Chapter X: Testimony of Lincoln's Relatives and Intimate Associates

Mrs. Sarah Lincoln--Dennis F. Hanks--Mrs. Matilda Moore--
John Hall--Win. McNeely--Wm. G. Green--Joshua F. Speed--
Green Caruthers--John Decamp--Mr. Lynan--James B.
Spaulding--Ezra Stringham--Dr. G. H Ambrose--J. H. Chenery--
Squire Perkins--W. Perkins--James Gorley--Dr. Wm. Jayne--
Jesse K. Dubois--Hon. Joseph Gillespie--Judge Stephen T.
Logan--Hon. Leonard Swett

Were I to rest my case here, the evidence already adduced is sufficient, I think, to convince any unprejudiced mind that Lincoln was not a Christian. But I do not propose to rest here. I have presented the testimony of half a score of witnesses; before I lay down my pen I shall present the testimony of nearly ten times as many more.

In this chapter will be given the testimony of some of the relatives and intimate associates of Lincoln. The testimony of his relatives confirms the claim that he was not religious in his youth; the others testify to his unbelief while a resident of New Salem and Springfield.

MRS. SARAH LINCOLN.

If there was one person to whom Lincoln was more indebted than to any other, it was his stepmother, Sally Lincoln, a beautiful woman--beautiful not only in face and form, but possessed of a most lovely character. She was not highly educated, but she loved knowledge, and inspired in her step-son a love for books. She was a Christian, but she attached more importance to deed than to creed. She loved Lincoln. After his death she said: "He was dutiful to me always. I think he loved me truly. 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 was too good and too great not to appreciate this woman's care and affection.

When the materials for Lincoln's biography were being collected, Mrs. Lincoln was considered the most reliable source from which to obtain the facts pertaining to his boyhood. Her recollections of him were recorded with the utmost care. His Christian biographers, in order to make a Sunday-school hero of him, have declared him to be a youth remarkable for his Christian piety and his love of the Bible. The statements of Mrs. Lincoln disprove this claim. The substance of her testimony, as given by Lamon, is given as follows: "His step-mother--herself a Christian, and longing for the least sign of faith in him--could remember no circumstance that supported her hope. On the contrary, she recollected very well that he never went off into a corner, as has been said, to ponder the sacred writings, and to wet the page with his tears of penitence" (Life of Lincoln, pp. 486, 487).

"The Bible, according to Mrs. Lincoln, was not one of his studies; 'he sought more congenial books.' At that time he neither talked nor read upon religious subjects. If he had any opinions about them, he kept them to himself" (Ibid, p. 38).

DENNIS F. HANKS.

The next witness is Lincoln's cousin, Dennis Hanks. Mr. Hanks held "the pulpy, red, little Lincoln" in his arms before he was "twenty-four hours old," and remained his constant companion during all the years that he lived in Kentucky and Indiana. He lived a part of the time in the Lincoln family, and married one of Lincoln's step-sisters. I met him recently at Charleston, Ill. With evident delight he rehearsed the story of Lincoln's boyhood, and reaffirmed the truthfulness of the following statements attributed to him by Lincoln's biographers:

"Abe wasn't in early life a religious man. He was a moral man strictly.... In after life he became more religious; but the Bible puzzled him, especially the miracles" (Every-Day Life of Lincoln, p. 54).

"'Religious songs did not appear to suit him at all,' says Dennis Hanks; but of profane ballads and amorous ditties he knew the words of a vast number.

"Another was:

'Hail Columbia, happy land!
If you ain't drunk, I'll be damned,'

a song which Dennis thinks should be warbled only in the 'fields;' and tells us they knew and enjoyed all such songs as this'" (Lamon's Life of Lincoln, pp. 58, 59).

The fitness of the above coarse travesty to be warbled, even in the fields, may well be doubted. Lamon would hardly have recorded it, and I certainly should not quote it, but for the fact that it strikingly illustrates one phase of Lincoln's "youthful piety."

