every other youth who
desires to be worth while:

    "Come wealth or want, come good or ill,
    Let old and young accept their part,
    And bow before this awful will,
    And bear it with an honest heart.
    Who misses or who wins the prize,--
    Go, lose or conquer as you can;
    But if you fail or if you rise,
    Be each, pray God, a gentleman."

In that great address which he gave on the occasion of his being sworn
in the first time as President of the United States, toward the close,
he said, "Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate
justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?
In our present differences is either party without faith in being
right? If the Almighty ruler of nations, with his eternal truth and
justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that
truth and that justice will surely prevail, by the judgment of this
great tribunal of the American people."

[Illustration: Lincoln Monument--Springfield, Illinois.]

At the last of his inaugural address he said, referring to the people
of the South, "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 have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the
government; while I have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect and
defend' it."

It was in 1840, when he set this standard that made him worthy of
being called the savior of his nation. In a great political address at
that time, he said, "Let it be my proud plume not that I was the last
to desert (my country), but that I never deserted her."

The result is a united and powerful America facing the centuries of
human posterity as a working place for the enlargement of freedom
accomplished as rapidly as is possible through the perfection of
character and civilization.


II. TYPICAL INCIDENTS FROM AMONG MOMENTOUS SCENES

Lincoln's many forms of kindness are exemplified in such a continuous
series of acts, during his period of almost unlimited political power,
that only a few typical instances need to be described.

One day a woman got past the doorkeeper and thrust herself into his
presence. Her husband was captured and condemned to be shot. He was
one of the hated Mosby guerillas. She had come to beg for his pardon.
She weepingly poured out the story of his kindness, his love for his
family and that they could hardly live without him. She said that she
was a Northern woman, that she would take him to their home, and, on
his parole and her promise, he should never again do harm to his
country. She had papers also setting forth these facts. Lincoln
examined them and decided to parole the husband in her care.

At hearing this, the woman sobbed with joy as if her heart would burst
with gratitude.

"My dear woman," said Lincoln, listening to her hysterical sobs, "if I
had known it would make you feel so bad as this, I would never have
pardoned him."

"You do not understand me," she cried, fearful that he might reverse
his decision.

"Yes, I do," he replied, "but if you do not go away at once I shall
soon be crying with you."

The Judge Advocate General was one day reviewing death sentences with
Lincoln when they came to one where a young soldier was to be shot for
"cowardice in the face of the enemy." He had hid behind a stump during
battle.

Lincoln drew out the paper and said, "This one I'll have to put with
my bunch of leg cases."

"'Leg cases,'" said Judge Holt; "what do you mean by 'leg cases?'"

"Do you see that bunch of papers in yonder pigeon-hole?" he replied.
"Well, they are cases marked 'Cowardice in the face of the enemy.' I
call them, for short, my leg cases. I'll put it up to you for
judgment: if Almighty God gives a boy a cowardly pair of legs, how can
he help their running away with him."

One of the instances, which was far from being either desertion or
"Cowardice in the face of the enemy," came unexpectedly before him. A
little woman of poverty-stricken clothing and pinched features, after
several days trying, at last succeeded in getting through the press of
people waiting to see Lincoln, and told him that her only son was
about to be shot for desertion. His regiment had come by near their
home, and, being refused leave of absence, he had gone without
permission to see her. He had returned to his regiment but had been
arrested, tried and ordered shot, and there was only one more day. She
did not know where he was now confined.

Lincoln examined the papers verifying her statements. He hastily arose
from his chair, seized the woman by the hand, and, leaving the offices
without a word, hastened over to the Secretary of War.

Stanton, weary with Lincoln's constant interference against what the
War Secretary believed to be necessary discipline, begged Lincoln to
leave that matter to him.

But Lincoln insisted. He gave directions that immediate messages be
sent to every army headquarters till the boy be found and the
execution stayed for his further orders.

It was in a similar instance where mercy had been given to a New
England mother that she came out from the interview silent, as if
wrapped in thought.

Some friend interrupted her to know what had so impressed her.

"I have always been told," she said, "that Lincoln is one of the
ugliest of men. I now know that to be a lie. He is one of the
handsomest men I ever saw."

In another case, when Lincoln had relieved the distress of an old man
for his only son, the orders were that the soldier should not be
executed until further orders from Lincoln.

"But that is not pardon, is it?" said the fearing petitioner.

"Well, it's just as good," replied Lincoln. "He will be older than
Methuselah before I order his execution. Killing a man doesn't make
him any better or wipe out the act."


III. EXPERIENCES DEMANDING MERCY AND NOT SACRIFICE

The kindness so exemplified throughout his life never failed on the
side of mercy, as shown in many an incident of the war.

In one case a woman, whose son had run away from home at the age of
seventeen and joined the Confederacy, sought to have him released from
Fort McHenry, where he was in the hospital, a wounded prisoner.

She applied to Stanton, Secretary of War. He refused to listen to her,
saying, "I have no time to waste on you. If you have raised up a son
to rebel against the best Government under the sun, you and he must
take the consequences."

She attempted to plead with him, but he very peremptorily ordered her
to go, saying that he could do nothing for her.

Friends asked her to go to see Lincoln, but, sharing in the Southern
prejudice or misunderstanding of the President, she refused in
despair, believing him to be more fierce than Stanton. But she was at
last persuaded to try.

With fear and trembling she came into his presence, and in the
greatest joy any woman can have she came away.

"When I was permitted to go in to see him," she said, in describing
the scene, "he was alone. He immediately arose, with the most
reassuring respect, and, pointing to a chair by his side, said, 'Take
this seat, Madam, and tell me what I can do for you.'"

She handed him, without speaking, a letter telling the truth about her
son. He read it thoughtfully.

"Do you believe he will honor his parole if I permit him to go with
you," he said, with great kindness in his voice.

"I am ready, Mr. President," she replied, "to peril my personal
liberty that he will keep his parole."

"You shall have your boy, my dear Madam," he said. "To take him from
the ranks of rebellion and give him to a loyal mother is the best
investment that can be made by this government."

He handed her an order to give to the commanding officer at Fort
McHenry.

"May God grant," he fervently added, "that your boy may prove a
blessing to you and an honor to his country."

Lincoln's interest in the lowly and their sacrifices for the Union has
become classic in his letter to a Boston mother. A copy of this letter
hangs on the wall in Brasenose College, Oxford University, England, as
a model of pure and exquisite diction, which has never been excelled.

     "Dear Madam:

     "I have been shown in the files of the War Department a
     statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are
     the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field
     of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of
     mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a
     loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you
     the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the republic
     they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage
     the anguish of your bereavement and leave you only the
     cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride
     that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the
     altar of freedom.
                   "Yours sincerely and respectfully,
                                                 A. LINCOLN."


IV. HUMANITY AND THE GREAT SCHOOL OF EXPERIENCE

Many people in estimating Lincoln's scholarship do not sufficiently
recognize how much an eager student of life can learn in such wide
experience as his among men. To say that he was uneducated or that he
was self-made are alike erroneous. He was truly entered in the school
of experience in which he chose the wisest interest as his teacher,
and from which he graduated as a martyred president, one of the wisest
masters of humanity.

