Chapter X: Part 10

“Pausing a moment, he drew up his shoulders in a comical way, and half laughing, went on, ‘There, there, may it please the court, I reckon I’ve scratched up a snake. But, as I’m in for it, I guess I’ll read it through.’

“Then, in his most ingenious and matchless manner, he went on with his argument, and won his case, convincing the court that it was not much of a snake after all.”

LINCOLN AND THE “SHOW”

Lincoln was fond of going all by himself to any little show or concert. He would often slip away from his fellow-lawyers and spend the entire evening at a little magic lantern show intended for children.

A traveling concert company was always sure of drawing Lincoln. A Mrs. Hillis, a member of the “Newhall Family,” and a good singer, was the only woman who ever seemed to exhibit any liking for him--so Lincoln said. He attended a negro-minstrel show in Chicago, once, where he heard Dixie sung. It was entirely new, and pleased him greatly.

“MIXING” AND “MINGLING.”

An Eastern newspaper writer told how Lincoln, after his first nomination, received callers, the majority of them at his law office:

“While talking to two or three gentlemen and standing up, a very hard looking customer rolled in and tumbled into the only vacant chair and the one lately occupied by Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln’s keen eye took in the fact, but gave no evidence of the notice.

“Turning around at last he spoke to the odd specimen, holding out his hand at such a distance that our friend had to vacate the chair if he accepted the proffered shake. Mr. Lincoln quietly resumed his chair.

“It was a small matter, yet one giving proof more positively than a larger event of that peculiar way the man has of mingling with a mixed crowd.”

TOOK PART OF THE BLAME.

Among the lawyers who traveled the circuit with Lincoln was Usher F. Linder, whose daughter, Rose Linder Wilkinson, has left many Lincoln reminiscences.

“One case in which Mr. Lincoln was interested concerned a member of my own family,” said Mrs. Wilkinson. “My brother, Dan, in the heat of a quarrel, shot a young man named Ben Boyle and was arrested. My father was seriously ill with inflammatory rheumatism at the time, and could scarcely move hand or foot. He certainly could not defend Dan. I was his secretary, and I remember it was but a day or so after the shooting till letters of sympathy began to pour in. In the first bundle which I picked up there was a big letter, the handwriting on which I recognized as that of Mr. Lincoln. The letter was very sympathetic.

“‘I know how you feel, Linder,’ it said. ‘I can understand your anger as a father, added to all the other sentiments. But may we not be in a measure to blame? We have talked about the defense of criminals before our children; about our success in defending them; have left the impression that the greater the crime, the greater the triumph of securing an acquittal. Dan knows your success as a criminal lawyer, and he depends on you, little knowing that of all cases you would be of least value in this.’

“He concluded by offering his services, an offer which touched my father to tears.

“Mr. Lincoln tried to have Dan released on bail, but Ben Boyle’s family and friends declared the wounded man would die, and feeling had grown so bitter that the judge would not grant any bail. So the case was changed to Marshall county, but as Ben finally recovered it was dismissed.”

THOUGHT OF LEARNING A TRADE.

Lincoln at one time thought seriously of learning the blacksmith’s trade. He was without means, and felt the immediate necessity of undertaking some business that would give him bread. While entertaining this project an event occurred which, in his undetermined state of mind, seemed to open a way to success in another quarter.

Reuben Radford, keeper of a small store in the village of New Salem, had incurred the displeasure of the “Clary Grove Boys,” who exercised their “regulating” prerogatives by irregularly breaking his windows. William G. Greene, a friend of young Lincoln, riding by Radford’s store soon afterward, was hailed by him, and told that he intended to sell out. Mr. Greene went into the store, and offered him at random $400 for his stock, which offer was immediately accepted.

Lincoln “happened in” the next day, and being familiar with the value of the goods, Mr. Greene proposed to him to take an inventory of the stock, to see what sort of a bargain he had made. This he did, and it was found that the goods were worth $600.

Lincoln then made an offer of $125 for his bargain, with the proposition that he and a man named Berry, as his partner, take over Greene’s notes given to Radford. Mr. Greene agreed to the arrangement, but Radford declined it, except on condition that Greene would be their security. Greene at last assented.

Lincoln was not afraid of the “Clary Grove Boys”; on the contrary, they had been his most ardent friends since the time he thrashed “Jack” Armstrong, champion bully of “The Grove”--but their custom was not heavy.

The business soon became a wreck; Greene had to not only assist in closing it up, but pay Radford’s notes as well. Lincoln afterwards spoke of these notes, which he finally made good to Greene, as “the National Debt.”

LINCOLN DEFENDS FIFTEEN MRS. NATIONS.

When Lincoln’s sympathies were enlisted in any cause, he worked like a giant to win. At one time (about 1855) he was in attendance upon court at the little town of Clinton, Ill., and one of the cases on the docket was where fifteen women from a neighboring village were defendants, they having been indicted for trespass. Their offense, as duly set forth in the indictment, was that of swooping down upon one Tanner, the keeper of a saloon in the village, and knocking in the heads of his barrels. Lincoln was not employed in the case, but sat watching the trial as it proceeded.

