CHAPTER VIII

I. THE MAN AND THE CONFIDENCE OF THE PEOPLE

Abraham Lincoln, as President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of its army and navy, never seemed to know that he was any more bound to look out for the good opinion of the world than at any time before. To him there was no such thing as presidential attitude or pose. He did not see that he had any part to act out more than he had always had. Life might be a stage, as Shakespeare had described it, and Lincoln had played many parts, but it was always as a man.

"Nothing was more marked in Lincoln's personal demeanor," says one of his intimate friends, "than his utter unconsciousness of his position. He never seemed aware that his place or his business was essentially different from that in which he had always been engaged. All duties were alike to him. All called equally upon him for the best service of his mind and heart, and all were alike performed with a conscientious, single-hearted devotion."

Mr. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, says, "The great predominating elements of Mr. Lincoln's peculiar character were: First, his great capacity and power of reason; second, his excellent understanding; third, an exalted idea of the sense of right and equity; and, fourth, his intense veneration of what was true and good."

Thackery expresses a vision of character that might well be used to describe the motive-interest of Lincoln, and every other youth who desires to be worth while:

"Come wealth or want, come good or ill, Let old and young accept their part, And bow before this awful will, And bear it with an honest heart. Who misses or who wins the prize,-- Go, lose or conquer as you can; But if you fail or if you rise, Be each, pray God, a gentleman."

In that great address which he gave on the occasion of his being sworn in the first time as President of the United States, toward the close, he said, "Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences is either party without faith in being right? If the Almighty ruler of nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail, by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people."

At the last of his inaugural address he said, referring to the people of the South, "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government; while I have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect and defend' it."

It was in 1840, when he set this standard that made him worthy of being called the savior of his nation. In a great political address at that time, he said, "Let it be my proud plume not that I was the last to desert (my country), but that I never deserted her."

The result is a united and powerful America facing the centuries of human posterity as a working place for the enlargement of freedom accomplished as rapidly as is possible through the perfection of character and civilization.

II. TYPICAL INCIDENTS FROM AMONG MOMENTOUS SCENES

Lincoln's many forms of kindness are exemplified in such a continuous series of acts, during his period of almost unlimited political power, that only a few typical instances need to be described.

One day a woman got past the doorkeeper and thrust herself into his presence. Her husband was captured and condemned to be shot. He was one of the hated Mosby guerillas. She had come to beg for his pardon. She weepingly poured out the story of his kindness, his love for his family and that they could hardly live without him. She said that she was a Northern woman, that she would take him to their home, and, on his parole and her promise, he should never again do harm to his country. She had papers also setting forth these facts. Lincoln examined them and decided to parole the husband in her care.

At hearing this, the woman sobbed with joy as if her heart would burst with gratitude.

"My dear woman," said Lincoln, listening to her hysterical sobs, "if I had known it would make you feel so bad as this, I would never have pardoned him."

"You do not understand me," she cried, fearful that he might reverse his decision.

"Yes, I do," he replied, "but if you do not go away at once I shall soon be crying with you."

The Judge Advocate General was one day reviewing death sentences with Lincoln when they came to one where a young soldier was to be shot for "cowardice in the face of the enemy." He had hid behind a stump during battle.

Lincoln drew out the paper and said, "This one I'll have to put with my bunch of leg cases."

"'Leg cases,'" said Judge Holt; "what do you mean by 'leg cases?'"

"Do you see that bunch of papers in yonder pigeon-hole?" he replied. "Well, they are cases marked 'Cowardice in the face of the enemy.' I call them, for short, my leg cases. I'll put it up to you for judgment: if Almighty God gives a boy a cowardly pair of legs, how can he help their running away with him."

One of the instances, which was far from being either desertion or "Cowardice in the face of the enemy," came unexpectedly before him. A little woman of poverty-stricken clothing and pinched features, after several days trying, at last succeeded in getting through the press of people waiting to see Lincoln, and told him that her only son was about to be shot for desertion. His regiment had come by near their home, and, being refused leave of absence, he had gone without permission to see her. He had returned to his regiment but had been arrested, tried and ordered shot, and there was only one more day. She did not know where he was now confined.

