Part 15

Justice David Davis was a life-long friend and associate of Mr. Lincoln, and Judge Davis knew Lincoln's religious opinions and knew Lincoln as well as anybody did. Judge Davis told me that Lincoln was a Freethinker, that he denied the inspiration of the Bible, the divinity of Christ, and all miracles. Davis also told me that he had talked with Lincoln on these subjects hundreds of times.

I was well acquainted with Col. Ward H. Lamon and had many conversations with him about Mr. Lincoln's religious belief, before and after he wrote his life of Lincoln. He told me that he had told the exact truth in his life of Lincoln, that Lincoln never did believe in the Bible, or in the divinity of Christ, or in the dogma of eternal pain; that Lincoln was a Freethinker.

For many years I was well acquainted with the Hon. Jesse W. Fell, one of Lincoln's warmest friends. Mr. Fell often came to my house and we had many talks about the religious belief of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Fell told me that Lincoln did not believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures, and that he denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. Mr. Fell was very liberal in his own ideas, a great admirer of Theodore Parker and a perfectly sincere and honorable man.

For several years I was well acquainted with William G. Green, who was a clerk with Lincoln at New Salem in the early days, and who admired and loved Lincoln with all his heart. Green told me that Lincoln was always an Infidel, and that he had heard him argue against the Bible hundreds of times. Mr. Green knew Lincoln, and knew him well, up to the time of Lincoln's death.

The Hon. James Tuttle of Illinois was a great friend of Lincoln, and he is, if living, a friend of mine, and I am a friend of his. He knew Lincoln well for many years, and he told me again and again that Lincoln was an Infidel. Mr. Tuttle is a Freethinker himself and has always enjoyed the respect of his neighbors. A man with purer motives does not live.

So I place great reliance on the testimony of Col. John G. Nicolay. Six weeks after Mr. Lincoln's death Colonel Nicolay said that he did not in any way change his religious ideas, opinions or belief from the time he left Springfield until the day of his death.

In addition to all said by the persons I have mentioned, Mrs. Lincoln said that her husband _was not a Christian_. There are many other witnesses upon this question whose testimony can be found in a book entitled "Abraham Lincoln, was he a Christian?" written by John E. Remsburg, and published in 1893. In that book will be found all the evidence on both sides. Mr. Remsburg states the case with great clearness and demonstrates that Lincoln was not a Christian.

Now, what is a Christian?

First. He is a believer in the existence of God, the Creator and Governor of the Universe.

Second. He believes in the inspiration of the Old and New Testaments.

Third. He believes in the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ; that the Holy Ghost was his father.

Fourth. He believes that this Christ was offered as a sacrifice for the sins of men, that he was crucified, dead and buried, that he arose from the dead and that he ascended into heaven.

Fifth. He believes in the "fall of man," in the scheme of redemption through the atonement.

Sixth. He believes in salvation by faith, that the few are to be eternally happy, and that the many are to be eternally damned.

Seventh. He believes in the Trinity, in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost.

Now, is there the slightest evidence to show that Lincoln believed in the inspiration of the Old and New Testaments?

Has anybody said that he was heard to say that he so believed?

Does anybody testify that Lincoln believed in the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ, that the Holy Ghost was the father or that Christ was or is God?

Has anybody testified that Lincoln believed that Christ was raised from the dead?

Did anyone ever hear him say that he believed in the ascension of Jesus Christ? Did anyone ever hear him assert that he believed in the forgiveness of sins, or in salvation by faith, or that belief was a virtue and investigation a crime?

Where, then, is the evidence that he was a Christian?

There is another reason for thinking that Lincoln never became a Christian.

All will admit that he was an honest man, that he discharged all obligations perceived, and did what he believed to be his duty. If he had become a Christian it was his duty publicly to say so. He was President; he had the ear of the nation; every citizen, had he spoken, would have listened. It was his duty to make a clear, explicit statement of his conversion, and it was his duty to join some orthodox church, and he should have given his reasons. He should have endeavored to reach the heart and brain of the Republic. It was unmanly for him to keep his "second birth" a secret and sneak into heaven leaving his old friends to travel the road to hell.

Great pains have been taken to show that Mr. Lincoln believed in, and worshiped the one true God. This by many is held to have been his greatest virtue, the foundation of his character, and yet, the God he worshiped, the God to whom he prayed, allowed him to be assassinated.

Is it possible that God will not protect his friends?

ORGANIZED CHARITIES.

I HAVE no great confidence in organized charities. Money is left and buildings are erected and sinecures provided for a good many worthless people. Those in immediate control are almost, or when they were appointed were almost, in want themselves, and they naturally hate other beggars.

