Part 2

“The President of the United States made his maiden speech in Sangamon County, at Pappsville (or Richland), in the year 1832. He was then a Whig and a candidate for the Legislature of this State. The speech is sharp and sensible. To understand why it was so short the following facts will show: 1. Mr. Lincoln was a young man of 23 years of age and timid. 2. His friends and opponents in the joint discussion had rolled the sun nearly down. Lincoln saw it was not the proper time then to discuss the question fully, and hence he cut his remarks short. Probably the other candidates had exhausted the subjects under discussion. The time, according to W. H. Herndon’s informant--who has kindly furnished this valuable reminiscence for us--was 1832; it may have been 1831. The President lived at the time with James A. Herndon, at Salem, Sangamon County, who heard the speech, talked about it, and knows the report to be correct. The speech, which was characteristic of the man, was as follows:

“‘Gentlemen, Fellow-Citizens: I presume you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like an “old woman’s dance.” I am in favor of a national bank. I am in favor of the international improvement system and a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments and political principles. If elected, I will be thankful. If defeated, it will be all the same.’”

HOW LINCOLN BECAME KNOWN AS “HONEST ABE.”

As a grocery clerk at New Salem Lincoln was scrupulously honest. This trait of his soon became known, but the two following incidents are particularly responsible for the appellation of “Honest Abe,” given him and by which he has been so familiarly known. He once took six and a quarter cents too much from a customer. He did not say to himself, “never mind such little things,” but walked three miles that evening, after closing his store, to return the money. On another occasion he weighed out a half-pound of tea, as he supposed, it being night when he did so, and that having been the last thing he sold in the store before going home. On entering in the morning he discovered a four-ounce weight on the scales. He saw his mistake, and shutting up shop, hurried off to deliver the remainder of the tea. These acts of his, as well as his thorough honesty in other respects, soon gained for him the now famous title of “Honest Abe.”

LINCOLN WAS AN “OBLIGING” MAN.

Lincoln was always ready to help any man, woman, child or animal. He was naturally kindhearted, and “possessed in an extraordinary degree the power of entering into the interests of others, a power found only in reflective, unselfish natures.” He loved his friends and sympathized with them in their troubles. He was anxious always to do his share in making their labors day after day as light as possible.

Thus we are told by his neighbors (biography by Mr. Herndon and others) that he cared for the children while on a visit to a friend’s house; gave up his own bed in the tavern where he was boarding when the house was full, and slept on the counter; helped farmers pull out the wheel of their wagon when it got stuck in the mud; chopped wood for the widows; rocked the cradle while the woman of the house where he was staying was busy getting the meal, and otherwise made himself useful. No wonder there was not a housewife in all New Salem who would not gladly “put on a plate” for Abe Lincoln, or who would not darn or mend for him whenever he needed such services. It was the “spontaneous, unobtrusive helpfulness of the man’s nature which endeared him to everybody.”

HOW LINCOLN PAID A LARGE DEBT.

Mr. Lincoln went into partnership in the grocery business in New Salem. Ill., with a man named Berry. This man Berry mismanaged the business while Lincoln was away surveying. Eventually he died, leaving Lincoln to pay a debt of eleven hundred dollars contracted by the firm. In those days it was the fashion for business men who had failed to “clear out,” that is, skip the town and settle elsewhere. Not so with “Abe.” He quietly settled down among the men he owed and promised to pay them. He asked only time. For several years he worked to pay off this debt, a load which he cheerfully and manfully bore. He habitually spoke of it to his friends as the “national debt,” it was so heavy. As late as 1848, when he was a member of Congress, he sent home a part of his salary to be applied on these obligations. All the notes, with the high interest rates then prevailing, were finally paid.

HIS FIRST SIGHT OF SLAVERY.