Lincoln examined the papers verifying her statements. He hastily arose from his chair, seized the woman by the hand, and, leaving the offices without a word, hastened over to the Secretary of War.

Stanton, weary with Lincoln's constant interference against what the War Secretary believed to be necessary discipline, begged Lincoln to leave that matter to him.

But Lincoln insisted. He gave directions that immediate messages be sent to every army headquarters till the boy be found and the execution stayed for his further orders.

It was in a similar instance where mercy had been given to a New England mother that she came out from the interview silent, as if wrapped in thought.

Some friend interrupted her to know what had so impressed her.

"I have always been told," she said, "that Lincoln is one of the ugliest of men. I now know that to be a lie. He is one of the handsomest men I ever saw."

In another case, when Lincoln had relieved the distress of an old man for his only son, the orders were that the soldier should not be executed until further orders from Lincoln.

"But that is not pardon, is it?" said the fearing petitioner.

"Well, it's just as good," replied Lincoln. "He will be older than Methuselah before I order his execution. Killing a man doesn't make him any better or wipe out the act."

III. EXPERIENCES DEMANDING MERCY AND NOT SACRIFICE

The kindness so exemplified throughout his life never failed on the side of mercy, as shown in many an incident of the war.

In one case a woman, whose son had run away from home at the age of seventeen and joined the Confederacy, sought to have him released from Fort McHenry, where he was in the hospital, a wounded prisoner.

She applied to Stanton, Secretary of War. He refused to listen to her, saying, "I have no time to waste on you. If you have raised up a son to rebel against the best Government under the sun, you and he must take the consequences."

She attempted to plead with him, but he very peremptorily ordered her to go, saying that he could do nothing for her.

Friends asked her to go to see Lincoln, but, sharing in the Southern prejudice or misunderstanding of the President, she refused in despair, believing him to be more fierce than Stanton. But she was at last persuaded to try.

With fear and trembling she came into his presence, and in the greatest joy any woman can have she came away.

"When I was permitted to go in to see him," she said, in describing the scene, "he was alone. He immediately arose, with the most reassuring respect, and, pointing to a chair by his side, said, 'Take this seat, Madam, and tell me what I can do for you.'"

She handed him, without speaking, a letter telling the truth about her son. He read it thoughtfully.

"Do you believe he will honor his parole if I permit him to go with you," he said, with great kindness in his voice.

"I am ready, Mr. President," she replied, "to peril my personal liberty that he will keep his parole."

"You shall have your boy, my dear Madam," he said. "To take him from the ranks of rebellion and give him to a loyal mother is the best investment that can be made by this government."

He handed her an order to give to the commanding officer at Fort McHenry.

"May God grant," he fervently added, "that your boy may prove a blessing to you and an honor to his country."

Lincoln's interest in the lowly and their sacrifices for the Union has become classic in his letter to a Boston mother. A copy of this letter hangs on the wall in Brasenose College, Oxford University, England, as a model of pure and exquisite diction, which has never been excelled.

"Dear Madam:

"I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. "Yours sincerely and respectfully, A. LINCOLN."

IV. HUMANITY AND THE GREAT SCHOOL OF EXPERIENCE

Many people in estimating Lincoln's scholarship do not sufficiently recognize how much an eager student of life can learn in such wide experience as his among men. To say that he was uneducated or that he was self-made are alike erroneous. He was truly entered in the school of experience in which he chose the wisest interest as his teacher, and from which he graduated as a martyred president, one of the wisest masters of humanity.

It can hardly be said that Lincoln arrived slowly at a leadership of men. He was only twenty-eight when he was regarded as one of the most influential men in his State. The nation was then in the midst of the religious belief that God intended slavery or he would not have made men black. Even at that early period Lincoln, with the boldness of a Martin Luther, declared that "the institution of slavery is founded both on injustice and bad policy," though the great reformation was not yet at hand.