It can hardly be said that Lincoln arrived slowly at a leadership of
men. He was only twenty-eight when he was regarded as one of the most
influential men in his State. The nation was then in the midst of the
religious belief that God intended slavery or he would not have made
men black. Even at that early period Lincoln, with the boldness of a
Martin Luther, declared that "the institution of slavery is founded
both on injustice and bad policy," though the great reformation was
not yet at hand.

It is said that "those in glass houses should not throw stones."
Society and government have yet so many sins and wrongs to answer for
that the people of slavery days can hardly be blamed for not seeing as
we see now. Mankind seems to be only well started on the way to
civilization. Now and then we are given a great far-seeing man and the
vision of righteousness is made a little clearer. We see a little
farther through him into the promised land of a better world.

To any one looking down upon the stormy United States of that period
it could be seen that probably no one ever entered the presidency, and
more probably never would, who seemed so destitute of influential
associates and political supporters. It was Lincoln alone and his
faith in the unseen faithful of his ancient Israel. He knew the
people. He knew they understood what the great crisis in their
country's history meant for their ideals of America. They wanted a
leader from among themselves, because they no longer trusted the
politicians in high places.

In 1862 John James Piatt wrote:

    "Stern be the Pilot in the Dreadful hour
    When a great nation, like a ship at sea,
    With the wroth breakers whitening at her lea,
    Feels her last shudder if the Helmsman cower;
    A God-like manhood be his mighty dower!"

This seems to show that the patriotic men of the literary East were
not yet sure of him. In fact, it was not yet sure that there was any
man anywhere who could remain sane and true through the rampant
treason and raging strife.

A year later Frank Moore wrote:

    "Stand like the rock that looks defiant
    Far o'er the surging seas that lash its form!
    Composed, determined, watchful, self-reliant,
    Be master of thyself and rule the storm."

If the Americans who tried to destroy Washington could now appear
among us and see what we and the world think of him, they would hardly
attempt to justify what they said and did to ruin him. Many lived to
realize their error in defaming Lincoln and to appreciate their
pitiful malignity in spreading the gossip and slander about him. And
yet a few strove on to save some of their reputation for intelligence
or personal honor and honesty, until research and cumulative evidence
established the unassailable truth of his standing and character as
one of the noblest and greatest of Americans.

The lesson of personal justice and integrity is learned slowly where
freedom has long seemed to mean political license to distort and
defame party opponents. But election slanders die out as the people
emerge from party possession and mastery. After the election is over,
still increasing numbers become conscious that most of the evils told
of the opposition have either been lies or the distorted halftruths
that are more misleading to the honest-intentioned minds.

But, fortunately, one of Lincoln's great sayings has been proven true
even in the miscellaneous freedom of Americans. To an insignificant
interruption on an insignificant occasion, one of those famous sayings
popped up, as it were from the mass of thinking in Lincoln's mind,
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the
people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of
the time."

Lincoln's great passion for friendship in the midst of his prophetic
vision is shown in the last paragraph of his first inaugural address.
He said, "I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We
must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not
break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching
from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and
hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the
Union, when again touched as they surely will be, by the better angels
of our nature."


V. SIMPLE INTERESTS THAT NEVER GROW OLD

Lincoln's great sympathy for those who mourn is expressed in a letter
of condolence to a friend whose father had just died.

     "Dear Fanny:

     "In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to all, and to the
     young it comes with bittered agony because it takes them
     unawares. The older have learned ever to expect it. You cannot
     now realize that you will ever feel happier. Is this not so?
     And yet, it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To
     know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less
     miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say,
     and you need only to believe it to feel better at once. The
     memory of your dear father, instead of an agony, will be a sad,
     sweet feeling in your heart of a purer and holier sort than
     you have known before.
                        "Your sincere friend,
                                      A. LINCOLN."

His fatherly feeling toward childhood is shown in many stories of his
younger son Tad.

Little Tad had all the impetuosity of energetic childhood. His
father's example of kindness once led him into conflict with the White
House cook. Tad never saw a hungry-looking boy that he didn't invite
him in to have something to eat. This generosity was a light that
could not be hid under a bushel. The number of hungry boys increased
surprisingly. At last Peter, the cook, thought that Mrs. Lincoln must
be told. He accordingly refused entrance to a hungry bunch that Tad
brought in. Tad was very angry that his benevolence and his authority
should be thus disputed. He flew upstairs to see his mother, but she
was nowhere to be found. At this crisis he saw his father coming up
the yard with Secretary Seward. They were discussing some important
affairs of state, but that was insignificant in comparison with Tad's
grievance. He ran out to carry his complaint to the head of the
nation.

"Father," he cried, running up to the Executive in Chief of the United
States, "Peter won't let me feed these hungry boys. Two of them are
boys of soldiers. Isn't it our kitchen? I'm going to discharge Peter.
He doesn't obey orders."

Secretary Seward was very much amused.

The President turned to him as if much perplexed.

"Seward," he said, "advise with me. This case requires great
diplomacy."

Mr. Seward patted Tad on the head and said, "My boy, be careful that
you don't run the government into debt."

Then Lincoln took his little boy's hand in his, saying, "Tell Peter
that you really have to obey the Bible which tells you to feed the
hungry, and that he ought to be a better Christian."

Tad went to Peter with the astonishing news that his father didn't
believe the White House cook was a Christian.

The religious problem of "feeding the hungry" won quickly over the
economic problem of White House expenses. Childhood was not defeated
in its sympathies, and, like every other moral question, it was solved
in the spirit of social democracy.

Secretary Seward writes of this that in less than an hour they passed
back through the yard on their way to a Cabinet meeting and about a
dozen small boys were sitting on the kitchen steps having a state
dinner at the expense of the government.


VI. SOME INCIDENTS FROM THE GREAT YEARS

Little incidents of appreciative consideration marked all of Lincoln's
way.

One afternoon in Chicago, while many noted visitors were gathered
about him, a little boy entered the room, and, seeing Lincoln, took
off his cap, whirled it over his head and shouted, "Hurrah for
Lincoln!"

Mr. Lincoln gently made his way through the crowd, picked the little
boy up in his arms, held him out at arm's length, studied him a moment
seriously, and then shouted, in like enthusiasm, as he set the boy
down, "Hurrah for you!"

Honorable W. D. Kell tells an incident that occurred in asking Lincoln
to do something for Willie Bladen.

This boy had served a year on the gunboat Ottawa and had gone through
two important battles. Willie lived in the district of Congressman
Kell and he asked Kell to help him get a place in the Naval School.
The testimony of the gunners on the _Ottawa_ was that Willie had
carried powder to them in the midst of the hottest engagements with
all the coolness and bravery of any of the sailors, and Congressman
Kell's sympathy was thoroughly enlisted for the boy's ambition.

Lincoln was much interested in the case and at once wrote to the
Secretary of the Navy to appoint Willie Bladen to the school, if there
was yet a place for him.

The appointment was made and the boy was ordered to report in July.
But Congressman Kell found, on going back home, that Willie would not
be fourteen till September, and no one could be accepted in the Naval
School under fourteen.

Willie was terribly distressed.

"Never mind," said Mr. Kell, "I'll take you to see the President about
this and I am sure he will manage it some way."

