CHAPTER V

I. BUSINESS NOT HARMONIOUS WITH THE STRUGGLE FOR LEARNING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

II. MAKING A LIVING AND LEARNING THE MEANING OF LIFE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III. OUT OF THE WILDERNESS PATHS INTO THE GREAT HIGHWAY

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

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

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

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

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

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

IV. LINCOLN'S FIRST LAW CASES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

V. THE MAN WHO COULD NOT LIVE FOR SELF ALONE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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