In May, 1831, Lincoln and a few companions went to New Orleans on a flat-boat and remained there a month. It was there that he witnessed for the first time negro men and women sold like animals. The poor beings were chained, whipped and scourged. “Against this inhumanity his sense of right and justice rebelled, and his mind and conscience were awakened to a realization of what he had often heard and read,” writes one of his biographers, Ida M. Tarbell. One morning, in his rambles with his friends over the city, he passed a slave auction. A comely mulatto girl of vigorous physique was being sold. She underwent a thorough examination at the hands of the bidders; they pinched her flesh, and made her trot up and down the room like a horse to show how she moved, and in order, as the auctioneer said, that “bidders might satisfy themselves” whether the article they were offering to buy was sound or not. “The whole thing was so revolting that Lincoln moved away from the scene with a deep feeling of unconquerable hate.” He remarked to his companions: “If I ever get a chance to hit that thing (slavery) I’ll hit it hard.”

LINCOLN AND DAVIS IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR.

Abraham Lincoln had a very brief experience with actual warfare. He enlisted with a company of volunteers to take part in the Black Hawk war. It was the custom in those days for each company to elect its own Captain, and Lincoln was chosen Captain of his company almost unanimously. He was heard to say many times in after life that no other success in his life had given him such pleasure as did this one. His command did little, as they were never engaged in a pitched battle, so Lincoln had to be content “with the reputation of being the best comrade and story-teller in the camp.” It is a peculiar coincidence that Jefferson Davis also served as an officer in this war.

LINCOLN’S GLOWING TRIBUTE TO HIS MOTHER.

These famous words originated with the good and lowly Abraham Lincoln:

“All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”

His affection for his mother was very strong, and long after her death he would speak of her affectionately and tearfully. She was a woman five feet five inches in height, slender of figure, pale of complexion, sad of expression, and of a sensitive nature. Of a heroic nature, she yet shrank from the rude life around her. About two years after her removal from Kentucky to Indiana she died. “Abe” was then ten years old. She was buried under a tree near the cabin home, where little “Abe” would often betake himself and, sitting on her lonely grave, weep over his irreparable loss.

Lincoln’s mother was buried in a green pine box made by his father. Although a boy of ten years at that time, it was through his efforts that a parson came all the way from Kentucky to Indiana three months later to preach the sermon and conduct the service. The child could not rest in peace till due honor had been done his dead mother.

WHAT LINCOLN’S STEP-MOTHER SAID OF HIM.

“Abe was a good boy, and I can say what scarcely one woman--a mother--can say in a thousand: Abe never gave me a cross word or look, and never refused, in fact or appearance, to do anything I requested him. I never gave him a cross word in all my life. … His mind and mine--what little I had--seemed to run together. He was here after he was elected President. He was a dutiful son 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.”--Ida M. Tarbell.

LINCOLN’S FIRST LOVE.

Lincoln’s first love was Anna Rutledge, of New Salem, whose father was keeper of the Rutledge tavern where “Abe” boarded. The girl had been engaged to a young man named John McNeill, whom, we are informed, the village community pronounced an adventurer and a man unworthy the girl’s love. He left for the east, promising, however, to return within a year and claim her as his wife, so the story reads. According to Mrs. William Prewitt, a sister of Anna Rutledge, who is at present (1898) living, the engagement was broken off before McNeill went away, so that she was free to receive the attentions of “Abe” Lincoln. She finally promised to become his wife in the spring of 1835, soon after his return from Vandalia. But, unfortunately, circumstances did not permit of a marriage then, Lincoln being barely able to support himself, not yet having been admitted to the bar, and the girl, being but seventeen years old. It was agreed that she should attend an academy at Jacksonville, Ill., and Lincoln would devote himself to his law studies till the next spring, when he would be admitted to the bar, and then they would be married.

New Salem was deeply interested in the young lovers and prophesied a happy life for them; but fate willed it otherwise. Anna Rutledge became seriously ill, with an attack of brain fever, and when it was seen that her recovery was impossible Lincoln, her lover, was sent for. They “passed an hour alone in an anguished parting,” and soon after (August 25, 1835,) Anna died.