A few days later, Congressman Kell, holding Willie Bladen by the hand,
walked in to where Lincoln sat, and introduced the boy.

Willie made a profound bow.

"Why, bless me," responded Lincoln, "is this the boy who did so
gallantly in those two great battles! I feel that I should bow to
him."

And, with that, Lincoln arose and made a bow to the little hero.

The President then made out papers directing that the boy be allowed
until September to report, then putting his hand on the boy's head, he
said, "Now, my boy, go home and play for the next two months. They may
be the last holidays you will ever get."

Lincoln's knowledge of the Bible is shown by many an incident.

In one of the darkest hours of the war a mass convention was called of
Union men to protest against the President's "imbecile policy in the
conduct of the war." It was also intended to start a boom for "Fremont
the Pathfinder" to succeed Lincoln to the Presidency. Instead of a
great mass convention of many thousands, only four hundred disgruntled
politicians were present.

When this news was brought to Lincoln, he reached for the Bible that
always lay on his desk, and, turning to the first book of Samuel, the
twenty-second chapter, read aloud, "And every one that was in
distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was
discontented gathered themselves unto him; and he became a Captain
over them: and there were with him about four hundred men."

The old saying, originating from the Bible, "To have friends you must
show yourself friendly," was always true in Lincoln's case. One of
these friends once said of Lincoln that "he had nothing, only
friends." His enemies did not know him or they would not have been
enemies.



CHAPTER IX


I. FALSEHOOD AIDS NO ONE'S TRUTH

James Oppenheim says:

    "The greatest are the simplest--
    They need be nothing else,
    It is the rest who have to play parts,
    To seem what they are not."

War times and periods of great public agitation have always brought
forth in every free country the most scurrilous and vicious
denunciations and slanders of public men. Such vile vituperation of
Washington, Lincoln and others in our stormy periods, if all printed
would make many volumes that bear in numerous instances the logical
appearance of authentic history. But when sifted down, each to its
origin, it is always what some one, long since gone from the
possibility of explanation, has said, or been supposed to say, who
might have known or might have misunderstood.

Every young man, if not every boy, sooner or later hears, as if
indisputable, the most vulgar stories about men whom the world has
enrolled as their noblest benefactors. All the moral world then seems
to go to pieces as these stories seem to be the truth. But it is a
common evidence of the viciousness, the most degenerate and cowardly
viciousness, that is thus seen to remain possible in the composition
of common minds. Political perversions of the meaning and motives of
public men are so common in election times that the only wonder is,
the only reassurance is, how little the disease of slander prevails,
and yet, alas, we may not see how much injury and despair it has
caused and is causing in growing minds. Many delight in making
respected people appear filthy. Somehow, it satisfies and excuses
their own brains and degenerate character.

Many people vaguely know that an assertion may be wrong, they even
more vaguely know what is the right thing, and, when some one appears
to state clearly what is wrong, and to give a clear idea of what is
right, and a clear vision of the right way, then he becomes the
embodiment of the people and they follow him. It was thus that Lincoln
was the superbly great man. In the days when Americanism was a mist
and a fog in so many high places, Lincoln stood forth as the embodied
patriotism and mind of America. When men stormed around him with
ideas as diverse as the wind, he was a soul high and clear as the
unchanging sun. The storm-makers are gone, but Lincoln remains,
unchanged, one of the beacon lights of mankind.

Lincoln's favorite poem reflects the deep burden of his own soul. It
is a long poem written by William Knox, who was a much valued friend
of Sir Walter Scott.

       *       *       *       *       *

Four of the stanzas are as follows:

    "Oh! Why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
    Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
    A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
    He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.

    "So the multitude goes like the flower or the weed,
    That withers away to let others succeed;
    So the multitude comes--even these we behold,
    To repeat every tale that has often been told.

    "Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
    Are mingled together in sunshine and rain;
    And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
    Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

    "'Tis the wink of an eye,--'tis the draught of a breath;
    From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
    From the gilded salon to the bier and the shroud;
    O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud!"


II. FREEDOM TO MISREPRESENT IS NOT FREEDOM

One of the great perils of the American republic, which makes progress
so slow and misery so rich in victims, is the perversions which
opponents put upon the words of public men, and the distortions which
are given to their meaning. It is not only brutal, but to misshape
righteous ideas is treason to those who receive them, and it brands
such malefactors as criminal minds. The traitor and the liar are
abhorred, but somehow we have not yet classified the unspeakable vice
that deforms minds by disfiguring ideas so that they make a man say
what he never said and to represent what he never was. This malignant
vice is not above the village gossip and the vile tongue of common
slander, but it has been especially the method of gamblers in the most
sacred social interests, and of demagogues trying to control the
election of officers and legislators for our government.

Such perversions were placed on Lincoln's meaning throughout the
South that his name was the most abhorred of all names, until the
miseries of reconstruction, by contrast, so brought in comparisons
that he became known as the one great soul who had not, through all
the terrible struggle, ever uttered a single bitter word against them,
and who was the one great friend who could have given them justice and
peace.

Soon the typical view of the intelligent South was that "his untimely
and tragic end was one of the severest catastrophes of the war," and,
to the South, his death was "the direst misfortune that ever darkened
the calendar of its woes."

Up to the time of his nomination and following him in many ways on to
his death, the Eastern States took up the most trivial news items and
used them for ridicule, as representing Lincoln to be the mere
caricature of a man.

One of these minor incidents, showing this defaming method, is
represented as follows in the newspaper headlines of New York and New
England. The great news, in the midst of the fearful times, relating
to this incident was usually introduced in these words, "Old Abe
kisses a Pretty Girl."

Here is the true story: A little girl named Grace Bedell lived at
Westfield, New York. Her father was a republican, but her two brothers
were democrats, and, therefore, hearing much excited argument, she
was greatly interested. Of course, she was a republican and she wanted
to help her father. Seeing a portrait of Lincoln gave her an idea. If
Lincoln only had whiskers like her father, he would look better, and
so her brothers might not be so much against him. No sooner was this
improvement thought of than she hastened to put it into an earnest
letter to Mr. Lincoln, telling him of her idea.

She seemed to think that all great men, like her father, must have a
little girl, so she said in closing, "If you have no time to answer my
letter, will you allow your little girl to reply for you?"

Such a letter could not be ignored by the great-hearted man to whom it
came. He replied,

                               "Springfield, Illinois, Oct. 19, 1860.
     "My dear little Miss:

     "Your very agreeable letter of the fifteenth is received. I
     regret the necessity of saying I have no daughter. I have three
     sons; one seventeen; one nine, and one seven years of age.
     They, with their mother, constitute my whole family. As to
     whiskers, having never worn any, do you think people would call
     it a piece of silly affectation if I should begin now?
                       "Your very sincere well-wisher,
                                              "A. LINCOLN."

It happened, when on the journey to Washington to be inaugurated, that
the train stopped at Westfield. Suddenly, in speaking to the people,
he remembered.

"I have a little correspondent at this place," he said, "I would like
to see her."

Some one called out and asked if Grace Bedell was in the crowd that
surged around the train. Far back in the crowd the way began to open
and a beautiful little girl came forward, timid but happy, to speak to
the President-elect, who was also happy to show her that he had taken
her advice and begun to grow a beard. The little girl was lifted up to
him. He took her in his arms and tenderly kissed her forehead in the
midst of the enthusiastic approval of a cheering multitude.