In defending the ladies, their attorney seemed to evince a little want of tact, and this prompted one of the former to invite Mr. Lincoln to add a few words to the jury, if he thought he could aid their cause. He was too gallant to refuse, and their attorney having consented, he made use of the following argument:

“In this case I would change the order of indictment and have it read The State vs. Mr. Whiskey, instead of The State vs. The Ladies; and touching these there are three laws: the law of self-protection; the law of the land, or statute law; and the moral law, or law of God.

“First the law of self-protection is a law of necessity, as evinced by our forefathers in casting the tea overboard and asserting their right to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness: In this case it is the only defense the Ladies have, for Tanner neither feared God nor regarded man.

“Second, the law of the land, or statute law, and Tanner is recreant to both.

“Third, the moral law, or law of God, and this is probably a law for the violation of which the jury can fix no punishment.”

Lincoln gave some of his own observations on the ruinous effects of whiskey in society, and demanded its early suppression.

After he had concluded, the Court, without awaiting the return of the jury, dismissed the ladies, saying:

“Ladies, go home. I will require no bond of you, and if any fine is ever wanted of you, we will let you know.”

AVOIDED EVEN APPEARANCE OF EVIL

Frank W. Tracy, President of the First National Bank of Springfield, tells a story illustrative of two traits in Mr. Lincoln’s character. Shortly after the National banking law went into effect the First National of Springield was chartered, and Mr. Tracy wrote to Mr. Lincoln, with whom he was well acquainted in a business way, and tendered him an opportunity to subscribe for some of the stock.

In reply to the kindly offer Mr. Lincoln wrote, thanking Mr. Tracy, but at the same time declining to subscribe. He said he recognized that stock in a good National bank would be a good thing to hold, but he did not feel that he ought, as President, profit from a law which had been passed under his administration.

“He seemed to wish to avoid even the appearance of evil,” said Mr. Tracy, in telling of the incident. “And so the act proved both his unvarying probity and his unfailing policy.”

WAR DIDN’T ADMIT OF HOLIDAYS.

Lincoln wrote a letter on October 2d, 1862, in which he observed:

“I sincerely wish war was a pleasanter and easier business than it is, but it does not admit of holidays.”

“NEUTRALITY.”

Old John Bull got himself into a precious fine scrape when he went so far as to “play double” with the North, as well as the South, during the great American Civil War. In its issue of November 14th, 1863, London “Punch” printed a rather clever cartoon illustrating the predicament Bull had created for himself. John is being lectured by Mrs. North and Mrs. South--both good talkers and eminently able to hold their own in either social conversation, parliamentary debate or political argument--but he bears it with the best grace possible. This is the way the text underneath the picture runs:

MRS. NORTH. “How about the Alabama, you wicked old man?” MRS. SOUTH: “Where’s my rams? Take back your precious consols--there!!” “Punch” had a good deal of fun with old John before it was through with him, but, as the Confederate privateer Alabama was sent beneath the waves of the ocean at Cherbourg by the Kearsarge, and Mrs. South had no need for any more rams, John got out of the difficulty without personal injury. It was a tight squeeze, though, for Mrs. North was in a fighting humor, and prepared to scratch or pull hair. The fact that the privateer Alabama, built at an English shipyard and manned almost entirely by English sailors, had managed to do about $10,000,000 worth of damage to United States commerce, was enough to make any one angry.

DAYS OF GLADNESS PAST.

After the war was well on, a patriot woman of the West urged President Lincoln to make hospitals at the North where the sick from the Army of the Mississippi could revive in a more bracing air. Among other reasons, she said, feelingly: “If you grant my petition, you will be glad as long as you live.”

With a look of sadness impossible to describe, the President said:

“I shall never be glad any more.”

WOULDN’T TAKE THE MONEY.

Lincoln always regarded himself as the friend and protector of unfortunate clients, and such he would never press for pay for his services. A client named Cogdal was unfortunate in business, and gave a note in settlement of legal fees. Soon afterward he met with an accident by which he lost a hand. Meeting Lincoln some time after on the steps of the State-House, the kind lawyer asked him how he was getting along.

“Badly enough,” replied Cogdal; “I am both broken up in business and crippled.” Then he added, “I have been thinking about that note of yours.”

Lincoln, who had probably known all about Cogdal’s troubles, and had prepared himself for the meeting, took out his pocket-book, and saying, with a laugh, “Well, you needn’t think any more about it,” handed him the note.

Cogdal protesting, Lincoln said, “Even if you had the money, I would not take it,” and hurried away.

GRANT HELD ON ALL THE TIME.

(Dispatch to General Grant, August 17th, 1864.)

“I have seen your dispatch expressing your unwillingness to break your hold where you are. Neither am I willing.

“Hold on with a bulldog grip.”

CHEWED THE CUD IN SOLITUDE.

As a student (if such a term could be applied to Lincoln), one who did not know him might have called him indolent. He would pick up a book and run rapidly over the pages, pausing here and there.

At the end of an hour--never more than two or three hours--he would close the book, stretch himself out on the office lounge, and then, with hands under his head and eyes shut, would digest the mental food he had just taken.

“ABE’S” YANKEE INGENUITY.

War Governor Richard Yates (he was elected Governor of Illinois in 1860, when Lincoln was first elected President) told a good story at Springfield (Ill.) about Lincoln.