They regard persons who ask assistance as their enemies. There is an old story of a tramp who begged a breakfast. After breakfast another tramp came to the same place to beg his breakfast, and the first tramp with blows and curses drove him away, saying at the same time: "I expect to get dinner here myself."

This is the general attitude of beggar toward beggar.

Another trouble with organized charities is the machinery, the various methods they have adopted to prevent what they call fraud. They are exceedingly anxious that the needy, that those who ask help, who have been without fault, shall be attended to, their rule apparently being to assist only the unfortunate perfect.

The trouble is that Nature produces very few specimens of that kind. As a rule, men come to want on account of their imperfections, on account of their ignorance, on account of their vices, and their vices are born of their lack of capacity, of their want of brain. In other words, they are failures of Nature, and the fact that they need help is not their own fault, but the fault of their construction, their surroundings.

Very few people have the opportunity of selecting their parents, and it is exceedingly difficult in the matter of grandparents. Consequently, I do not hold people responsible for hereditary tendencies, traits and vices. Neither do I praise them for having hereditary virtues.

A man going to one of these various charitable establishments is cross-examined. He must give his biography. And after he has answered all the supercilious, impudent questions, he is asked for references.

Then the people referred to are sought out, to find whether the statements made by the applicant are true. By the time the thing is settled the man who asked aid has either gotten it somewhere else or has, in the language of the Spiritualists, "passed over to the other side."

Of course this does not trouble the persons in charge of the organized charities, because their salaries are going on.

As a rule, these charities were commenced by the best of people. Some generous, philanthropic man or woman gave a life to establish a "home," it may be, for aged women, for orphans, for the waifs of the pavements.

These generous people, filled with the spirit of charity, raised a little money, succeeded in hiring or erecting a humble building, and the money they collected, so honestly given, they honestly used to bind up the wounds and wipe away the tears of the unfortunate, and to save, if possible, some who had been wrecked on the rocks and reefs of crime.

Then some very rich man dies who had no charity and who would not have left a dollar could he have taken his money with him. This rich man, who hated his relatives and the people he actually knew, gives a large sum of money to some particular charity--not that he had any charity, but because he wanted to be remembered as a philanthropist.

Then the organized charity becomes rich, and the richer the meaner, the richer the harder of heart and the closer of fist.

Now, I believe that Trinity Church, in this city, would be called an organized charity. The church was started to save, if possible, a few souls from eternal torment, and on the plea of saving these souls money was given to the church.

Finally the church became rich. It is now a landlord--has many buildings to rent. And if what I hear is true there is no harder landlord in the city of New York.

So, I have heard it said of Dublin University, that it is about the hardest landlord in Ireland.

I think you will find that all such institutions try to collect the very last cent, and, in the name of pity, drive pity from their hearts.

I think it is Shakespeare who says, "Pity drives out pity," and he must have had organized charities in his mind when he uttered this remark. Of course a great many really good and philanthropic people leave vast sums of money to charities.

I find that it is sometimes very difficult to get an injured man, or one seized with some sudden illness, taken into a city hospital. There are so many rules and so many regulations, so many things necessary to be done, that while the rules are being complied with the soul of the sick or injured man, weary of the waiting, takes its flight. And after the man is dead, the doctors are kind enough to certify that he died of heart failure.

So--in a general way--I speak of all the asylums, of all the homes for orphans. When I see one of those buildings I feel that it is full of petty tyranny, of what might be called pious meanness, devout deviltry, where the object is to break the will of every recipient of public favor.

I may be all wrong. I hope I am. At the same time I fear that I am somewhere near right.

You may take our prisons; the treatment of prisoners is often infamous. The Elmira Reformatory is a worthy successor of the Inquisition, a disgrace, in my judgment, to the State of New York, to the civilization of our day. Every little while something comes to light showing the cruelty, the tyranny, the meanness, of these professional distributers of public charity--of these professed reformers.

I know that they are visited now and then by committees from the Legislature, and I know that the keepers of these places know when the "committee" may be expected.

I know that everything is scoured and swept and burnished for the occasion; and I know that the poor devils that have been abused or whipped or starved, fear to open their mouths, knowing that if they do they may not be believed and that they will be treated afterward as though they were wild beasts.

I think these public institutions ought to be open to inspection at all times. I think the very best men ought to be put in control of them. I think only those doctors who have passed, and recently passed, examinations as to their fitness, as to their intelligence and professional acquirements, ought to be put in charge.

I do not think that hospitals should be places for young doctors to practice sawing off the arms and legs of paupers or hunting in the stomachs of old women for tumors. I think only the skillful, the experienced, should be employed in such places. Neither do I think hospitals should be places where medicine is distributed by students to the poor.