The death of his sweetheart was a terrible blow to Lincoln. His melancholy increased and darkened his mind and his imagination, and tortured him with its black picture. One stormy night he was sitting beside a friend of his, with his head bowed on his hand, while tears trickled through his fingers. His friend begged him to try to control his sorrow; to try to forget it. Lincoln replied: “I cannot; the thought of the snow and rain on Ann’s grave fills me with indescribable grief.” For many days Lincoln journeyed on foot to the cemetery where Anna Rutledge lay buried, and there alone, in the “city of the dead,” wept for the girl whom he had loved so well. Many years afterward, when he had married and become great, he said to a friend who questioned him: “I really and truly loved the girl and think often of her now.” After a pause he added: “And I have loved the name of Rutledge to this day.”

THE DUEL LINCOLN DIDN’T FIGHT.

President Abraham Lincoln and General Joe Shields, who married sisters, once arranged to fight a duel at Alton, Ill. It is remembered yet by the old settlers. Shields had offended a young lady at Springfield, and she got even by sending an article about it to a Springfield paper, signing a nom de plume. The next day General Shields called upon the editor and gave him 24 hours during which to divulge the name of the author or to take the consequences. The editor, who was a friend of Abraham Lincoln, called upon him and asked what to do. Not thinking it was a very serious affair, Lincoln promptly said, “Tell him that I wrote it.” The editor did so, and General Shields challenged Lincoln to a duel, the latter accepting and choosing broadswords as the weapons and an island opposite Alton as the place. The principals and seconds went to the place appointed, when a chance remark of Lincoln that he hated to have to kill Shields because he caused him to believe that he wrote the article in order to protect a lady, brought about a reconciliation, and the duel failed to come off. Hundreds of people were on the bank of the river, and to carry out a joke a log was dressed up, placed in a skiff, the occupants fanning it with their hats as though it was an injured man, and the excitement was intense. It always remained a sore spot with Lincoln, and but little was ever said about it.

LINCOLN AS A DANCER.

Lincoln made his first appearance in society when he was first sent to Springfield, Ill., as a member of the state legislature. It was not an imposing figure which he cut in a ballroom, but still he was occasionally to be found there. Miss Mary Todd, who afterward became his wife, was the magnet which drew the tall, awkward young man from his den. One evening Lincoln approached Miss Todd and said, in his peculiar idiom:

“Miss Todd, I should like to dance with you the worst way.”

The young woman accepted the inevitable and hobbled around the room with him. When she returned to her seat, one of her companions asked mischievously:

“Well, Mary, did he dance with you the worst way?”

“Yes,” she answered, “the very worst.”

LINCOLN’S COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.

In 1839 Miss Mary Todd, of Kentucky, arrived in Springfield to visit a married sister, Mrs. Edwards. At the instance of his friend Speed, who was also a Kentuckian, Lincoln became a visitor at the Edwards’, and before long it was apparent to the observant among those in Springfield that the lively young lady held him captive. Engagements at that time and in that neighborhood were not announced as soon as they were made, and it is not at all impossible that Miss Todd and Mr. Lincoln were betrothed many months before any other than Mrs. Edwards and Mr. Speed knew of it.

At this time, as was the case till Lincoln was elected to the presidency, his one special rival in Illinois was Stephen A. Douglas. Mr. Douglas had more of the social graces than Mr. Lincoln, and it appeared to him that nothing would be more interesting than to cut out his political rival in the affections of the entertaining and lively Miss Todd, and so he paid her court.

A spirited young lady from Kentucky at that time in Illinois would have been almost less than human if she had refused to accept the attentions of the two leading men of the locality. Therefore Miss Todd, being quite human, encouraged Douglas, and again there was what nowadays would have been called a flirtation. This course of action did not spur Lincoln on in his devotion, but made him less ardent, and he concluded, after much self worriment, to break off the engagement, which he did, but at the same interview there was a reconciliation and a renewal of the engagement.