One day the latter was in the Sangamon River with his trousers rolled up five feet--more or less--trying to pilot a flatboat over a mill-dam. The boat was so full of water that it was hard to manage. Lincoln got the prow over, and then, instead of waiting to bail the water out, bored a hole through the projecting part and let it run out, affording a forcible illustration of the ready ingenuity of the future President.

LINCOLN PAID HOMAGE TO WASHINGTON.

The Martyr President thus spoke of Washington in the course of an address:

“Washington is the mightiest name on earth--long since the mightiest in the cause of civil liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation.

“On that name a eulogy is expected. It cannot be.

“To add brightness to the sun or glory to the name of Washington is alike impossible.

“Let none attempt it.

“In solemn awe pronounce the name, and, in its naked, deathless splendor, leave it shining on.”

STIRRED EVEN THE REPORTERS.

Lincoln’s influence upon his audiences was wonderful. He could sway people at will, and nothing better illustrates his extraordinary power than he manner in which he stirred up the newspaper reporters by his Bloomingon speech.

Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune, told the story:

“It was my journalistic duty, though a delegate to the convention, to make a ‘longhand’ report of the speeches delivered for the Tribune. I did make a few paragraphs of what Lincoln said in the first eight or ten minutes, but I became so absorbed in his magnetic oratory that I forgot myself and ceased to take notes, and joined with the convention in cheering and stamping and clapping to the end of his speech.

“I well remember that after Lincoln sat down and calm had succeeded the tempest, I waked out of a sort of hypnotic trance, and then thought of my report for the paper. There was nothing written but an abbreviated introduction.

“It was some sort of satisfaction to find that I had not been ‘scooped,’ as all the newspaper men present had been equally carried away by the excitement caused by the wonderful oration and had made no report or sketch of the speech.”

WHEN “ABE” CAME IN.

When “Abe” was fourteen years of age, John Hanks journeyed from Kentucky to Indiana and lived with the Lincolns. He described “Abe’s” habits thus:

“When Lincoln and I returned to the house from work, he would go to the cupboard, snatch a piece of corn-bread, take down a book, sit down on a chair, cock his legs up as high as his head, and read.

“He and I worked barefooted, grubbed it, plowed, mowed, cradled together; plowed corn, gathered it, and shucked corn. ‘Abe’ read constantly when he had an opportunity.”

ETERNAL FIDELITY TO THE CAUSE OF LIBERTY.

During the Harrison Presidential campaign of 1840, Lincoln said, in a speech at Springfield, Illinois:

“Many free countries have lost their liberty, and ours may lose hers; but if she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was last to desert, but that I never deserted her.

“I know that the great volcano at Washington, aroused and directed by the evil spirit that reigns there, is belching forth the lava of political corruption in a current broad and deep, which is sweeping with frightful velocity over the whole length and breadth of the land, bidding fair to leave unscathed no green spot or living thing.

“I cannot deny that all may be swept away. Broken by it, I, too, may be; bow to it I never will.

“The possibility that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause which we believe to be just. It shall never deter me.

“If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly alone, and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors.

“Here, without contemplating consequences, before heaven, and in the face of the world, I swear eternal fidelity to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty, and my love; and who that thinks with me will not fearlessly adopt the oath that I take?

“Let none falter who thinks he is right, and we may succeed.

“But if, after all, we shall fail, be it so; we have the proud consolation of saying to our consciences, and to the departed shade of our country’s freedom, that the cause approved of our judgment, and, adorned of our hearts in disaster, in chains, in death, we never faltered in defending.”

“ABE’S” “DEFALCATIONS.”

Lincoln could not rest for as instant under the consciousness that, even unwittingly, he had defrauded anybody. On one occasion, while clerking in Offutt’s store, at New Salem, he sold a woman a little bale of goods, amounting, by the reckoning, to $2.20. He received the money, and the woman went away.

On adding the items of the bill again to make himself sure of correctness, he found that he had taken six and a quarter cents too much.

It was night, and, closing and locking the store, he started out on foot, a distance of two or three miles, for the house of his defrauded customer, and, delivering to her the sum whose possession had so much troubled him, went home satisfied.

On another occasion, just as he was closing the store for the night, a woman entered and asked for half a pound of tea. The tea was weighed out and paid for, and the store was left for the night.

The next morning Lincoln, when about to begin the duties of the day, discovered a four-ounce weight on the scales. He saw at once that he had made a mistake, and, shutting the store, he took a long walk before breakfast to deliver the remainder of the tea.

These are very humble incidents, but they illustrate the man’s perfect conscientiousness--his sensitive honesty--better, perhaps, than they would if they were of greater moment.

HE WASN’T GUILELESS.

Leonard Swett, of Chicago, whose counsels were doubtless among the most welcome to Lincoln, in summing up Lincoln’s character, said:

“From the commencement of his life to its close I have sometimes doubted whether he ever asked anybody’s advice about anything. He would listen to everybody; he would hear everybody; but he rarely, if ever, asked for opinions.

“As a politician and as President he arrived at all his conclusions from his own reflections, and when his conclusions were once formed he never doubted but what they were right.

“One great public mistake of his (Lincoln’s) character, as generally received and acquiesced in, is that he is considered by the people of this country as a frank, guileless, and unsophisticated man. There never was a greater mistake.

“Beneath a smooth surface of candor and apparent declaration of all his thoughts and feelings he exercised the most exalted tact and wisest discrimination. He handled and moved men remotely as we do pieces upon a chess-board.

