CHAPTER VIII.

LINCOLN AS A PROHIBITIONIST.

Major J. B. Merwin and Abraham Lincoln—They Together Canvass Illinois for State Prohibition in 1854-55—Lincoln's Arguments Against the Saloon—Facts Omitted by Lincoln Biographers—President Lincoln, Generals Scott and Butler Recommend Merwin's Temperance Work in the Army—The President Sends Merwin on a Mission to New York the Day of the Assassination—Proposition for Freedmen to Dig the Panama Canal—Lincoln's Last Words to Merwin—Merwin's Characteristic Address at Lincoln's Tomb—"Lincoln the Christian Statesman"—Merwin Living at Middlefield, Connecticut 57