Lincoln’s marriage to Mary Todd occurred in Springfield, Ill., at the home of Mr. M. W. Edwards, where Miss Todd lived. She was the belle of Springfield. The marriage, although hastily arranged in the end, was perhaps the first one performed in that city with all the requirements of the Episcopal ceremony. Rev. Charles Dresser officiated. Among the many friends of Lincoln who were present was Thomas C. Brown, one of the judges of the state supreme court. He was a blunt, outspoken man and an old timer.

Parson Dresser was attired in full canonical robes and recited the service with much impressive solemnity. He handed Lincoln the ring, who, placing it on the bride’s finger, repeated the church formula, “With this ring I thee endow with all my goods and chattels, lands and tenements.”

Judge Brown, who had never before witnessed such a ceremony, and looked upon it as utterly absurd, ejaculated, in a tone loud enough to be heard by all, “God Almighty, Lincoln, the statute fixes all that!” This unexpected interruption almost upset the old parson, who had a keen sense of the ridiculous, but he quickly recovered his gravity and hastily pronounced the couple man and wife.

LINCOLN’S PERSONAL APPEARANCE.

That Lincoln was a man of extraordinary personal appearance is well known. He measured six feet four inches, and as most men are below six feet it will be seen that he was considerably taller than the average. He possessed great strength, both bodily and mental, and had a superabundance of patience, which he displayed constantly, and treated even those who differed with him with respect and kindness. One who had sustained close relations with Lincoln and knew him intimately, the late Charles A. Dana, in his Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, published in McClure’s Magazine, thus describes him:

“Mr. Lincoln’s face was thin, and his features were large. He had black hair, heavy eyebrows, and a square and well developed forehead. His complexion was dark and quite sallow. He had a smile that was most lovely, surpassing even a woman’s smile in its engaging quality. When pleased his face would light up very pleasantly. Some have said he was awkward in his step. The word ‘awkward’ hardly fits, because there was such a charm and beauty about his expression, such good humor and friendly spirit looking from his eyes, that one looking at him never thought whether he was awkward or graceful. His whole personality at once caused you to think, ‘What a kindly character this man has!’ Always dignified in manner, he was benevolent and benignant, always wishing to do somebody some good if he could. He was all solid, hard, keen intelligence combined with goodness.”

LINCOLNS’ MOTHER.

Not long before his tragic death, Mr. Lincoln said: “All that I am, and all that I hope to be, I owe to my mother.” That mother died when little Abe was nine years of age. But she had already woven the texture of her deepest character into the habits and purposes of her boy. Her own origin had been humble. But there were certain elements in her character that prepared her for grand motherhood. When Nancy Hanks, at the age of twenty-three, gave her heart and hand to Thomas Lincoln, she was a young woman of large trustfulness, of loving, unselfish disposition, of profound faith in Divine Providence, of unswerving Christian profession.

On the day of their marriage Thomas Lincoln took this young wife to his unfinished cabin, which had as yet neither door, floor, nor window. The young man was a shiftless Kentucky hunter, who could not read a word. He was handy with his few carpenter tools, but had received no encouragement to keep at work. His happy, trusting wife assisted him to finish the cabin. He mortared the chinks with mud which they together had mixed. Her hope and song made the work of the day his happy employ. In the evening she taught him to read, spelling the words out of her Bible as the text book, which served her double purpose.

From that day Thomas Lincoln was a new man. It was this conscientious wife that inspired him to move across the Ohio into the free State of Indiana. Here Lincoln soon became a justice of the peace. When this wife died, only twelve years after their marriage, Thomas Lincoln had been transformed from the shiftless hunter, who could not read, to an intelligent farmer of the largest influence of any man in his township. Little Abe had been taught to read out of that same Bible, and had read out of that mother’s eyes and voice her large trust in the overshadowing Providence and her unswerving honesty in doing the right. It was this woman that put into his hands the fine books--the Bible, Pilgrim’s Progress, Æsop’s Fables, Robinson Crusoe, and Weems’s Life of Washington.

Such was the mother that started Abraham Lincoln. “Widow Johnston,” who became his stepmother, was a good woman, with whom he always maintained the kindest relations. She deserved the honorable mention she received.