“He retained through life all the friends he ever had, and he made the wrath of his enemies to praise him. This was not by cunning or intrigue in the low acceptation of the term, but by far-seeing reason and discernment. He always told only enough of his plans and purposes to induce the belief that he had communicated all; yet he reserved enough to have communicated nothing.”

SWEET, BUT MILD REVENGE.

When the United States found that a war with Black Hawk could not be dodged, Governor Reynolds, of Illinois, issued a call for volunteers, and among the companies that immediately responded was one from Menard county, Illinois. Many of these volunteers were from New Salem and Clary’s Grove, and Lincoln, being out of business, was the first to enlist.

The company being full, the men held a meeting at Richland for the election of officers. Lincoln had won many hearts, and they told him that he must be their captain. It was an office to which he did not aspire, and for which he felt he had no special fitness; but he finally consented to be a candidate.

There was but one other candidate, a Mr. Kirkpatrick, who was one of the most influential men of the region. Previously, Kirkpatrick had been an employer of Lincoln, and was so overbearing in his treatment of the young man that the latter left him.

The simple mode of electing a captain adopted by the company was by placing the candidates apart, and telling the men to go and stand with the one they preferred. Lincoln and his competitor took their positions, and then the word was given. At least three out of every four went to Lincoln at once.

When it was seen by those who had arranged themselves with the other candidate that Lincoln was the choice of the majority of the company, they left their places, one by one, and came over to the successful side, until Lincoln’s opponent in the friendly strife was left standing almost alone.

“I felt badly to see him cut so,” says a witness of the scene.

Here was an opportunity for revenge. The humble laborer was his employer’s captain, but the opportunity was never improved. Mr. Lincoln frequently confessed that no subsequent success of his life had given him half the satisfaction that this election did.

DIDN’T TRUST THE COURT.

In one of his many stories of Lincoln, his law partner, W. H. Herndon, told this as illustrating Lincoln’s shrewdness as a lawyer:

“I was with Lincoln once and listened to an oral argument by him in which he rehearsed an extended history of the law. It was a carefully prepared and masterly discourse, but, as I thought, entirely useless. After he was through and we were walking home, I asked him why he went so far back in the history of the law. I presumed the court knew enough history.

“‘That’s where you’re mistaken,’ was his instant rejoinder. ‘I dared not just the case on the presumption that the court knows everything--in fact I argued it on the presumption that the court didn’t know anything,’ a statement, which, when one reviews the decision of our appellate courts, is not so extravagant as one would at first suppose.”

HANDSOMEST MAN ON EARTH.

One day Thaddeus Stevens called at the White House with an elderly woman, whose son had been in the army, but for some offense had been court-martialed and sentenced to death. There were some extenuating circumstances, and after a full hearing the President turned to Stevens and said: “Mr. Stevens, do you think this is a case which will warrant my interference?”

“With my knowledge of the facts and the parties,” was the reply, “I should have no hesitation in granting a pardon.”

“Then,” returned Mr. Lincoln, “I will pardon him,” and proceeded forthwith to execute the paper.

The gratitude of the mother was too deep for expression, save by her tears, and not a word was said between her and Stevens until they were half way down the stairs on their passage out, when she suddenly broke forth in an excited manner with the words:

“I knew it was a copperhead lie!”

“What do you refer to, madam?” asked Stevens.

“Why, they told me he was an ugly-looking man,” she replied, with vehemence. “He is the handsomest man I ever saw in my life.”

THAT COON CAME DOWN.

“Lincoln’s Last Warning” was the title of a cartoon which appeared in “Harper’s Weekly,” on October 11, 1862. Under the picture was the text:

“Now if you don’t come down I’ll cut the tree from under you.”

This illustration was peculiarly apt, as, on the 1st of January, 1863, President Lincoln issued his great Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in the United States forever free. “Old Abe” was a handy man with the axe, he having split many thousands of rails with its keen edge. As the “Slavery Coon” wouldn’t heed the warning, Lincoln did cut the tree from under him, and so he came down to the ground with a heavy thump.

This Act of Emancipation put an end to the notion of the Southern slave holders that involuntary servitude was one of the “sacred institutions” on the Continent of North America. It also demonstrated that Lincoln was thoroughly in earnest when he declared that he would not only save the Union, but that he meant what he said in the speech wherein he asserted, “This Nation cannot exist half slave and half free.”

WROTE “PIECES” WHEN VERY YOUNG.

At fifteen years of age “Abe” wrote “pieces,” or compositions, and even some doggerel rhyme, which he recited, to the great amusement of his playmates.

One of his first compositions was against cruelty to animals. He was very much annoyed and pained at the conduct of the boys, who were in the habit of catching terrapins and putting coals of fire on their backs, which thoroughly disgusted Abraham.

“He would chide us,” said “Nat” Grigsby, “tell us it was wrong, and would write against it.”

When eighteen years old, “Abe” wrote a “piece” on “National Politics,” and it so pleased a lawyer friend, named Pritchard, that the latter had it printed in an obscure paper, thereby adding much to the author’s pride. “Abe” did not conceal his satisfaction. In this “piece” he wrote, among other things:

“The American government is the best form of government for an intelligent people. It ought to be kept sound, and preserved forever, that general education should be fostered and carried all over the country; that the Constitution should be saved, the Union perpetuated and the laws revered, respected and enforced.”