But the story ran the rounds of the East as the uncouth conduct of a
backwoods demagogue.

As Europe got its idea of the new President from the New York and New
England papers, he was believed by foreign leaders to be the proof of
degenerate democracy and the failure of popular government. Throughout
the war there was lavished upon him an unceasing tirade of caricature
and lampoon. But they had been deceived. The shock of his
assassination seemed to tear off the veil that blinded their eyes, and
since then all the scholarship of Europe has analyzed his career as
showing one of the great characters of the world. History finds that
he was a prophet of ideal humanity, the farthest possible from
despotic sovereignties. Dynastic states can never fight for a
democratic government merely to preserve it, and democracies can never
fight merely to preserve a party in power. It may very well be doubted
that the North could have won the Civil War if there had not been
involved the moral issues of human slavery. England would surely have
intervened for the starving workers of their cottonmills, but the
workers refused to have their cause supported by fastening slavery
upon any part of the human race.

[Illustration: Lincoln Statue--Chicago, Illinois.]


III. HOMELY WAYS TO EXPRESS TRUTH

The way Lincoln looked at the malicious denunciations of his conduct
of the war, the vile stories told about him and the wicked perversions
of the things he said was once characterized by him in the story of an
incident that happened to two Irish emigrants who had come out into
the wilderness fresh from the Emerald Isle.

They were tramping their way through the West seeking for work. One
evening they camped at the edge of a pond of water. Being tired, they
were soon fast asleep. Suddenly they were awakened by a chorus of
bellowing sounds the like of which they had never heard before. It was
not comparable to anything they knew of man or beasts. Baum, gurgle
and bellow it went here, there, and then seemingly everywhere. They
grabbed their walking-stick shillelahs, ready to face the enemy,
whether man, beast or devil. But nothing was to be seen. They crept
forward, then boldly searched, strained their eyes in every direction
and defied their enemy with many insulting challenges to show himself,
but the scattering bellowing was all that could be found.

At last a happy thought struck one of them. "Jamie," he cried to his
companion, "I know what it is! It's nothing but a noise."

Lincoln took this attitude toward all minor things that could have
absorbed his time for weightier questions.

When General Phelps captured Ship Island, near New Orleans, early in
the war, he took upon himself the power of freeing all the slaves on
the island. This looked like something very important to many people,
who were surprised that Lincoln took no notice of it. At last he was
taken to task for it, and he settled the whole question with a story.

There was once a man who was very meek but he had a very aggressive
wife. He had the reputation of being badly henpecked. One day a friend
saw the poor man's wife switching him out of the house.

The first time the friend met the henpecked man, after that
disgraceful episode, the friend said, "I have always stood up for you,
as you well know, but now I am done with you. Any man who allows his
wife to switch him out of the house deserves all he gets."

The abused man patted his friend on the back and in a conciliating
tone said, "Now don't feel that way about it, it didn't hurt me a bit,
and you have no idea what a great amount of satisfaction it gives my
dear wife."

Lincoln saw things as symbols with moral meanings. On seeing a tree
covered with a luxuriant vine, he said, "The vine is beautiful, but,
like certain habits of men, it decorates the ruin it makes."

Speaking of the difference in meaning between character and
reputation, he said, "Character is like a tree and reputation is like
its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it, but the real thing is
the tree."

Some influential people were urging him to declare the slaves free
before conditions made such a thing practical. He pressed that point
home to them with a question.

"How many legs," he asked, "will a sheep have if you call the sheep's
tail a leg?"

They promptly answered five.

"You are wrong," he replied, "for calling a sheep's tail a leg won't
make it so."

To importunate and impetuous persons Lincoln always had the right
reply. Once a rather proud mother came before him with a rather
haughty-looking son.

"Mr. President," she said very conclusively, "you must give a
Colonel's commission to my son."

He waited for her to explain why he must do so.

"Sir," she exclaimed, "I have a right to demand it. My grandfather
fought at Lexington; my uncle stood his ground at Blandensburg; my
father fought at New Orleans; and my husband was killed at Monterey."

"I guess, Madam," Lincoln promptly replied, "that your family has done
its share for its country. Let's give others a chance."


IV. THE GREAT TRAGEDY

Our story here has to do only with episodes that compose the personal
interest of Lincoln and does not take into consideration the usual
public or political affairs that build up his historical character and
national service. But the tragedy of his martyrdom has many important
points of interest relating to the interpretation of his personal
life. The Book of Fate opens only upon the past and we call it
history, but it is the "light of experience" for social reason and the
moral law.

On the evening of April 14, 1865, a happy party of distinguished
friends were gathered for dinner with President Lincoln at the White
House. Mrs. Lincoln, being the manager of social affairs, made up a
theatre party to see Laura Keene play "Our American Cousin" at Ford's
Theatre. In the party were General Grant and his wife, and Governor
Oglesby of Illinois. The box for the party having been procured in the
morning, the manager of the theatre announced in the afternoon papers
that the President and the Hero of Appomattox would be present at the
farewell benefit performance of Miss Keene.

The house was filled, but the President came late, as Mr. and Mrs.
Grant had decided to take the train that evening for the West, and
Mrs. Lincoln had to rearrange the plans for her party, so as to
include Major Rathburn and his stepsister, Miss Harris, daughter of
Senator Harris of New York. The President desired to give up going,
but, on being told how disappointed the public would be, he yielded to
the persuasion and went.

They arrived about the middle of the first act and were received with
loud applause, the people standing as the band played "Hail to the
Chief."

One can hardly refrain from pausing, as this scene comes before the
mind, to wonder if the log-cabin boy had beheld this scene in a
prophetic dream how extravagant and impossible it would have seemed.

On reaching the box, the President took a large arm-chair in front,
with Mrs. Lincoln by his side on the right.

After they were seated, the interrupted play was resumed.

It was about the middle of the third act, the time 10.20, when the
audience was startled by a shot, and immediately the shout, "Sic
semper tyrannis" (so ever to tyrants). Next came the piercing shriek
of Mrs. Lincoln, then a well-known actor, John Wilkes Booth, was seen
to swing out over the box and fall heavily upon the stage.

The horrified people arose with cries of alarm and all was confusion,
so that witnesses from the audience could see no more, and they poured
forth into the streets with the dreadful news that the President had
been shot.

Booth had desired to make the assassination as spectacular and
sensational as possible. He prepared himself, just before the terrible
deed, with a heavy drink of whisky in the nearby saloon. Going into
the theatre from the front, he passed along the wall to the passageway
leading to the box. He took out a visiting card and went up to the
President's messenger, who was sitting just outside. Presenting the
card, he passed through the door into the aisle back of the box,
closing and barring the door after him. Slipping in just behind the
President, he aimed the pistol at the back of his victim's head and
fired the shot.

Some testify that his first words were "Revenge for the South."

As the assassin swung himself over to take the twelve-foot leap to the
stage, Major Rathburn of the party tried to catch him, and so received
a severe wound on the hand from a dagger. An American flag draped the
front of the stage, and in this Booth's spur caught, throwing him so
as to fracture his left leg, and which actually resulted in being the
cause of his capture. This flag has thus been called the "mute avenger
of its Nation's Chief."