It is said that "those in glass houses should not throw stones." Society and government have yet so many sins and wrongs to answer for that the people of slavery days can hardly be blamed for not seeing as we see now. Mankind seems to be only well started on the way to civilization. Now and then we are given a great far-seeing man and the vision of righteousness is made a little clearer. We see a little farther through him into the promised land of a better world.

To any one looking down upon the stormy United States of that period it could be seen that probably no one ever entered the presidency, and more probably never would, who seemed so destitute of influential associates and political supporters. It was Lincoln alone and his faith in the unseen faithful of his ancient Israel. He knew the people. He knew they understood what the great crisis in their country's history meant for their ideals of America. They wanted a leader from among themselves, because they no longer trusted the politicians in high places.

In 1862 John James Piatt wrote:

"Stern be the Pilot in the Dreadful hour When a great nation, like a ship at sea, With the wroth breakers whitening at her lea, Feels her last shudder if the Helmsman cower; A God-like manhood be his mighty dower!"

This seems to show that the patriotic men of the literary East were not yet sure of him. In fact, it was not yet sure that there was any man anywhere who could remain sane and true through the rampant treason and raging strife.

A year later Frank Moore wrote:

"Stand like the rock that looks defiant Far o'er the surging seas that lash its form! Composed, determined, watchful, self-reliant, Be master of thyself and rule the storm."

If the Americans who tried to destroy Washington could now appear among us and see what we and the world think of him, they would hardly attempt to justify what they said and did to ruin him. Many lived to realize their error in defaming Lincoln and to appreciate their pitiful malignity in spreading the gossip and slander about him. And yet a few strove on to save some of their reputation for intelligence or personal honor and honesty, until research and cumulative evidence established the unassailable truth of his standing and character as one of the noblest and greatest of Americans.

The lesson of personal justice and integrity is learned slowly where freedom has long seemed to mean political license to distort and defame party opponents. But election slanders die out as the people emerge from party possession and mastery. After the election is over, still increasing numbers become conscious that most of the evils told of the opposition have either been lies or the distorted halftruths that are more misleading to the honest-intentioned minds.

But, fortunately, one of Lincoln's great sayings has been proven true even in the miscellaneous freedom of Americans. To an insignificant interruption on an insignificant occasion, one of those famous sayings popped up, as it were from the mass of thinking in Lincoln's mind, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

Lincoln's great passion for friendship in the midst of his prophetic vision is shown in the last paragraph of his first inaugural address. He said, "I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched as they surely will be, by the better angels of our nature."

V. SIMPLE INTERESTS THAT NEVER GROW OLD

Lincoln's great sympathy for those who mourn is expressed in a letter of condolence to a friend whose father had just died.

"Dear Fanny:

"In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to all, and to the young it comes with bittered agony because it takes them unawares. The older have learned ever to expect it. You cannot now realize that you will ever feel happier. Is this not so? And yet, it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say, and you need only to believe it to feel better at once. The memory of your dear father, instead of an agony, will be a sad, sweet feeling in your heart of a purer and holier sort than you have known before. "Your sincere friend, A. LINCOLN."

His fatherly feeling toward childhood is shown in many stories of his younger son Tad.

Little Tad had all the impetuosity of energetic childhood. His father's example of kindness once led him into conflict with the White House cook. Tad never saw a hungry-looking boy that he didn't invite him in to have something to eat. This generosity was a light that could not be hid under a bushel. The number of hungry boys increased surprisingly. At last Peter, the cook, thought that Mrs. Lincoln must be told. He accordingly refused entrance to a hungry bunch that Tad brought in. Tad was very angry that his benevolence and his authority should be thus disputed. He flew upstairs to see his mother, but she was nowhere to be found. At this crisis he saw his father coming up the yard with Secretary Seward. They were discussing some important affairs of state, but that was insignificant in comparison with Tad's grievance. He ran out to carry his complaint to the head of the nation.