“TRY TO STEER HER THROUGH.”

John A. Logan and a friend of Illinois called upon Lincoln at Willard’s Hotel, Washington, February 23d, the morning of his arrival, and urged a vigorous, firm policy.

Patiently listening, Lincoln replied seriously but cheerfully:

“As the country has placed me at the helm of the ship, I’ll try to steer her through.”

GRAND, GLOOMY AND PECULIAR.

Lincoln was a marked and peculiar young man. People talked about him. His studious habits, his greed for information, his thorough mastery of the difficulties of every new position in which he was placed, his intelligence on all matters of public concern, his unwearying good-nature, his skill in telling a story, his great athletic power, his quaint, odd ways, his uncouth appearance--all tended to bring him in sharp contrast with the dull mediocrity by which he was surrounded.

Denton Offutt, his old employer, said, after having had a conversation with Lincoln, that the young man “had talent enough in him to make a President.”

ON THE WAY TO GETTYSBURG.

When Lincoln was on his way to the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, an old gentleman told him that his only son fell on Little Round Top at Gettysburg, and he was going to look at the spot. Mr. Lincoln replied: “You have been called on to make a terrible sacrifice for the Union, and a visit to that spot, I fear, will open your wounds afresh.

“But, oh, my dear sir, if we had reached the end of such sacrifices, and had nothing left for us to do but to place garlands on the graves of those who have already fallen, we could give thanks even amidst our tears; but when I think of the sacrifices of life yet to be offered, and the hearts and homes yet to be made desolate before this dreadful war is over, my heart is like lead within me, and I feel at times like hiding in deep darkness.” At one of the stopping places of the train, a very beautiful child, having a bunch of rosebuds in her hand, was lifted up to an open window of the President’s car. “Floweth for the President.” The President stepped to the window, took the rosebuds, bent down and kissed the child, saying, “You are a sweet little rosebud yourself. I hope your life will open into perpetual beauty and goodness.”

STOOD UP THE LONGEST.

There was a rough gallantry among the young people; and Lincoln’s old comrades and friends in Indiana have left many tales of how he “went to see the girls,” of how he brought in the biggest back-log and made the brightest fire; of how the young people, sitting around it, watching the way the sparks flew, told their fortunes.

He helped pare apples, shell corn and crack nuts. He took the girls to meeting and to spelling school, though he was not often allowed to take part in the spelling-match, for the one who “chose first” always chose “Abe” Lincoln, and that was equivalent to winning, as the others knew that “he would stand up the longest.”

A MORTIFYING EXPERIENCE.

A lady reader or elocutionist came to Springfield in 1857. A large crowd greeted her. Among other things she recited “Nothing to Wear,” a piece in which is described the perplexities that beset “Miss Flora McFlimsy” in her efforts to appear fashionable.

In the midst of one stanza in which no effort is made to say anything particularly amusing, and during the reading of which the audience manifested the most respectful silence and attention, some one in the rear seats burst out with a loud, coarse laugh, a sudden and explosive guffaw.

It startled the speaker and audience, and kindled a storm of unsuppressed laughter and applause. Everybody looked back to ascertain the cause of the demonstration, and were greatly surprised to find that it was Mr. Lincoln.

He blushed and squirmed with the awkward diffidence of a schoolboy. What caused him to laugh, no one was able to explain. He was doubtless wrapped up in a brown study, and recalling some amusing episode, indulged in laughter without realizing his surroundings. The experience mortified him greatly.

NO HALFWAY BUSINESS.

Soon after Mr. Lincoln began to practice law at Springfield, he was engaged in a criminal case in which it was thought there was little chance of success. Throwing all his powers into it, he came off victorious, and promptly received for his services five hundred dollars. A legal friend, calling upon him the next morning, found him sitting before a table, upon which his money was spread out, counting it over and over.

“Look here, Judge,” said he. “See what a heap of money I’ve got from this case. Did you ever see anything like it? Why, I never had so much money in my life before, put it all together.” Then, crossing his arms upon the table, his manner sobering down, he added: “I have got just five hundred dollars; if it were only seven hundred and fifty, I would go directly and purchase a quarter section of land, and settle it upon my old step-mother.”

His friend said that if the deficiency was all he needed, he would loan him the amount, taking his note, to which Mr. Lincoln instantly acceded.

His friend then said:

“Lincoln, I would do just what you have indicated. Your step-mother is getting old, and will not probably live many years. I would settle the property upon her for her use during her lifetime, to revert to you upon her death.”

With much feeling, Mr. Lincoln replied:

“I shall do no such thing. It is a poor return at best for all the good woman’s devotion and fidelity to me, and there is not going to be any halfway business about it.” And so saying, he gathered up his money and proceeded forthwith to carry his long-cherished purpose into execution.

DISCOURAGED LITIGATION.

Lincoln believed in preventing unnecessary litigation, and carried out this in his practice. “Who was your guardian?” he asked a young man who came to him to complain that a part of the property left him had been withheld. “Enoch Kingsbury,” replied the young man.

“I know Mr. Kingsbury,” said Lincoln, “and he is not the man to have cheated you out of a cent, and I can’t take the case, and advise you to drop the subject.”

And it was dropped.