Excited crowds were nothing new in Washington, but witnesses declare
they never saw such insane despair as that with which the people
expressed their grief. Shouting, frenzied men and women ran aimlessly
here and there in a chaos of ungovernable disorder.

People could hardly believe that the hideous deed had been done by
John Wilkes Booth, whose rising fame as a tragedian was only surpassed
by his famous brother and father. But he had been recognized by Laura
Keene, as with quick thought she grasped a glass of water and ran to
the President's box. She seemed to be almost the first to understand,
and to reach the martyr's side with help for him. She held his head in
her lap while the doctors were examining the wound. Her silk dress
stained with his blood is still kept with the sacred relics at his
tomb in Springfield, Illinois.

The picture of that box party cannot be surpassed by anything ever set
up in the romantic imagination. At the death-moment it contained five
persons. One of them was the greatest man of his time, just emerging
as victor in one of the most consequential struggles of all human
history. The death blow was upon him from a type of man as utterly his
opposite in everything making the form of man that anyone can
conceive. He was of the most illustrious family of actors in his time,
handsome, a fashionable beau, and a moral degenerate,--the most
courted idler of the social show. For his deed he was destined in a
few weeks to die the death of a beaten dog in a filthy stable. But no
less in direful tragedy was the fate of the betrothed lovers, Major
Rathburn and his stepsister, Miss Harris, who were the guests in that
ghastly social hour. A few months later the young man went insane,
killed his sweetheart and died in a madhouse.

Lincoln was still alive but unconscious when responsible persons, in a
few minutes, came into control. He was carried across the street to
the nearest room where he could be made as comfortable as possible.
The doctors had no hope that he would ever return to consciousness.
The surgeons and the nearest official friends were all that were
allowed to remain in the little room with him. The pale light of a
single gas jet flickered down over him. Secretary Stanton stood
against the wall writing telegrams that told how the battle was going,
and giving orders needed to keep the peace of that dark hour. At
seven-twenty-two the next morning Lincoln's heart ceased to beat and
one of the greatest characters of history had passed from life.

Mr. Stanton closed the martyr's eyes, drew the sheet over his face,
and said, "Now he belongs to the Ages."



CHAPTER X


I. THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY

The nation was in mourning at the unspeakable tragedy. Friend and foe
had just begun to learn how great was the difference between him and
other men. Coming as it did at the close of the war, in the very dawn
of peace, the assassination seemed so needless and cruel, even in the
name of his bitterest foe.

Walt Whitman wrote one of the most stirring appreciations of the time.

    "O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done,
    The ship has weathered every wrack, the prize we sought is won,
    The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
    While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring.

        "But O heart! heart! heart!
        O the bleeding drops of red,
        Where on the deck my Captain lies,
        Fallen, cold and dead.

    "O Captain! My Captain! Rise up and hear the bells;
    Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills,
    For you the bouquets and ribboned wreaths, for you the shores
      a-crowding,
    For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

        "Here, Captain! dear father!
        This arm beneath your head!
        It is some dream that on the deck
        You've fallen cold and dead.

    "My Captain does not answer me, his lips are pale and still,
    My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
    The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
    From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won.

        "Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
        But I with mournful tread,
        Walk the deck, my Captain lies,
        Fallen, cold and dead."

William Cullen Bryant wrote the ode for the funeral services held in
New York City. Two of the stanzas are as follows:

    "In sorrow by thy bier we stand,
    Amid the awe that husheth all,
    And speak the anguish of a land
    That shook with horror at thy fall.

    "Pure was thy life; its bloody close
    Has placed thee with the Sons of Light,
    Among the noble hearts of those
    Who perished in the cause of Right."

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote for the funeral services at Concord,
Massachusetts, a poem of which the following is the last stanza:

    "Great captains, with their guns and drums,
    Disturb our judgment for the hour,
    But at last, silence comes;
    These all are gone, and, standing like a tower,
    Our children shall behold his fame,
    The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
    Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
    New birth of our new soil, the first American."


II. THE TIME WHEN "THOSE WHO CAME TO SCOFF REMAINED TO PRAY"

Lincoln's death was received throughout the South generally as the
death of an enemy. Well do they know now that it could have been said
of them then, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The sorrow throughout the North was as in the midst of Egypt's ancient
woe. It was as if "There was not a house where there was not one
dead."

As was once said of a great martyr of liberty, slain three centuries
before, so it could be said of Lincoln, "He went through life bearing
the load of a people's sorrows upon his shoulders with a smiling face.
While he lived he was the guiding star of a whole brave nation, and
when he died the little children cried in the streets."

Periodicals that had ridiculed him from his first appearance in their
view, and that had caused many of their readers to believe him little
better than a clown in the arena of affairs, or than a court fool
before the nations, dropped their defaming caricatures of him, and
gave him nearer justice.

One of the most belittling and besmirching periodicals of England
against Lincoln was the "London Punch." The war-president of the
United States was, largely from this source of authority, the jest of
all Europe.

But the issue following the assassination of Lincoln contained a great
picture. It was symbolical of England laying a wreath of flowers upon
Lincoln's coffin. The picture was drawn by Tenniel and with it was a
most penitent poem by Tom Taylor, who was author of the play, "Our
American Cousin," which Lincoln was attending when assassinated. Five
of the expressive stanzas are as follows:

    "So he grew up, a destined work to do,
      And lived to do it; four long suffering years,
    Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report lived through,
      And then he heard the hisses changed to cheers;

    "The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise,
      And took both with the same unwavering mood:
    Till, as he came to light, from darkling days,
      And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood,

    "A felon hand, between the goal and him,
      Reached from behind his back, a trigger pressed,--
    And those perplexed and patient eyes grew dim,
      Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to rest!

    "Beside this corpse, that bears for winding sheet
      The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew,
    Between the mourners at his head and feet,
      Say, scurril jester, is there room for you?

    "Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer,
      To lame my pencil and confute my pen;
    To make me own this hind of princes peer,
      This rail-splitter, a true-born king of men."

In 1879, at an unveiling in Boston of Freedman's Memorial Statue, a
duplicate of the original in Lincoln Square, Washington, a poem was
read from Whittier, of which the last three stanzas are the most
significant in their characterization. It beautifully expresses the
faith that in righteousness is personal power, even as it also
"exalteth a nation."

    "We rest in peace where these sad eyes
      Saw peril, strife and pain;
    His was the nation's sacrifice,
      And ours the priceless gain.

    "O, symbol of God's will on earth
      As it is done above!
    Bear witness to the cost and worth
      Of justice and of love.

    "Stand in thy place and testify
      To coming ages long,
    That truth is stronger than a lie,
      And righteousness than wrong."


III. SOME TYPICAL EXAMPLES GIVING VIEWS OF LINCOLN'S LIFE

Vachel Lindsay invokes the spirit of American patriotism when he says,

    "Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all,
    That which is gendered in the wilderness,
    From lonely prairies and God's tenderness.
    Imperial soul, star of a weedy stream,
    Born where the ghosts of buffaloes still dream,
    Whose spirit hoof-beats storm above his grave,
    About that breast of earth and prairie-fire--
    Fire that freed the slave."