Among the many Christian hymns which Lincoln parodied, Mr. Hanks recalls the following:

"How tedious and tasteless the hours."
"When I can read my title clear."
"Oh! to grace how great a debtor!"
"Come, thou fount of every blessing."

MRS. MATILDA MOORE.

Lincoln's first husband was named Johnston. By him she had three children, a son and two daughters. The latter, like their mother, developed into noble specimens of womanhood; and both loved Lincoln as tenderly as though he had been their own brother. The elder was married to Dennis Hanks; the younger, Matilda, married Lincoln's cousin, Levi Hall, and, after his death, a gentleman named Moore.

Lamon says that Lincoln in his youth made a mockery of the popular religion; not from any lack of reverence for what he believed to be good, but because "he thought that a person had better be without it." That he was accustomed to turn so-called sacred subjects into ridicule is attested by his stepsister, Mrs. Moore. She says:

"When father and mother would go to church, Abe would take down the Bible, read a verse, give out a hymn, and we would sing. Abe was about fifteen years of age. He preached and we would do the crying" (Every-Day Life of Lincoln, p. 71).

JOHN HALL.

On the 28th of April, 1888, the writer, in company with Mr. Charles Biggs, of Westfield, Ill., visited the old Lincoln homestead, near Farmington, Ill. We dined with Mr. John Hall, a son of Lincoln's stepsister Matilda, in the old log-house built by Lincoln's father sixty years ago, and in which his father and step-mother died. Mr. Hall, who owns the homestead and preserves with zealous care this venerable relic, is an intelligent farmer over sixty years of age. He greatly reveres the memory of his illustrious uncle and loves to dwell on his many noble traits of character. He stated that the family tradition is that while Abe was a most honest and humane boy he was not religious. He referred to the mock sermons he is said to have preached. "At these meetings," said Mr. Hall, "my mother would lead in the singing while Uncle Abe would lead in prayer. Among his numerous supplications, he prayed God to put stockings on the chickens' feet in winter."

WILLIAM McNEELT.

William McNeely, of Petersburg, Ill., who became acquainted with Lincoln in 1831, when he arrived at New Salem on a flatboat, says:

"Lincoln said he did not believe in total depravity, and although it was not popular to believe it, it was easier to do right than wrong; that the first thought was: what was right? and the second--what was wrong? Therefore it was easier to do right than wrong, and easier to take care of, as it would take care of itself. It took an effort to do wrong, and a still greater effort to take care of it; but do right and it would take care of itself.

"I was acquainted with him a long time, and I never knew him to do a wrong act" (Lincoln Memorial Album, pp. 393-395).

WILLIAM G. GREEN.

One of Lincoln's early companions at New Salem was William G. Green. He and Lincoln clerked in the same store and slept together on the same cot. The testimony of Mr. Green has not been preserved. We have simply an observation of his, incidentally made, the substance of which is thus presented by Lamon:

"Lincoln's incessant reading of Shakspere and Burns had much to do in giving to his mind the 'skeptical' tendency so fully devoloped by the labors of his pen in 1834-5, and in social conversations during many years of his residence at Springfield" (Life of Lincoln, p. 145).

Mr. Green's conclusion, especially in regard to Burns, is quite generally shared by Lincoln's friends. Burns's satirical poems were greatly admired by-Lincoln. "Holy Willie's Prayer," one of the most withering satires on orthodox Christianity ever penned, was memorized by him. Every one of its sixteen stanzas, beginning with the following, was an Infidel shaft which he delighted to hurl at the heads of his Christian opponents:

"O thou, wha in the heavens dost dwell,
Wha, as it pleases best thysel',
Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell,
A' for thy glory,
And no for ony guid or ill
They've done afore thee!"

JOSHUA F. SPEED.