GOING HOME TO GET READY.

Edwin M. Stanton was one of the attorneys in the great “reaper patent” case heard in Cincinnati in 1855, Lincoln also having been retained. The latter was rather anxious to deliver the argument on the general propositions of law applicable to the case, but it being decided to have Mr. Stanton do this, the Westerner made no complaint.

Speaking of Stanton’s argument and the view Lincoln took of it, Ralph Emerson, a young lawyer who was present at the trial, said:

“The final summing up on our side was by Mr. Stanton, and though he took but about three hours in its delivery, he had devoted as many, if not more, weeks to its preparation. It was very able, and Mr. Lincoln was throughout the whole of it a rapt listener. Mr. Stanton closed his speech in a flight of impassioned eloquence.

“Then the court adjourned for the day, and Mr. Lincoln invited me to take a long walk with him. For block after block he walked rapidly forward, not saying a word, evidently deeply dejected.

“At last he turned suddenly to me, exclaiming, ‘Emerson, I am going home.’ A pause. ‘I am going home to study law.’

“‘Why,’ I exclaimed, ‘Mr. Lincoln, you stand at the head of the bar in Illinois now! What are you talking about?’

“‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘I do occupy a good position there, and I think that I can get along with the way things are done there now. But these college-trained men, who have devoted their whole lives to study, are coming West, don’t you see? And they study their cases as we never do. They have got as far as Cincinnati now. They will soon be in Illinois.’

“Another long pause; then stopping and turning toward me, his countenance suddenly assuming that look of strong determination which those who knew him best sometimes saw upon his face, he exclaimed, ‘I am going home to study law! I am as good as any, of them, and when they get out to Illinois, I will be ready for them.’”

“THE ‘RAIL-SPUTTER’ REPAIRING THE UNION.”

The cartoon given here in facsimile was one of the posters which decorated the picturesque Presidential campaign of 1864, and assisted in making the period previous to the vote-casting a lively and memorable one. This poster was a lithograph, and, as the title, “The Rail-Splitter at Work Repairing the Union,” would indicate, the President is using the Vice-Presidential candidate on the Republican National ticket (Andrew Johnson) as an aid in the work. Johnson was, in early life, a tailor, and he is pictured as busily engaged in sewing up the rents made in the map of the Union by the secessionists.

Both men are thoroughly in earnest, and, as history relates, the torn places in the Union map were stitched together so nicely that no one could have told, by mere observation, that a tear had ever been made. Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln upon the assassination of the latter, was a remarkable man. Born in North Carolina, he removed to Tennessee when young, was Congressman, Governor, and United States Senator, being made military Governor of his State in 1862. A strong, stanch Union man, he was nominated for the Vice-Presidency on the Lincoln ticket to conciliate the War Democrats. After serving out his term as President, he was again elected United States Senator from Tennessee, but died shortly after taking his seat. But he was just the sort of a man to assist “Uncle Abe” in sewing up the torn places in the Union map, and as military Governor of Tennessee was a powerful factor in winning friends in the South to the Union cause.

“FIND OUT FOR YOURSELVES.”

“Several of us lawyers,” remarked one of his colleagues, “in the eastern end of the circuit, annoyed Lincoln once while he was holding court for Davis by attempting to defend against a note to which there were many makers. We had no legal, but a good moral defense, but what we wanted most of all was to stave it off till the next term of court by one expedient or another.

“We bothered ‘the court’ about it till late on Saturday, the day of adjournment. He adjourned for supper with nothing left but this case to dispose of. After supper he heard our twaddle for nearly an hour, and then made this odd entry.

“‘L. D. Chaddon vs. J. D. Beasley et al. April Term, 1856. Champaign county Court. Plea in abatement by B. Z. Green, a defendant not served, filed Saturday at 11 o’clock a. m., April 24, 1856, stricken from the files by order of court. Demurrer to declaration, if there ever was one, overruled. Defendants who are served now, at 8 o’clock p. m., of the last day of the term, ask to plead to the merits, which is denied by the court on the ground that the offer comes too late, and therefore, as by nil dicet, judgment is rendered for Pl’ff. Clerk assess damages. A. Lincoln, Judge pro tem.’

“The lawyer who reads this singular entry will appreciate its oddity if no one else does. After making it, one of the lawyers, on recovering from his astonishment, ventured to enquire: ‘Well, Lincoln, how can we get this case up again?’

“Lincoln eyed him quizzically for a moment, and then answered, ‘You have all been so mighty smart about this case, you can find out how to take it up again yourselves.”’

ROUGH ON THE NEGRO.

Mr. Lincoln, one day, was talking with the Rev. Dr. Sunderland about the Emancipation Proclamation and the future of the negro. Suddenly a ripple of amusement broke the solemn tone of his voice. “As for the negroes, Doctor, and what is going to become of them: I told Ben Wade the other day, that it made me think of a story I read in one of my first books, ‘Aesop’s Fables.’ It was an old edition, and had curious rough wood cuts, one of which showed three white men scrubbing a negro in a potash kettle filled with cold water. The text explained that the men thought that by scrubbing the negro they might make him white. Just about the time they thought they were succeeding, he took cold and died. Now, I am afraid that by the time we get through this War the negro will catch cold and die.”

CHALLENGED ALL COMERS.