Herr Loewes in the Prussian Parliament said: "Mr. Lincoln performed
his duties without pomp or ceremony, and relied on that dignity of the
inner self alone, which is far above rank, orders and titles. He was a
faithful servant, not less of his own country than of civilization,
freedom and humanity."

Oliver Wendell Holmes, writing of Lincoln's death, said:

    "Dear Lord, with pitying eye behold,
    This martyr generation,
    Which Thou, through trials manifold,
    Art showing Thy salvation!
    O let the blood by murder spilt
    Wash out Thy stricken children's guilt,
    And sanctify our nation!"

Samuel Francis Smith, author of the national hymn, "America," in a
long poetic tribute wrote:

    "Grandly he loved and lived;
    Not his own age alone
    Bears the proud impress of his sovereign mind.
    Down the long march of history,
    Ages and men shall see
    What one great soul can be
    What one great soul can do
    To make a nation true."

Horace Fiske closed a poem inspired by the Saint Gaudens statue, as
follows:

    "In human strength he towers almost divine,
      His mighty shoulders bent with breaking care,
    His thought-worn face with sympathies grown fine:
      And as men gaze, their hearts as oft declare
    That this is he whom all their hearts enshrine----
      This man that saved a race from slow despair."

Theodore Roosevelt said, in an address on the character of Lincoln,
"One of his most wonderful characteristics was the extraordinary way
in which he could fight valiantly against what he deemed wrong, and
yet preserve undiminished his love and respect for the brother from
whom he differed."

Woodrow Wilson said, "There was no point at which life touched him
that he did not speak back to it instantly its meaning."

Sir Spencer Walpole says in his history, "Of all men born to the
Anglo-Saxon race in the nineteenth century, Abraham Lincoln deserves
the highest place in history."


IV. REMEMBRANCE AT THE END OF A HUNDRED YEARS

The centennial anniversary of Lincoln's birth called forth expressions
of appreciation from over all the world. His memory and his meaning
had not grown dim in the interests of humanity. A few typical examples
illustrate the love and reverence inspired by his great work in the
human cause.

James Oppenheim, in his poem in praise of the Lincoln child, says,

    "Oh, to pour our love through deeds----
    To be as Lincoln was!
    That all the land might fill its daily needs
    Glorified by a human cause!
    Then were America a vast World-Torch
    Flaming a faith across the dying earth,
    Proclaiming from the Atlantic's rocky porch
    That a New World was struggling at the Birth!"

James Whitcomb Riley, writing of Lincoln, the boy, says in the last
stanza:

    "Or thus we know, nor doubt it not,
      The boy he must have been
    Whose budding heart bloomed with the thought
      All men are kith and kin----
    With love-light in his eyes and shade
      Of prescient tears: Because
    Only of such a boy were made
      The loving man he was."

Ambassador Bryce of England, speaking at Lincoln's tomb before a vast
gathering at the centennial anniversary of Lincoln's birth, said, "To
us in England, Lincoln is one of the heroes of the race from whence we
sprung. Great men are the noblest possession of a Nation, and are
potent forces in the moulding of national character. Their influence
lives after them, and, if they be good as well as great, they remain
as beacons lighting the course of all who follow them. They set for
succeeding generations the standards of public life. They stir the
spirit and rouse the energy of the youth who seek to emulate their
virtues in the service of their country."

Vice-President Fairbanks in an address at Harrisburg on that occasion
said, "His life was spent in conflict. In his youth, he struggled with
nature. At the bar of justice he contended for the rights of his
clients. In the wider field of politics, he fought with uncommon power
to overthrow the wrong and enthrone the right. He fought not for the
love of conquest, but for the love of truth. By nature he was a man of
peace. He instinctively loved justice, right, and liberty. His
conscience impelled him to uphold the right whenever it was denied his
fellowman."

S. E. Kiser ended a centennial poem with the following stanza:

    "Lo, where the feet of Lincoln passed, the earth
    Is sacred. Where he knelt we set a shrine!
    Oh, to have pressed his hand! That had sufficed
    To make my children wonder at my worth----
    Yet, let them glory, since their land and mine
    Hath reared the greatest martyr after Christ!"

Virginia Boyle, in her poem for the Philadelphia Brigade Association,
said in two of her stanzas:

    "No trumpet blared the word that he was born,
    No lightning flashed its symbols on that day:
    And only Poverty and Fate pressed on,
    To serve as handmaids where he lowly lay.

    "And up from Earth and toil, he slowly won,----
    Pressed by a bitterness he proudly spurned,
    Till by grim courage, born from sun to sun,
    He turned defeat, as victory is turned."

Edwin Markham concluded a centennial poem as follows:

                    "He held his place----
    Held the long purpose like a growing tree----
    Held on through blame and faltered not at praise,
    And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down
    As when a lordly cedar, green with boughs,
    Goes down with a great shout upon the hills,
    And leaves a lonesome place against the sky."



CHAPTER XI

CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS


I. THE HARMONIZING CONTRAST OF MEN

American freedom and democratic humanity require American minds to be
composed of free-made ideas, organized efficiently for the righteous
promotion of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," if we are
ever to be safe in the faith that "government of the people, by the
people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."

The American order, however defective, even as it is composed of
defective minds, is the only safety for a free humanity. The Western
hemisphere is under the control of that democratic order, and America
is large enough and powerful enough to stand alone, in clear vision
and unadulterated theory, for the rights of man. America alone is
clear-minded enough for the unprejudiced and unbiased championship of
a free-minded world.

Washington and Lincoln reached the heights from which they saw
together one vision of the Promised Land, "ordained from the
foundations of the world" for the chosen order of human evolution.
They wanted no "entangling alliances" with a foreign order, or a
fragmentary system of human freedom. Americans have so far kept the
peace with the uncompromised moral law of the "free and equal" rights
of man. America is dedicated to the proposition that a compromised
order of freedom and equality, either through treaty or war, shall
never invade the Western Hemisphere.

American youth, and every newcomer entitled to home or refuge on
American soil, must know the truth that makes men free. That truth is
marvellously embodied in the lives of Washington and Lincoln. Their
careers and patriotism have been contrasted and unified by many
learned students of their meaning for America. The characterization of
their lives, as significant for Americans, and needing much to be well
understood, has been nobly done by Charles Sumner. The more important
part of that impressive valuation is as follows:

     "The work left undone by Washington was continued by Lincoln.
     Kindred in service, kindred in patriotism, each was naturally
     surrounded at death by kindred homage. One sleeps in the East,
     the other sleeps in the West; and thus, in death, as in life,
     one is the complement of the other.

     "Each was at the head of the republic during a period of
     surpassing trial; and each thought only of the public good,
     simply, purely, constantly, so that single-hearted devotion to
     country will always find a synonym in their names. Each was the
     national chief during a time of successful war. Each was the
     representative of his country at a great epoch of history.