LINCOLN’S MELANCHOLIA.

A friend of Lincoln writes: Lincoln’s periods of melancholy are proverbial. On one occasion, while in court in 1855, Maj. H. C. Whitney describes him as “sitting alone in one corner of the room remote from any one else, wrapped in abstraction and gloom. It was a sad but interesting study for me, and I watched him for some time. It appeared as if he were pursuing in his mind some sad subject through various sinuosities, and his face would assume at times the deepest phases of seeming pain, but no relief came from this dark and despairing melancholy till he was roused by the breaking up of court, when he emerged from his cave of gloom and came back, like one awakened from sleep, to the world in which he lived again.” As early as 1837 Robert L. Wilson, who was his colleague in the legislature, testifies that Lincoln admitted to him that, although he appeared to enjoy life rapturously, still he was the victim of extreme melancholy, and that he was so overcome at times by depression of spirits that he never dared carry a pocketknife.

To physicians he was something of a physiological puzzle. John T. Stuart insisted that his digestion was organically defective, so that the pores of his skin oftentimes performed the functions of the bowels; that his liver operated abnormally and failed to secrete bile, and that these things themselves were sufficient in his opinion to produce the deepest mental depression and melancholy.

Lincoln’s law partner, Mr. Herndon, attributed Lincoln’s melancholy to the death of Anna Rutledge, believing that his grief at her untimely death was so intense that it cast a perpetual shadow over his mental horizon. Another believed that it arose from his domestic environments; that his family relations were far from pleasant, and that that unhappy feature of his life was a constant menace to his peace and perfect equipoise of spirits. “Although married,” says one, “he was not mated, so that if we see him come into his office in the morning eating cheese and bologna sausages philosophically, what can we expect but some periods of sadness and gloom? Emerson, who you and I hold in high esteem, had pie for breakfast all his married life, and in my opinion that is what clouded his memory the rest of his life after seventy years of age.”

LINCOLN’S HEIGHT.

Emma Gurley Adams in the New York Press.

Sir:--The admirable speech of Hon. Thomas B. Reed in your paper of Feb. 9 contains one error which I would like to correct. Mr. Reed says Mr. Lincoln was six feet four inches in height. Mr. Lincoln told my father that he was exactly six feet three inches only a short time before his tragic death. Mr. Lincoln was very fond of tall men, and generally knew their exact height and never hesitated to say: “I am exactly six feet three.”

HOW LINCOLN BECAME A LAWYER.

That Lincoln was a skilled lawyer is well known. It is not, however, generally known that he learned law himself, never having studied with anyone, or having attended any law school. He was preëminently a self-educated man. He borrowed law books of his friend Stuart, of Springfield, Ill., took them home (twenty miles away) and studied them hard. He walked all the way to Springfield and back, and usually read while walking. He often read aloud during these trips. Twenty years afterward, while he was a great lawyer and statesman, he gave this advice to a young man who asked him “how he could become a great lawyer.” “Get books, and read and study them carefully. Begin with Blackstone’s ‘Commentaries,’ and after reading carefully through, say twice, take up Chitty’s ‘Pleadings,’ Greenleaf’s ‘Evidence,’ and Story’s ‘Equity,’ in succession. Work, work, work is the main thing.”

LINCOLN AS A LAWYER.

When Lincoln became a lawyer, he carried to the bar his habitual honesty. His associates were often surprised by his utter disregard of self-interest, while they could but admire his conscientious defense of what he considered right. One day a stranger called to secure his services.

“State your case,” said Lincoln.

A history of the case was given, when Lincoln astonished him by saying:

“I cannot serve you; for you are wrong, and the other party is right.”

“That is none of your business, if I hire and pay you for taking the case,” retorted the man.

“Not my business!” exclaimed Lincoln. “My business is never to defend wrong, if I am a lawyer. I never undertake a case that is manifestly wrong.”

“Well, you can make trouble for the fellow,” added the applicant.