The Lincoln Story Book by Henry L. Williams

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"We cannot absolutely know, but when we see a lot of framed timbers,
different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different
times and places, and by different workmen--as Stephen, Franklin,
Roger, and James (Douglas, President Pierce, Taney, Buchanan), and
when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make
the frame of a house or mill ... in such a case we find it impossible
not to believe that Stephen, and Franklin, and Roger, and James all
understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a
common plan or draft, drawn up before the first blow was struck."
--(The "Divided House" Speech, June 17, 1858, Springfield, Illinois.)

* * * * *

PLAYING CUTTLEFISH.

"Judge Douglas is playing cuttlefish!--a small species of fish that
has no mode of defending itself when pursued except by throwing out
a black fluid which makes the water so dark the enemy cannot see it,
and thus it escapes."--(Lincoln in Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Illinois,
1858.)

* * * * *

A VOICE FROM THE DEAD.

"Fellow citizens, my friend, Mr. Douglas, made the startling
announcement to-day that the Whigs are dead. If that be so, you will
now experience the novelty of hearing a speech from a dead man." With
his arms waving like windmill-sails, and his frame vibrating in every
one of the seventy-five inches perpendicular, he shrilled: "And I
suppose you might properly say, or sing, in the language of the old
hymn: 'Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound!'"--(Lincoln-Douglas
Debate, 1858.)

* * * * *

"IF I MUST GO DOWN, LET IT BE LINKED TO TRUTH."

In 1856, a red-letter day in American politics, the Republican party
was organized at Bloomington, Illinois, and, after his speech at the
inauguration, Abraham Lincoln was hailed as the foremost of the league
throughout the West. A civil war raged, as he had foretold, in Kansas,
through repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and Douglas was forced to
about face and actually vote, as senator in Congress against the very
measures he advocated, with the Republicans. He sought reelection, and
so believed he would allure them over to his side. At the Republican
State Convention in June, however, Lincoln was the unanimous
representative for Cook County, and he made the celebrated speech
known as "The House Divided Against Itself." This discourse had been
rehearsed before his clique of friends--the men who afterward boasted
that they made the President out of the "little one-horse lawyer of a
little one-horse town!" They agreed that it was sound and energetic,
but that it would not be politic to speak it then. The Republicans
were cautious, and shrank from uniting with the advanced theorists
known as the Abolitionists.

Lincoln slowly repeated the debated passage:

"'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I will deliver it as
written. I would rather be defeated with this expression in the speech
than be victorious without it."

Before the persistence the advisers again implored him to moderate the
lines. "It would defeat his election--it will kill the embryo party!"
and so on.

But after silent reflection, he suddenly and warmly said:

"Friends, if it must be that I must go down because of this speech,
then let me go down linked to truth--_die_ in the advocacy of
what is right and just."

That famous utterance of what was fermenting in the great heart of the
people, and which perfect oneness with it and his own, enabled him to
be the touchstone of the Satan yet disguised, cleared the sky, and
all saw the battle, if not the doom, of the black stain on the United
States.

* * * * *

COME ONE, COME ALL!

On his road to inauguration, Lincoln held a reception at Chicago.
The autograph fiend was not prominent in the thick crowd, but still
several little girls were pushed forward by their besieging mamas and,
under pretense of one gift deserving a return, gave flowers, and the
spokesgirl said as she waved a sheet of paper:

"Your name, Mr. President, please!"

"But here are several other little girls----"

"They come with me," replied the little miss, with the intention of
gaining her end alone.

"Oh, then, as my signature will be little among eight--more paper!"

And he wrote a sentiment on each of eight sheets and affixed his sign
manual.

* * * * *

ASSISTING THE INEVITABLE.

In 1854, the Missouri Compromise Bill of 1820, made to shut out the
free States from the invasion of slavery, was repealed. The author of
this yielding on a vital question to the pro-slavery party was Stephen
A. Douglas, leader of the Democrats. He had been Lincoln's early
friend, and they were rivals for the hand of the Miss Todd who wedded
Lincoln, with spoken confidence, and woman's astonishing art of
reading men and the future, that he would attain a loftier station
in the national Walhalla than his brilliant and more bewitching
adversary. Indignant at this revoke in the great game of immunity
which should have been played aboveboard, the lawyer sprang forth
from his family peace and studious retirement to fall or fulfil his
mission in the irrepressible conflict.