Personal encounters were of frequent occurrence in Gentryville in early days, and the prestige of having thrashed an opponent gave the victor marked social distinction. Green B. Taylor, with whom “Abe” worked the greater part of one winter on a farm, furnished an account of the noted fight between John Johnston, “Abe’s” stepbrother, and William Grigsby, in which stirring drama “Abe” himself played an important role before the curtain was rung down.

Taylor’s father was the second for Johnston, and William Whitten officiated in a similar capacity for Grigsby. “They had a terrible fight,” related Taylor, “and it soon became apparent that Grigsby was too much for Lincoln’s man, Johnston. After they had fought a long time without interference, it having been agreed not to break the ring, ‘Abe’ burst through, caught Grigsby, threw him off and some feet away. There Grigsby stood, proud as Lucifer, and, swinging a bottle of liquor over his head, swore he was ‘the big buck of the lick.’

“‘If any one doubts it,’ he shouted, ‘he has only to come on and whet his horns.’”

A general engagement followed this challenge, but at the end of hostilities the field was cleared and the wounded retired amid the exultant shouts of their victors.

“GOVERNMENT RESTS IN PUBLIC OPINION.”

Lincoln delivered a speech at a Republican banquet at Chicago, December 10th, 1856, just after the Presidential campaign of that year, in which he said:

“Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion can change the government practically just so much.

“Public opinion, on any subject, always has a ‘central idea,’ from which all its minor thoughts radiate.

“That ‘central idea’ in our political public opinion at the beginning was, and until recently has continued to be, ‘the equality of man.’

“And although it has always submitted patiently to whatever of inequality there seemed to be as a matter of actual necessity, its constant working has been a steady progress toward the practical equality of all men.

“Let everyone who really believes, and is resolved, that free society is not and shall not be a failure, and who can conscientiously declare that in the past contest he has done only what he thought best--let every such one have charity to believe that every other one can say as much.

“Thus, let bygones be bygones; let party differences as nothing be, and with steady eye on the real issue, let us reinaugurate the good old ‘central ideas’ of the Republic.

“We can do it. The human heart is with us; God is with us.

“We shall never be able to declare that ‘all States as States are equal,’ nor yet that ‘all citizens are equal,’ but to renew the broader, better declaration, including both these and much more, that ‘all men are created equal.’”

HURRY MIGHT MAKE TROUBLE.

Up to the very last moment of the life of the Confederacy, the London “Punch” had its fling at the United States. In a cartoon, printed February 18th, 1865, labeled “The Threatening Notice,” “Punch” intimates that Uncle Sam is in somewhat of a hurry to serve notice on John Bull regarding the contentions in connection with the northern border of the United States.

Lincoln, however, as attorney for his revered Uncle, advises caution. Accordingly, he tells his Uncle, according to the text under the picture:

ATTORNEY LINCOLN: “Now, Uncle Sam, you’re in a darned hurry to serve this here notice on John Bull. Now, it’s my duty, as your attorney, to tell you that you may drive him to go over to that cuss, Davis.” (Uncle Sam considers.) In this instance, President Lincoln is given credit for judgment and common sense, his advice to his Uncle Sam to be prudent being sound. There was trouble all along the Canadian border during the War, while Canada was the refuge of Northern conspirators and Southern spies, who, at times, crossed the line and inflicted great damage upon the States bordering on it. The plot to seize the great lake cities--Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo and others--was figured out in Canada by the Southerners and Northern allies. President Lincoln, in his message to Congress in December, 1864, said the United States had given notice to England that, at the end of six months, this country would, if necessary, increase its naval armament upon the lakes. What Great Britain feared was the abrogation by the United States of all treaties regarding Canada. By previous stipulation, the United States and England were each to have but one war vessel on the Great Lakes.

SAW HIMSELF DEAD.

This story cannot be repeated in Lincoln’s own language, although he told it often enough to intimate friends; but, as it was never taken down by a stenographer in the martyred President’s exact words, the reader must accept a simple narration of the strange occurrence.

It was not long after the first nomination of Lincoln for the Presidency, when he saw, or imagined he saw, the startling apparition. One day, feeling weary, he threw himself upon a lounge in one of the rooms of his house at Springfield to rest. Opposite the lounge upon which he was lying was a large, long mirror, and he could easily see the reflection of his form, full length.

Suddenly he saw, or imagined he saw, two Lincolns in the mirror, each lying full length upon the lounge, but they differed strangely in appearance. One was the natural Lincoln, full of life, vigor, energy and strength; the other was a dead Lincoln, the face white as marble, the limbs nerveless and lifeless, the body inert and still.

Lincoln was so impressed with this vision, which he considered merely an optical illusion, that he arose, put on his hat, and went out for a walk. Returning to the house, he determined to test the matter again--and the result was the same as before. He distinctly saw the two Lincolns--one living and the other dead.

He said nothing to his wife about this, she being, at that time, in a nervous condition, and apprehensive that some accident would surely befall her husband. She was particularly fearful that he might be the victim of an assassin. Lincoln always made light of her fears, but yet he was never easy in his mind afterwards.

To more thoroughly test the so-called “optical illusion,” and prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, whether it was a mere fanciful creation of the brain or a reflection upon the broad face of the mirror which might be seen at any time, Lincoln made frequent experiments. Each and every time the result was the same. He could not get away from the two Lincolns--one living and the other dead.