     "Unlike in origin, conversation, and character, they were
     unlike, also, in the ideas which they served, except so far as
     each was the servant of his country. The war conducted by
     Washington was unlike the war conducted by Lincoln,--as the
     peace which crowned the arms of the one was unlike the peace
     which began to smile upon the other. The two wars did not
     differ in the scale of operations, and in the tramp of mustered
     hosts, more than in the ideas involved. The first was for
     national independence; the second was to make the republic one
     and indivisible, on the indestructible foundations of liberty
     and equality. In the relation of cause and effect, the first
     was the natural precursor and herald of the second. By the
     sword of Washington independence was secured; but the unity of
     the republic and the principles of the Declaration were left
     exposed to question. From that day to this, through various
     chances, they have been questioned, and openly assailed,--until
     at last the republic was constrained to take up arms in their
     defence.

     "Such are these two great wars in which these two chiefs bore
     such part. Washington fought for national independence and
     triumphed, making his country an example to mankind. Lincoln
     drew a reluctant sword to save those great ideas, essential to
     the life and character of the republic. * * *

     "Rejoice as you point to this child of the people, who was
     lifted so high that republican institutions became manifest in
     him! * * * Above all, see to it that his constant vows are
     fulfilled, and that the promises of the fathers are maintained,
     so that no person in the upright form of man can be shut out
     from their protection. Then will the unity of the republic be
     fixed on a foundation that cannot fail, and other nations will
     enjoy its security. The cornerstone of national independence is
     already in its place, and on it is inscribed the name of George
     Washington. There is another stone which must have its place at
     the corner also. This is the Declaration of Independence, with
     all its promises fulfilled. On this stone we will gratefully
     inscribe the name of Abraham Lincoln."

[Illustration: Emancipation Statue of Lincoln--Washington, D. C.]

Carlyle says that "sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the
first characteristic of all men in any way heroic. All great men have
this as the primary material in them." This is why the so-called "art
for art's sake" never can be great. It is sincerity for merely formal
success, and not for the spirit of "life more abundantly." Formal
efficiency is achieved only in the complicated training of an extended
education, but social efficiency of immeasurably greater value is the
simplicity of knowledge. It is the source and explanation of all
interests, and in that learning, Lincoln had no superior. He never
achieved any good that he did not at once want to share it with
others. As a boy he never learned anything good that he did not want
to express it to others. In this process of receiving and giving is
the fundamental means of building character and mind. In teaching
others, he taught himself, and thus in losing his life he found it. In
being able to tell his observations and interpretations to his
comrades, he was training to be the schoolmaster of the world.

Lincoln's earnest sincerity relating to himself, his associates, his
community, his country, and for all mankind, may be illustrated in a
few quotations:

"The man who will not investigate both sides of a question is
dishonest."

"After all, the one meaning of life is simply to be kind."

"I have not done much, but this I have done--wherever I have found a
thistle growing, I have tried to pluck it up, and in its place to
plant a flower."

"I have been too familiar with disappointment, to be very much
chagrined by defeat."

"Without the assistance of that Divine Being I cannot succeed, and
with that assistance I cannot fail."

"If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and
finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die
by suicide."

"A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and
limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of
popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free
people."

"Twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer of
yesterday may labor on his own account today, and hire others to labor
for him to-morrow. Advancement and improvement in conditions is the
order of things in a society of equals,--in a democracy."

In a speech at Columbus, Ohio, September 16, 1859, he said, "I believe
there is a genuine popular sovereignty. I think a definition of
genuine popular sovereignty, in the abstract, would be about this:
That each man shall do precisely as he pleases with himself, and with
all those things which exclusively concern him. Applied to government
this principle would be, that a general government shall do all those
things which pertain to it, and all the local governments shall do
precisely as they please in respect to those matters which exclusively
concern them. I understand that this government of the United States,
under which we live, is based upon that principle; and I am
misunderstood if it is supposed that I have any war to make upon that
principle."

But, there is a patriotic masterpiece of Lincoln's thought, which,
with the reinforcement of occasion and place, such as the field of
Gettysburg was, contains all the unmeasurable and priceless meaning of
Lincoln for American patriotism and the manhood of America. It is his
address of dedication on the battlefield of Gettysburg. In effect on
the human mind, it probably can never be surpassed as a message of
political freedom for the rights of man.


II. A MASTERPIECE OF MEANING FOR AMERICA

The battle of Gettysburg is regarded by historians as one of the
decisive battles of the world. It was fought July 2, 3 and 4, 1863. On
the first anniversary, a great national meeting was held there to
dedicate the ground as a government burial place for the soldiers who
had died there.

Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, on the eve of the dedication, in the
course of an address, said, "I thank my God for the hope that this is
the last fratricidal war which will fall upon this country, vouchsafed
us from heaven, as the richest, the broadest, the most beautiful and
capable of a great destiny, that has ever been given to any part of
the human race."

At the opening of the ceremonies, before a vast concourse of people,
from all the Northern states, convened on the open battlefield, Rev.
T. H. Stockton said in the course of his dedicatory prayer, "In behalf
of all humanity, whose ideal is divine, whose first memory is Thine
image lost, and whose last hope is Thine image restored, and
especially of our own nation, whose history has been so favored, whose
position is so peerless, whose mission is so sublime, and whose future
so attractive, we thank Thee for the unspeakable patience of Thy
compassion, and the exceeding greatness of Thy loving kindness.... By
this Altar of Sacrifice, on this Field of Deliverance, on this Mount
of Salvation, within the fiery and bloody line of these 'munitions of
rocks,' looking back to the dark days of fear and trembling, and to
the rapture of relief that came after, we multiply our thanksgivings
and confess our obligations.... Our enemies ... prepared to cast the
chain of Slavery around the form of Freedom, binding life and death
together forever.... But, behind these hills was heard the feeble
march of a smaller, but still pursuing host. Onward they hurried, day
and night, for God and their country. Footsore, wayworn, hungry,
thirsty, faint,--but not in heart,--they came to dare all, to bear
all, and to do all that is possible to heroes.... Baffled, bruised,
broken, their enemies recoiled, retired and disappeared.... But oh,
the slain!... From the Coasts beneath the Eastern Star, from the
shores of Northern lakes and rivers, from the flowers of Western
prairies, and from the homes of the Midway and Border, they came here
to die for us and for mankind.... As the trees are not dead, though
their foliage is gone, so our heroes are not dead, though their forms
have fallen.... The spirit of their example is here. And, so long as
time lasts, the pilgrims of our own land, and from all lands, will
thrill with its inspiration."

Edward Everett, as the orator of the day, said in the course of his
scholarly address, "As my eye ranges over the fields whose sod was so
recently moistened by the blood of gallant and loyal men, I feel, as
never before, how truly it was said of old, 'it is sweet and becoming
to die for one's country.' I feel, as never before, how justly from
the dawn of history to the present time, men have paid the homage of
their gratitude and admiration to the memory of those who nobly
sacrificed their lives, that their fellowmen may live in safety and
honor.... I do not believe there is in all history, the record of a
Civil War of such gigantic dimensions where so little has been done in
the spirit of vindictiveness as in this war.... There is no bitterness
in the hearts of the masses.... The bonds that unite us as one
People,--a substantial community of origin, language, belief and law;
common, national and political interests ... these bonds of union are
of perennial force and energy, while the causes of alienation are
imaginary, factitious and transient. The heart of the People, North
and South, is for the Union.... The weary masses of the people are
yearning to see the dear old flag floating over their capitols, and
they sigh for the return of peace, prosperity and happiness, which
they enjoyed under a government whose power was felt only in its
blessings.... You feel, though the occasion is mournful, that it is
good to be here! God bless the Union! It is dearer to us for the blood
of brave men which has been shed in its defense.... 'The whole earth,'
said Pericles, as he stood over the remains of his fellow citizens,
who had fallen in the first year of the Peloponnesian War, 'the whole
earth is the sepulchre of illustrious men.' All time, he might have
added, is the millennium of their glory."