Lincoln delivered a speech at Springfield when the town was crammed
by the spectators attending the State Fair. It was rated the greatest
oratorical effort of his career, and demolished Douglas' political
stand. The State, previously Democratic, slid upon and crushed out
Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and a Whig legislature was chosen.
Having "the senatorship in his eye," or even a dearer if not a nearer
object, Lincoln resigned the seat he won in this revolutionary house.
On the other hand, a vacancy in the State senatorship at Washington
falling pat, he was set up as Whig candidate. Douglas had selected
General James Shields, who had married Miss Todd's sister, but was as
antagonistic to his brother-in-law as Douglas himself. The fight was
made triangular, by the Anti-Kansas-Nebraska Bill party advancing
Lyman Trumbull. Although Shields was not strong enough, a substitute
in Governor Mattheson, "a dark horse," uncommitted to either side,
came within an ace of election in the ballotage.

* * * * *

SELF-SACRIFICE.

Mr. Lincoln had the finished art of the politician; he had also a
magnanimous heart, ready to sacrifice all personal gain to the party.
He proposed withdrawing, and throwing all his supporters' votes over
to Mattheson--anything to beat Douglas! His friends resisted; he had
distinguished himself sufficiently as a "retiring man" in letting
Baker get the seat over his head. But he was terribly bent on this
stroke of victory. He gave up the reins and, in his great
self-sacrifice, passionately exclaimed:

"It _must_ be done!"

He was said to be, then, a fatalist, and so vented this command as if
he believed "What must be, must be!" unlike the doubter who said: "No!
what must be, won't be!" The Douglasites could not meet this change
of base, and Trumbull became senator by the Lincolnites' coalition.
Lincoln publicly disavowed any such formal compact.

* * * * *

A FIGHT PROVES NOTHING.

Stung by the repetition here in the West by Horace Greeley's quip upon
Douglas, whose trimming lost him supporters, "He is like the man's
pig which did not weigh as much as he expected, and he always knew
he wouldn't," a partizan of the senator's wanted to challenge Lincoln.
The latter declared that he would not fight Judge Douglas or his
second.

"In the first place, a fight would prove nothing in issue in this
contest. If my fighting Judge Douglas would not prove anything, it
would prove nothing for me to fight his _bottle_-holder."

(It is to be borne in mind that the senator had a high reputation
as a convivial host, and the toady was believed to be his familiar
--"the Bottle Imp.")

* * * * *

"WIN THE FIGHT, OR DIE A-TRYING."

Though Douglas had his misgivings from knowing Lincoln is "the ablest
of the Republican party," he was forced by his standing and the
pressure of his less dubious followers to accept the oratorical
challenge of the other. The trumpeteers at once boasted the Little
Giant could make small feed of the animated fence-rail. Lincoln said
on the subject to Judge Beckwith, of Danville, on the eve:

"You have seen two men about to fight? Well, one of them brags about
what he means to do. The other fellow, he says not a word. He is
saving his wind for the fight, and as sure as it comes off, he will
win it--or die a-trying!"

* * * * *

PILLS TO PURGE MELANCHOLY.

The Puritanic and classically sedate critics blamed the President
for finding recreation in reading and hearing comic tales, used to
illustrate grave texts. He said to a congressman who brought up the
censure at a time when the country was profoundly harried:

"Were it not for this occasional vent, I should die!"

* * * * *

"DOWN TO THE RAISINS!"

It was the regular habit of President Lincoln to read the day's
telegrams in order in the "flimsy" triplicates. They were kept in a
drawer at the White House telegraph-office. As he handled the papers
almost solely, each addition would come to be placed on the last lot
of the foregoing day. When this was attained, he would say with a
sigh:

"There, I have got down to the raisins!"

It was due to the story, which amused him, of the countryman. This
tourist entered a fashionable restaurant, and on viewing the long
menu, and concluding that all the dishes were for the customer at
the fixed price, manfully called for each in turn. When he arrived
at the last line, he sighed in relief, and cried:

"Thanks be! I have got down to the raisins!"

* * * * *

GIANT AND GIANT-KILLER.

As Stephen A. Douglas, from his concentrated force and limited height
was nicknamed "the Little Giant," his opponent, the elongated Lincoln,
was dubbed "the Giant-Killer."

* * * * *

LINCOLN'S "SENTIMENTS" ON A MOOTED POINT.

The President's reply to an autograph fiend who sought his signature,
appended to a sentiment, was:

"DEAR MADAM: When you ask a stranger for that which is of interest
only to yourself, always enclose a stamp."

* * * * *

CHESTNUTS UNDER A SYCAMORE.

The President, on his way to the Department of War, perceived a
gentleman under a tree, scraping among the heaped leaves with his
cane. He knew him, a Major Johnson, of the department, an old District
of Columbia man who had never been out of the district.