Lincoln never saw this forbidding reflection while in the White House. Time after time he placed a couch in front of a mirror at a distance from the glass where he could view his entire length while lying down, but the looking-glass in the Executive Mansion was faithful to its trust, and only the living Lincoln was observable.

The late Ward Lamon, once a law partner of Lincoln, and Marshal of the District of Columbia during his first administration, tells, in his “Recollections of Abraham Lincoln,” of the dreams the President had--all foretelling death.

Lamon was Lincoln’s most intimate friend, being, practically, his bodyguard, and slept in the White House. In reference to Lincoln’s “death dreams,” he says:

“How, it may be asked, could he make life tolerable, burdened as he was with that portentous horror, which, though visionary, and of trifling import in our eyes, was by his interpretation a premonition of impending doom? I answer in a word: His sense of duty to his country; his belief that ‘the inevitable’ is right; and his innate and irrepressible humor.

“But the most startling incident in the life of Mr. Lincoln was a dream he had only a few days before his assassination. To him it was a thing of deadly import, and certainly no vision was ever fashioned more exactly like a dread reality. Coupled with other dreams, with the mirror-scene and with other incidents, there was something about it so amazingly real, so true to the actual tragedy which occurred soon after, that more than mortal strength and wisdom would have been required to let it pass without a shudder or a pang.

“After worrying over it for some days, Mr. Lincoln seemed no longer able to keep the secret. I give it as nearly in his own words as I can, from notes which I made immediately after its recital. There were only two or three persons present.

“The President was in a melancholy, meditative mood, and had been silent for some time. Mrs. Lincoln, who was present, rallied him on his solemn visage and want of spirit. This seemed to arouse him, and, without seeming to notice her sally, he said, in slow and measured tones:

“‘It seems strange how much there is in the Bible about dreams. There are, I think, some sixteen chapters in the Old Testament and four or five in the New, in which dreams are mentioned; and there are many other passages scattered throughout the book which refer to visions. In the old days, God and His angels came to men in their sleep and made themselves known in dreams.’

“Mrs. Lincoln here remarked, ‘Why, you look dreadfully solemn; do you believe in dreams?’

“‘I can’t say that I do,’ returned Mr. Lincoln; ‘but I had one the other night which has haunted me ever since. After it occurred the first time, I opened the Bible, and, strange as it may appear, it was at the twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis, which relates the wonderful dream Jacob had. I turned to other passages, and seemed to encounter a dream or a vision wherever I looked. I kept on turning the leaves of the old book, and everywhere my eyes fell upon passages recording matters strangely in keeping with my own thoughts--supernatural visitations, dreams, visions, etc.’

“He now looked so serious and disturbed that Mrs. Lincoln exclaimed ‘You frighten me! What is the matter?’

“‘I am afraid,’ said Mr. Lincoln, observing the effect his words had upon his wife, ‘that I have done wrong to mention the subject at all; but somehow the thing has got possession of me, and, like Banquo’s ghost, it will not down.’

“This only inflamed Mrs. Lincoln’s curiosity the more, and while bravely disclaiming any belief in dreams, she strongly urged him to tell the dream which seemed to have such a hold upon him, being seconded in this by another listener. Mr. Lincoln hesitated, but at length commenced very deliberately, his brow overcast with a shade of melancholy.

“‘About ten days ago,’ said he, ‘I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a deathlike stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping.

“‘I thought I left my bed and wandered down-stairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along. It was light in all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this?

“‘Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully.

“‘“Who is dead in the White House?” I demanded of one of the soldiers.

“‘“The President,” was his answer; “he was killed by an assassin.”

“‘Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which awoke me from my dream. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since.’

“‘That is horrid!’ said Mrs. Lincoln. ‘I wish you had not told it. I am glad I don’t believe in dreams, or I should be in terror from this time forth.’

“‘Well,’ responded Mr. Lincoln, thoughtfully, ‘it is only a dream, Mary. Let us say no more about it, and try to forget it.’

“This dream was so horrible, so real, and so in keeping with other dreams and threatening presentiments of his, that Mr. Lincoln was profoundly disturbed by it. During its recital he was grave, gloomy, and at times visibly pale, but perfectly calm. He spoke slowly, with measured accents and deep feeling.

“In conversations with me, he referred to it afterwards, closing one with this quotation from ‘Hamlet’: ‘To sleep; perchance to dream! ay, there’s the rub!’ with a strong accent upon the last three words.

“Once the President alluded to this terrible dream with some show of playful humor. ‘Hill,’ said he, ‘your apprehension of harm to me from some hidden enemy is downright foolishness. For a long time you have been trying to keep somebody-the Lord knows who--from killing me.

“‘Don’t you see how it will turn out? In this dream it was not me, but some other fellow, that was killed. It seems that this ghostly assassin tried his hand on some one else. And this reminds me of an old farmer in Illinois whose family were made sick by eating greens.

“‘Some poisonous herb had got into the mess, and members of the family were in danger of dying. There was a half-witted boy in the family called Jake; and always afterward when they had greens the old man would say, “Now, afore we risk these greens, let’s try ‘em on Jake. If he stands ‘em we’re all right.” Just so with me. As long as this imaginary assassin continues to exercise himself on others, I can stand it.’