Another of Lincoln's earliest and best friends was Joshua F. Speed. When he was licensed as a lawyer and entered upon his professional career at Springfield without a client and without a dollar, Speed assisted him to get a start. W. H. Herndon was clerking for Speed at the time, and for more than a year Lincoln, Herndon and Speed roomed together. Referring to the religious views held by Lincoln at that time, Mr. Speed, in a lecture, says:

"I have often been asked what were Mr. Lincoln's religious opinions. When I knew him, in early life, he was a skeptic. He had tried hard to be a believer, but his reason could not grasp and solve the great problem of redemption as taught."

This is the testimony of an orthodox Christian, and a church-member. Mr. Speed, during the years that he was acquainted with Lincoln, was not a member of any church; but late in life he united with the Methodist church. As "the wish is father to the thought," Mr. Speed professed to believe that Lincoln before his death modified, to some extent, the radical views of his early manhood.

GREEN CARUTHERS.

Soon after Lincoln removed to Springfield, he became acquainted with Mr. Green Caruthers and remained on intimate terms with him during all the subsequent years of his life. Mr. Caruthers was a quiet, unobtrusive old gentleman, universally respected by those who knew him. The substance of his testimony is as follows:

"Lincoln, Bledsoe, the metaphysician, and myself, boarded at the Globe hotel in this city. Bledsoe tended toward Christianity, if he was not a Christian. Lincoln was always throwing out his Infidelity to Bledsoe, ridiculing Christianity, and especially the divinity of Christ."

JOHN DECAMP.

Another of Lincoln's most intimate Springfield friends was John Decamp. Mr. Decamp was interviewed by Mr. Herndon regarding Lincoln's religious views in July, 1887. His statement was brief, but to the point. He says:

"Lincoln was an Infidel."

MR. LYNAN. In 1880, at Bismarck Grove, Kan., the writer of this delivered a lecture entitled, "Four American Infidels," a portion of which was devoted to a presentation of Lincoln's religious views. In its report of the lecture, the Lawrence _Standard_, edited by Hon. E. G. Ross, formerly United States Senator from Kansas, and more recently Governor of New Mexico, said:

"In regard to Abraham Lincoln being an Infidel, the evidence adduced was overwhelming, and was confirmed by a gentleman present, Mr. Lynan, who had known him intimately for thirty years. Mr. Lynan declared that none but personal acquaintance could enable one to realize the nobility and purity of Lincoln's character, but that he was beyond doubt or question a thorough disbeliever in the Christian scheme of salvation to the end of his life" (Lawrence Standard, Sept. 4, 1880).

JAMES B. SPAULDING.

Mr. J. B. Spaulding, well known as one of the leading nurserymen and horticulturists of the United States, a man of broad culture and refinement, who resides near Springfield, became intimately acquainted with Lincoln as early as 1851, and for a long time resided on the same street with him in Springfield. Mr. Spaulding says:

"Lincoln perpetrated many an irreverent joke at the expense of church doctrines. Regarding the miraculous conception, he was especially sarcastic. He wrote a manuscript as radical as Ingersoll which his political friends caused to be destroyed."

EZRA STRINGHAM.

A short time since I was conversing with a party of gentlemen in Riverton, Ill. It being near Lincoln's old home, the subject of his religious belief was introduced. An old gentleman, who up to this time had not been taking part in the conversation, quietly observed: "I think I knew Lincoln's religious views about as well as any other man." "What was he?" said one of the party. "An Infidel of the first water," was the prompt response. The old gentleman was Ezra Stringham, one of Lincoln's early acquaintances in Illinois.

DR. G. H. AMBROSE.

Dr. G. H. Ambrose, of Waldo, Fla., who was associated in the law business at Springfield from 1846 to 1849 with a relative of Mrs. Lincoln, says: "Mr. Lincoln was an Infidel--an outspoken one."

J. H. CHENERY.

Mr. J. H. Chenery, one of Springfield's pioneers--for many years owner and proprietor of the leading hotel of Springfield--says:

"Reed tried to prove that Lincoln was a church man; but everybody here knows that he was not. Once in a great while, and only once in a great while, I saw him accompany his wife and children to church. His attacks upon the church were most bitter and sarcastic. He wrote a book against Christianity, but his friends got away with it."