"Good morning, major!" hailed the executive officer. "What in the
world are you doing there?"

"Looking for a few horse-chestnuts."

"Eh? Do you expect to find them under a sycamore-tree?" The President
laughed freely and passed on. He ought to have removed the misguided
botanist into the Department of Agriculture, where he might have
learned something.

* * * * *

STILL OF LITTLE NOTE.

On hearing that a man had been arrested in Philadelphia for trying to
procure $1,500 by a forgery of Lincoln's name, he humorously said:
"It is surprising that any man could get the money!"

The secretary pointed out that use might have been made of a signature
given to a stranger as an autograph on a blank paper, the body of
which had been improperly filled up as a note.

"Well," answered the President, then, as to interfering, "I don't see
but that he will have to sit on 'the blister-bench.'"

* * * * *

THE TREE-TOAD AND "TIMOTHEUS."

In the early days when Abraham Lincoln went with his pioneer father to
settle in wild Indiana, the chief diversion of the rude inhabitants
was from the preaching of the traveling pastors. They were singular
devotees whose sincerity redeemed all their flaws of ignorance,
illiteracy, and violence. Abraham, with his inherent proneness toward
imitation of oratory, used to "take them off" to the hilarity of the
laboring men who formed his first audiences. Out of his recollections
came this tale, which he liked to act out with all the quaint tones
and gestures the subject demanded.

The itinerant ranters held out at a schoolhouse near Lincoln's cabin;
but in fine weather preferred the academy--as the Platoists would
say--what was left of an oak grove, only one tree being spared, making
a pulpit with leafy canopy for the exhorter. This man was a Hard-shell
Baptist, commonly imperturbable to outside sights and doings when the
spirit moved him. His demeanor was rigid and his action angular and
restricted. He wore the general attire, coonskin cap or beaver hat,
hickory-dyed shirt, breeches loose and held up by plugs or makeshift
buttons, as our ancestors attached undergarments to the upper ones by
laces and points. The shirt was held by one button in the collar.

This dress little mattered, as a leaf screen woven for the occasion
hid the lower part of his frame and left the protruding head visible
as he leaned forward, standing on a log rolled up for the platform.

He gave out the text, from Corinthians: "Now if Timotheus come, see
that he may be with you without fear; for he worketh the work of the
law." The following runs: "Let no man despise him," etc.

As he began his speech, a tree-toad that had dropped down out of the
tree thought to return to its lookout to see if rain were coming.
As the shortest cut it took the man as a post. Scrambling over his
yawning, untanned ankle jack-boots, it slipped under the equally
yawning blue jeans. He commenced to scale the leg as the preacher
became conscious of the invasion. So, while spooning out the text,
he made a grab at the creature, which might be a centipede for all he
knew; and then, as it ascended, and his voice ascended a note or two,
with the words "be without fear," he slapped still higher. Then, still
speaking, but fearsomely animated, he clutched frantically, but always
a leetle behindhand, at the unknown monster which now reached the
imprisoning neckband. Here he tore at the button--the divine, not the
newt--and broke it free! As he finally yelled--sticking to the sermon
as to the hunt, "worketh the work of the law!" an old dame in among
the amazed congregation rose, and shrieked out:

"Well, if you represent Timotheus and that is working for the
law--then I'm done with the Apostles!"

* * * * *

"IF IT WILL DO THE PRESIDENT GOOD--"

G. H. Stuart, chief of the Christian Commission, was a Bible
distributer during the war. The organization had a special soldiers'
Bible called the Cromwell one, whose mixture of warrior and preacher
seemed to couple him with Abraham Lincoln. The soldiers usually
accepted a copy without pressing, though some said they preferred a
cracker. But one man, a Philadelphian, like Stuart himself, rejected
the offer. Among the colporteur's arguments, however, was one that
overcame him.

"I'll tell you that I commenced my tract distribution at the White
House, and the first person I offered one to was Abraham Lincoln. He
took it and promised to read it."

"I'll take one," promptly cried the man; "if the President thought it
would do _him_ good, it won't hurt me!"

* * * * *

GROUNDS FOR A FINANCIAL ESTIMATE.

When the mercantile agencies were young, they acquired a consensus
of opinion upon a business man by annoying his acquaintances with
inquiries. One such house queried of Lincoln about one of his
neighbors. His reply was a smart burlesque on the bases on which
they rated their registered "listed."

"I am well acquainted with Mr. X----, and know his circumstances.
First of all, he has a wife and baby; together, they ought to be
worth $50,000 to any man. Secondly, he has an office in which there
is a table worth $1.50, and three chairs worth, say, $1. Last of all,
there is in one corner a large rat-hole, which will bear _looking
into!_ Respectfully, etc."