The place and the occasion were supremely inspiring to patriotism, not
only for the triumph of moral principle in one's country, but for its
meaning to all humanity. The great battlefield spread out before the
eyes of the vast concourse gathered there from all the states, and the
spirit of the heroic scenes animated every mind.

Edward Everett, then regarded as the greatest orator in America, had
delivered the dedicatory oration through a long strain of attention,
during the weary and fatiguing hours. The President was then called on
to close the dedication with whatever he might feel desirable to say.
He did so in a few words, but these few words are cherished as among
the greatest contributions to the meaning of civilization. To one of
the decisive battles for freedom in the world, it gave a starry crown
from "the voice of the people" as "the voice of God."

       *       *       *       *       *

The War Department appropriated five thousand dollars to cast this
speech in bronze and set it up on the battlefield of Gettysburg. It is
regarded as a masterpiece of dedication in the literature of the
world.

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation,
or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are
met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a
portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave
their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and
proper that we should do this.

"But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we
cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or
detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say
here, but it can never forget what they did here.

"It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the
unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us: that from the same honored dead we take increased
devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of
devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead should not have
died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of
freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth."


III. THE MISSION OF AMERICA

The understanding person who becomes conscious of a meaning for his
life, realizes a most important responsibility to work for the
betterment of his mind and the material conditions that are to become
as his future self. The moral person, who becomes conscious of a
meaning for human life, works for this betterment as his contribution
to the progress of posterity. This means that a moral individual
coincides with a social humanity. Anything not thus harmonizing
morally for the world as it is, in order to promote a world as it
ought to be, is an enemy of both self and society.

Lincoln admonishes us to remember that "The struggle of today is not
altogether for today,--it is for a vast future also." We learned
rapidly, when the true situation came into our view, that, as
Professor Phelps voiced it long ago, "To save America we must save the
world." American patriotism is clearly world-patriotism, and it has
become synonymous with humanity. This old truth was discovered by the
Revolutionary Fathers, and it is the mission of America to make it the
truth of the World.

The International Teachers' Congress representing eighteen nations,
which met at Liege in 1905, adopted five definite ideas of
International Peace, that should be promoted through all available
ways, in all the schools of civilized nations. Briefly stated, those
fundamental ideas were as follows:

     1. The morality of individuals is the same for people and
     nations.

     2. The ideal of brotherly love has no limit.

     3. All life must be duly respected.

     4. Human rights are the same for one and all.

     5. Love of country coincides with love of humanity.

Such principles and such a definition of patriotism were upheld by the
makers and preservers of America, at the greatest cost of treasure and
life, and they are the life-interest of every one worthy of the name
American. It moved Bishop J. P. Newman to say of Lincoln in his
anniversary oration of 1894, "Lincoln's mission was as large as his
country, vast as humanity, enduring as time. No greater thought can
ever enter the human mind than obedience to law and freedom for
all.... Time has vindicated the character of his statesmanship, that
to preserve the Union was to save this great nation for human
liberty."

American faith has at last come to the conditions when it can realize
itself in fulfilling the moral work of the world. That vision came
into full view during the Great European War.

President Wilson, in his address to Congress, April 2, 1917, said:

"We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that
the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong shall be
observed among nations and their Governments that are observed among
the individual citizens of civilized states."

Congress acted upon this reaffirmation of the responsibility of
Americans and the mission of America. Concerning the monstrous
invasion of humanity and ruthless denial of international law, he
said:

"Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the
world is involved and the freedom of its peoples and the menace to
that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic Governments
backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will,
not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality
in such circumstances."

The Way of Peace, as the morality of democracies, he clearly defined,
so that even the worst prejudice could not becloud the issue with
irrelevant or contradictory assertions.

"A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a
partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic Government could be
trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a
league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its
vitals away; the plotters of inner circles who could plan what they
would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its
very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor
steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any
narrow interest of their own."

Washington was charged with the heroic task of making the thirteen
colonies safe for "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness;"
Lincoln's patriotic mission was to unchain this Ideal for all America:
and Wilson's sublime conception was to make the world "safe for
democracy," that its peace might be planted on "the trusted
foundations of liberty."

A mind-union upon human meaning as an ideal is necessary for the
patriotism of America. The right to life means that the making of
right life has a right way. Those who deny the meaning of America
divest themselves of all claims in reason upon the rights of life
defined in American history. The American kingdom of right is
perfecting itself as rapidly as minds can be mobilized for its sublime
task. The war-message extending the definition of American freedom
says:

"We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion.
We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the
sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of
the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have
been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of the nations can
make them."

And, finally, the duty of every American, worthy of America, enters
the third epoch of American history, as did the patriot duty of
Washington and Lincoln in their time. The message concludes in these
measured terms:

"It is a fearful thing to lead this great, peaceful people into
war--into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization
itself seeming to be in the balance.

"But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the
things which we have always carried nearest our hearts--for democracy,
for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in
their own Governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations,
for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as
shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself
at last free.

"To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything
that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who
know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her
blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and
happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she
can do no other."

The world in its social evolution has come on through its immemorial
struggle to the crisis in its history, where civilization, as liberty
in moral law, can progress further only as the forces of humanity are
organized "to make the world safe for democracy." The final truth is
that the world will be made safe for democracy when democracy is made
safe for the individual. All political creeds, religious interests and
moral ideals, must have this democracy in which to work, before they
can become free to develop their own truth.

Autocratic egotism, whether framed in national or personal will, among
many or few, must perish from the earth, with all its spoils and
masteries, before there can be any possible "government of the people,
for the people and by the people." As "a house divided against itself
cannot stand," so, a civilization cannot stand whose humanity is
divided into the three special interests known to us as individuals,
the nation and an alien world.

The human task of conscience and reason, made clear in the progress of
experience, finds the humanity of child, mother and man in all its
relations and interests, or it has not found God or the meaning of the
Universe.

Human peace and salvation are gained, not only through persuasion,
education and regeneration, but also that the composing conditions of
"peace on earth" shall be made materially safe for "life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness."

Physically, as well as spiritually, the faith that is "without works
is dead." The righteousness that allows its right to be defeated is
not righteous, and the conscience that permits the crimes of
inhumanity is no less unlawful before man and God. In such conditions,
the prophet cried out, "Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord
negligently, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood."

The American democracy of Washington and Lincoln, with their hosts of
devoted associates, means individual righteousness and responsibility
making safe the free-born mind for a moral world. What is an American
and why so is the patriotic and religious interest developed through
ages of sacrifice and suffering. Only those who are willing "to give
the last full measure of devotion" to that divine work are heirs to
the humanity of Washington and Lincoln, and who are thus entitled to
be named Americans, or are worthy to share the heritage of America.





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