SQUIRE PERKINS.

A few years ago there died near Atchison, Kan., an old gentleman named Perkins. He was poor, but honest, and a bright man intellectually. He was a son of Major Perkins who was killed in the Black Hawk war. Lincoln after the fight discovered the scalp of Major Perkins, which his savage assassin had taken but lost. His first impulse was to keep it and take it home to the family of the dead soldier. Then realizing that it would only tend to intensify their grief, he opened the grave and deposited it with the body. This incident led to an intimate acquaintance between Lincoln and the younger Perkins. In June, 1880, Mr. Perkins made the following statement relative to Lincoln's religious belief:

"During all the time that I was acquainted with Abraham Lincoln I know that he was what the church calls an Infidel. I do not believe that he ever changed his opinions. When Colfax was in Atchison I had a talk with him about Lincoln. Among other things, I asked him if Lincoln had ever been converted to Christianity. He told me that he had not."

W. PERKINS.

Mr. Perkins, an old lawyer and journalist of Illinois, who was acquainted with Lincoln for upward of twenty years, and who was his associate counsel in several important cases, writing from Belleview, Fla., under date of August 22, 1887, says:

"The unfair efforts that Christians have been putting forth to drag Lincoln into their waning faith betray a pitiable imbecility. Were it possible for them to get the world to believe that Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, all prayed, had faith, and were washed in the blood of the Lamb, would that prove the inspiration of their Bible, harmonize its contradictions, put a ray of reason in its gross absurdities, or humanize the first one of its numerous bloody barbarities? I knew Mr. Lincoln from the spring of 1838 till his death. Like Archibald Williams, our contemporary, an able Lord Coke lawyer, he no more believed in the inspiration of the Bible than Hume, Paine, or Ingersoll. Less inclined openly to denounce its absurdities and cruelties, or to antagonize the well-meaning credulous professors, than was Williams. Mr. Lincoln had no faith whatever in the first miracle of the Bible, or the scheme of bloody redemption it teaches. To attribute such sentiments to him, is to tarnish his well-earned reputation for common sense, and to impair the estimation of his countrymen and the world of his high sense of humanity, justice, and honor. Two of my Presbyterian friends at Indian Point, near Petersburg, told me that they had interviewed Mr. Lincoln to prevent his impending duel with Shields--claiming that it was contrary to the Bible and Christianity. He admitted that the dueling code was barbarous and regretted much to find himself in its toils, but said he, 'The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my profession.'"

In some reminiscences of Lincoln, recently published, referring to a celebrated murder case in which they were counsel for the defendant, Mr. Perkins says: "I reminded him that from the first I had seen, and to him said, the case is hopeless, and that he must have expected to work a miracle to save the accused. He answered that I did him injustice, _since he_ had no faith in miracles."

Alluding to Lincoln's alleged change of heart, he writes:

"He never changed a sentiment on the subject up to his final sleep."

JAMES GORLEY.

Mr. Gorley, who was the confidential friend of Lincoln, and who spent much time with him, both at home and abroad, made the following statement:

"Lincoln belonged to no religious sect. He was religious in his own way--not as others generally. I do not think he ever had a change of heart, religiously speaking. Had he ever had a change of heart he would have told me. He could not have neglected it."

WILLIAM JAYNE, M.D.

Dr. Jayne, who was appointed Governor of Dakota by Lincoln, is one of the most prominent citizens of Springfield, and was one of Lincoln's ablest and most faithful political friends. He secured Lincoln's nomination for the Legislature once, and was one of the first to pit him against Douglas. In a letter to me, dated August 18, 1887, Dr. Jayne says:

"His general reputation among his neighbors and friends of twenty-five years' standing was that of a disbeliever in the accepted faith of orthodox Christians. His mind was purely logical in its construction and action. He believed nothing except what was susceptible of demonstration.... His most intimate friends here, and close to him in the confidential relations of life, assert, in regard to those who claim for Lincoln a faith in the orthodox Christian belief, that the claim is a fraud and utter nonsense."