Ignorance is a poor doctor, even for the poor, and if we pretend to be charitable we ought to carry it out.

I would like to see tyranny done away with in prisons, in the reformatories, and in all places under the government or supervision of the State.

I would like to have all corporal punishment abolished, and I would also like to see the money that is given to charity distributed by charity and by intelligence. I hope all these institutions will be overhauled.

I hope all places where people are pretending to take care of the poor and for which they collect money from the public, will be visited, and will be visited unexpectedly and the truth told.

In my judgment there is some better way. I think every hospital, every asylum, every home for waifs and orphans should be supported by taxation, not by charity; should be under the care and control of the State absolutely.

I do not believe in these institutions being managed by any individual or by any society, religious or secular, but by the State. I would no more have hospitals and asylums depend on charity than I would have the public school depend on voluntary contributions.

I want the schools supported by taxation and to be controlled by the State, and I want the hospitals and asylums and charitable institutions founded and controlled and carried on in the same way. Let the property of the State do it.

Let those pay the taxes who are able. And let us do away forever with the idea that to take care of the sick, of the helpless, is a charity. It is not a charity. It is a duty. It is something to be done for our own sakes. It is no more a charity than it is to pave or light the streets, no more a charity than it is to have a system of sewers.

It is all for the purpose of protecting society and of civilizing ourselves.

SPAIN AND THE SPANIARDS.

SPAIN has always been exceedingly religious and exceedingly cruel. That country had an unfortunate experience. The Spaniards fought the Moors for about seven hundred or eight hundred years, and during that time Catholicism and patriotism became synonymous. They were fighting the Moslems. It was a religious war. For this reason they became intense in their Catholicism, and they were fearful that if they should grant the least concession to the Moor, God would destroy them. Their idea was that the only way to secure divine aid was to have absolute faith, and this faith was proved by their hatred of all ideas inconsistent with their own.

Spain has been and is the victim of superstition. The Spaniards expelled the Jews, who at that time represented a good deal of wealth and considerable intelligence. This expulsion was characterized by infinite brutality and by cruelties that words can not express. They drove out the Moors at last. Not satisfied with this, they drove out the Moriscoes. These were Moors who had been converted to Catholicism.

The Spaniards, however, had no confidence in the honesty of the conversion, and for the purpose of gaining the good will of God, they drove them out. They had succeeded in getting rid of Jews, Moors and Moriscoes; that is to say, of the intelligence and industry of Spain. Nothing was left but Spaniards; that is to say, indolence, pride, cruelty and infinite superstition. So Spain destroyed all freedom of thought through the Inquisition, and for many years the sky was livid with the flames of the _Auto da fe_; Spain was busy carrying fagots to the feet of philosophy, busy in burning people for thinking, for investigating, for expressing honest opinions. The result was that a great darkness settled over Spain, pierced by no star and shone upon by no rising sun.

At one time Spain was the greatest of powers, owner of half the world, and now she has only a few islands, the small change of her great fortune, the few pennies in the almost empty purse, souvenirs of departed wealth, of vanished greatness. Now Spain is bankrupt, bankrupt not only in purse, but in the higher faculties of the mind, a nation without progress, without thought; still devoted to bull fights and superstition, still trying to affright contagious diseases by religious processions. Spain is a part of the mediæval ages, belongs to an ancient generation. It really has no place in the nineteenth century.

Spain has always been cruel. S. S. Prentice, many years ago, speaking of Spain said: "On the shore of discovery it leaped an armed robber, and sought for gold even in the throats of its victims." The bloodiest pages in the history of this world have been written by Spain. Spain in Peru, in Mexico, Spain in the low countries--all possible cruelties come back to the mind when we say Philip II., when we say the Duke of Alva, when we pronounce the names of Ferdinand and Isabella. Spain has inflicted every torture, has practiced every cruelty, has been guilty of every possible outrage. There has been no break between Torquemada and Weyler, between the Inquisition and the infamies committed in Cuba.

When Columbus found Cuba, the original inhabitants were the kindest and gentlest of people. They practiced no inhuman rites, they were good, contented people. The Spaniards enslaved them or sought to enslave them. The people rising, they were hunted with dogs, they were tortured, they were murdered, and finally exterminated. This was the commencement of Spanish rule on the island of Cuba. The same spirit is in Spain to-day that was in Spain then. The idea is not to conciliate, but to coerce, not to treat justly, but to rob and enslave. No Spaniard regards a Cuban as having equal rights with himself. He looks upon the island as property, and upon the people as a part of that property, both equally belonging to Spain.