"Father," he cried, running up to the Executive in Chief of the United States, "Peter won't let me feed these hungry boys. Two of them are boys of soldiers. Isn't it our kitchen? I'm going to discharge Peter. He doesn't obey orders."

Secretary Seward was very much amused.

The President turned to him as if much perplexed.

"Seward," he said, "advise with me. This case requires great diplomacy."

Mr. Seward patted Tad on the head and said, "My boy, be careful that you don't run the government into debt."

Then Lincoln took his little boy's hand in his, saying, "Tell Peter that you really have to obey the Bible which tells you to feed the hungry, and that he ought to be a better Christian."

Tad went to Peter with the astonishing news that his father didn't believe the White House cook was a Christian.

The religious problem of "feeding the hungry" won quickly over the economic problem of White House expenses. Childhood was not defeated in its sympathies, and, like every other moral question, it was solved in the spirit of social democracy.

Secretary Seward writes of this that in less than an hour they passed back through the yard on their way to a Cabinet meeting and about a dozen small boys were sitting on the kitchen steps having a state dinner at the expense of the government.

VI. SOME INCIDENTS FROM THE GREAT YEARS

Little incidents of appreciative consideration marked all of Lincoln's way.

One afternoon in Chicago, while many noted visitors were gathered about him, a little boy entered the room, and, seeing Lincoln, took off his cap, whirled it over his head and shouted, "Hurrah for Lincoln!"

Mr. Lincoln gently made his way through the crowd, picked the little boy up in his arms, held him out at arm's length, studied him a moment seriously, and then shouted, in like enthusiasm, as he set the boy down, "Hurrah for you!"

Honorable W. D. Kell tells an incident that occurred in asking Lincoln to do something for Willie Bladen.

This boy had served a year on the gunboat Ottawa and had gone through two important battles. Willie lived in the district of Congressman Kell and he asked Kell to help him get a place in the Naval School. The testimony of the gunners on the _Ottawa_ was that Willie had carried powder to them in the midst of the hottest engagements with all the coolness and bravery of any of the sailors, and Congressman Kell's sympathy was thoroughly enlisted for the boy's ambition.

Lincoln was much interested in the case and at once wrote to the Secretary of the Navy to appoint Willie Bladen to the school, if there was yet a place for him.

The appointment was made and the boy was ordered to report in July. But Congressman Kell found, on going back home, that Willie would not be fourteen till September, and no one could be accepted in the Naval School under fourteen.

Willie was terribly distressed.

"Never mind," said Mr. Kell, "I'll take you to see the President about this and I am sure he will manage it some way."

A few days later, Congressman Kell, holding Willie Bladen by the hand, walked in to where Lincoln sat, and introduced the boy.

Willie made a profound bow.

"Why, bless me," responded Lincoln, "is this the boy who did so gallantly in those two great battles! I feel that I should bow to him."

And, with that, Lincoln arose and made a bow to the little hero.

The President then made out papers directing that the boy be allowed until September to report, then putting his hand on the boy's head, he said, "Now, my boy, go home and play for the next two months. They may be the last holidays you will ever get."

Lincoln's knowledge of the Bible is shown by many an incident.

In one of the darkest hours of the war a mass convention was called of Union men to protest against the President's "imbecile policy in the conduct of the war." It was also intended to start a boom for "Fremont the Pathfinder" to succeed Lincoln to the Presidency. Instead of a great mass convention of many thousands, only four hundred disgruntled politicians were present.

When this news was brought to Lincoln, he reached for the Bible that always lay on his desk, and, turning to the first book of Samuel, the twenty-second chapter, read aloud, "And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented gathered themselves unto him; and he became a Captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men."

The old saying, originating from the Bible, "To have friends you must show yourself friendly," was always true in Lincoln's case. One of these friends once said of Lincoln that "he had nothing, only friends." His enemies did not know him or they would not have been enemies.