HON. JESSE K. DUBOIS.

Jesse K. Dubois, for a time State Auditor of Illinois, a noble and gifted man, and one whom Lincoln dearly loved, once related an anecdote which shows that if Lincoln did believe in a Supreme Being, he had little reverence for the God of Christianity. In company with Dubois, he was visiting a family in or near Springfield. It was summer, and while Dubois was in the house with the family, Lincoln occupied a seat in the yard with his feet resting against a tree, as was his wont. The lady, who was a very zealous Christian, called attention to his appearance and commented rather severely upon his ugliness. When they returned home Dubois referred to the lady's remarks. Lincoln was silent for a moment, and then said: "Dubois, I know that I am ugly, but she worships a God who is uglier than I am."

HON. JOSEPH GILLESPIE.

Judge Gillespie, of Edwardsville, Ill., one of Lincoln's most valued friends, writes as follows:

"Mr. Lincoln seldom said anything on the subject of religion. He said once to me that he never could reconcile the prescience of Deity with the uncertainty of events." "It was difficult," says Judge Gillespie, "for him to believe without demonstration."

JUDGE STEPHEN T. LOGAN.

Lincoln was admitted to the bar in 1837, when he was twenty-eight years of age, Judge Logan being on the bench at the time. Soon after his admission he formed a partnership with John T. Stuart which existed nearly four years, or until Mr. Stuart entered Congress. He then became the partner of Judge Logan, and continued in business with him until 1843, when he united his practice with that of Mr. Herndon. The testimony of Mr. Stuart and Mr. Herndon has already been given. No formal statement of Judge Logan concerning this question has been preserved. All that I have been able to find is contained in a letter from Mr. Herndon dated Dec. 22, 1888. Mr. Herndon wrote in relation to Lincoln's letter of consolation to his dying father. In Lincoln's letter, while Christ and Christianity are wholly ignored, there is an implied recognition of immortality and an expressed hope that he may meet his father again. Lincoln's friends, for the most part, consider the letter merely conventional, not an expression of his real sentiments, but simply an effort to console his Christian father whom he could never meet again on earth. Mr. Herndon, however, is inclined to believe that while the tone of the letter is not exactly in accordance with the views generally held by Lincoln, it is yet a sincere expression of the feelings he entertained at the time. Referring to this letter, Mr. Herndon says:

"I showed the letter to Logan, Stuart, _et al,_ Logan laughed in my face as much as to say: 'Herndon, are you so green as to believe that letter to be Lincoln's real ideas?' I cannot give the exact words of Logan, but he in substance said: 'Lincoln was an Infidel of the most radical type.'"

HON. LEONARD SWETT.

I close this division of my evidence with the testimony of that gifted lawyer and honored citizen of Illinois, Leonard Swett. Previous to his removal to Chicago, in 1865, Mr. Swett resided in Bloomington, and for a dozen years traveled the old Eighth Judicial Circuit with Lincoln. Few men knew Lincoln better than did Swett, and none was held in higher esteem by Lincoln than he. It was he who placed Lincoln in nomination for the Presidency at Chicago in 1860. I quote from a letter written by Mr. Swett in 1866:

"You ask me whether he [Lincoln] changed his religious opinions toward the close of his life. I think not. As he became involved in matters of the greatest importance, full of great responsibility and great doubt, a feeling of religious reverence, a belief in God and his justice and overruling providence increased with him. He was always full of natural religion. He believed in God as much as the most approved church member, yet he judged of him by the same system of generalization as he judged everything else. He had very little faith in ceremonials or forms. In fact he cared nothing for the form of anything.... If his religion were to be judged by the lines and rules of church creeds, he would fall far short of the standard."