Spain has kept no promises made to the Cubans and never will. At last the Cubans know exactly what Spain is, and they have made up their minds to be free or to be exterminated. There is nothing in history to equal the atrocities and outrages that have been perpetrated by Spain upon Cuba. What Spain does now, all know is only a repetition of what Spain has done, and this is a prophecy of what Spain will do if she has the power.

So far as I am concerned, I have no idea that there is to be any war between Spain and the United States. A country that can't conquer Cuba, certainly has no very flattering chance of overwhelming the United States. A man that cannot whip one of his own boys is foolish when he threatens to clean out the whole neighborhood. Of course, there is some wisdom even in Spain, and the Spaniards who know anything of this country know that it would be absolute madness and the utmost extreme of folly to attack us. I believe in treating even Spain with perfect fairness. I feel about the country as Burns did about the Devil: "O wad ye tak' a thought an' mend!" I know that nations, like people, do as they must, and I regard Spain as the victim and result of conditions, the fruit of a tree that was planted by ignorance and watered by superstition.

I believe that Cuba is to be free, and I want that island to give a new flag to the air, whether it ever becomes a part of the United States or not. My sympathies are all with those who are struggling for their rights, trying to get the clutch of tyranny from their throats; for those who are defending their homes, their firesides, against tyrants and robbers.

Whether the Maine was blown up by the Spaniards is still a question. I suppose it will soon be decided. In my own opinion, the disaster came from the outside, but I do not know, and not knowing, I am willing to wait for the sake of human nature. I sincerely hope that it was an accident. I hate to think that there are people base and cruel enough to commit such an act. Still, I think that all these matters will be settled without war.

I am in favor of an international court, the members to be selected by the ruling nations of the world; and before this court I think all questions between nations should be decided, and the only army and the only navy should be under its direction, and used only for the purpose of enforcing its decrees. Were there such a court now, before which Cuba could appear and tell the story of her wrongs, of the murders, the assassinations, the treachery, the starvings, the cruelty, I think that the decision would instantly be in her favor and that Spain would be driven from the island. Until there is such a court there is no need of talking about the world being civilized.

I am not a Christian, but I do believe in the religion of justice, of kindness. I believe in humanity. I do believe that usefulness is the highest possible form of worship. The useful man is the good man, the useful man is the real saint. I care nothing about supernatural myths and mysteries, but I do care for human beings. I have a little short creed of my own, not very hard to understand, that has in it no contradictions, and it is this: Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.

I think this creed if adopted, would do away with war. I think it would destroy superstition, and I think it would civilize even Spain.

OUR NEW POSSESSIONS.

AS I understand it, the United States went into this war against Spain in the cause of freedom. For three years Spain has been endeavoring to conquer these people. The means employed were savage. Hundreds of thousands were starved. Yet the Cubans, with great heroism, were continuing the struggle. In spite of their burned homes, their wasted fields, their dead comrades, the Cubans were not conquered and still waged war. Under those circumstances we said to Spain, "You must withdraw from the Western World. The Cubans have the right to be free!" They have been robbed and enslaved by Spanish officers and soldiers. Undoubtedly they were savages when first found, and undoubtedly they are worse now than when discovered--more barbarous. They wouldn't make very good citizens of the United States; they are probably incapable of self-government, but no people can be ignorant enough to be justly robbed or savage enough to be rightly enslaved. I think that we should keep the islands, not for our own sake, but for the sake of these people.

It was understood and declared at the time, that we were not waging war for the sake of territory, that we were not trying to annex Cuba, but that we were moved by compassion--a compassion that became as stern as justice. I did not think at the time there would be war. I supposed that the Spanish people had some sense, that they knew their own condition and the condition of this Republic. But the improbable happened, and now, after the successes we have had, the end of the war appears to be in sight, and the question arises: What shall we do with the Spanish islands that we have taken already, or that we may take before peace comes?

Of course, we could not, without stultifying ourselves and committing the greatest of crimes, hand back Cuba to Spain. But to do that would be no more criminal, no more infamous, than to hand back the Philippines. In those islands there are from eight to ten millions of people.

As far as the Philippines are concerned, I think that we should endeavor to civilize them, and to do this we should send teachers, not preachers. We should not endeavor to give them our superstition in place of Spanish superstition. They have had superstition enough. They don't need churches, they need schools. We should teach them our arts; how to cultivate the soil, how to manufacture the things they need. In other words, we should deal honestly with them, and try our best to make them a self-supporting and a self-governing people. The eagle should spread its wings over those islands for that and for no other purpose. We can not afford to give them to other nations or to throw fragments of them to the wild beasts of Europe. We can not say to Russia, "You may have a part," and to Germany, "You may have a share," and to France, "You take something," and so divide out these people as thieves divide plunder. That we will never do.