* * * * *

"I WANTED TO SEE THEM SPREAD!"

It is related that the ushers and secret service officials on duty
at the Executive Mansion during the war were prone to congregate in a
little anteroom and exchange reminiscences. This was directly against
instructions by the President.

One night the guard and ushers were gathered in the little room
talking things over, when suddenly the door opened, and there stood
President Lincoln, his shoes in his hand.

All the crowd scattered save one privileged individual, the Usher
Pendel, of the President's own appointment, as he had been kind to
the Lincoln children.

The intruder shook his finger at him and, with assumed ferocity,
growled:

"Pendel, you people remind me of the boy who set a hen on forty-three
eggs."

"How was that, Mr. President?" asked Pendel.

"A youngster put forty-three eggs under a hen, and then rushed in and
told his mother what he had done.

"'But a hen can't set on forty-three eggs,' replied the mother.

"'No, I guess she can't, but I just wanted to see her spread herself.'

"That's what I wanted to see you boys do when I came in," said the
President, as he left for his apartments.--(By Thomas Pendel, still
usher, in 1900.)

* * * * *

THE LINCOLN NON SEQUITUR.

Though a Democrat, Member of Congress John Ganson, of New York,
supported the President, and he thought himself entitled to enjoy what
no one had surprised or captured--the confidence of Abraham's bosom,
as was the current phrase. He, calling, insisted that he ought to know
the true situation of things military and political, so that he might
justify himself among his friends. Ganson was bald as the egg and
was the most clean-shaven of men. The "Northern Nero" eyed the
presumptuous satrap fixedly, and drawled:

"Ganson, how clean you shave!"

He had escaped another inquisition by his close shave. (Told by
Senator C. M. Depew.)

* * * * *

WHY SO MANY COMMON PEOPLE.

Like another Daniel, Lincoln interpreted dreams. He said that he had
one in this guise:

He imagined he was in a great assemblage like one of his receptions
multiplied. The mass described a hedge to let him pass. He thought
that he heard one of them remark:

"That is a common-looking fellow!"

To whom Lincoln replied--still in the dream:

"Friend, the Lord loves common-looking people--that is why He made
so many of them."

(NOTE.--Another current saying substitutes "the poor" for "common.")

* * * * *

ENVY OF A HUMORIST.

It is difficult for the present generation to perceive the streak of
fun in "the Petroleum V. Nasby Papers" which regaled our grandfathers,
and Mr. Lincoln above others, who waited eagerly for the next letter
in the press. He requested the presentation of the author, John Locke,
and thanked him face to face--neither, like the augurs, able to keep
his _face_--for such antidotes to the blues. He said to a friend
of "the Postmaster at Confedrit X-rodes":

"If 'Petroleum' would impart his talent to me, I would swap places
with him!"

* * * * *

THE STOPPER ON JOURNALISTIC "GAS."

Having examined a model cannon devised not to allow the escape of gas,
he quizzically glanced at the group of newspaper reporters, and said:

"I really believe this does what it is represented to do. But do any
of you know of any machine or invention for preventing the escape of
_gas_ from newspaper establishments?"

* * * * *

SALT BEFORE PEPPER.

The Cabinet being assembled in September, 1862, to consider the
first draft of the Emancipation Act, those not yet familiar with the
chairman's habit to supply a whet before the main dish, were startled
that he should preface the business by reading the New York paper--
_Vanity Fair_--continuing the series of "Artemus Ward's" tour
with his show. This paper was the "High-handed Outrage at Utica."
He laughed his fill over it, while the grave signiors frowned and
yet struggled to keep their countenances.

If they had more experience, they would have heard him read "Josh
Billings," particularly "On the Mule," from the New York _Weekly_
columns. It was as "good as a play," the stenographers said, to see
the President dart a glance over his spectacle-rims at some demure
counselor whose molelike machinations were more than suspected, and
with mock solemnity declaim:

"'I hev known a mewl to be good for six months jest ter git a chance
to kick his owner!'" In allusion to those remarkable feats of arms
and--legs--Early's or Stuart's raids and Jackson's forced rapid
marches, almost at horse-speed, when the men carried no rations, but
ate corn-ears taken from the shucks and roasted them "at their pipes,"
the droll ruler would bring in that "mewl" again:

"'If you want to find a mewl in a lot, you must turn him into the one
next to it.'"

Only the rebel "fly-by-nights" were more like the Irishman's
flea--"when you put your hand on him, he was not there!"

* * * * *

"MATCHING" STORIES.

The President looking in at the telegraph-room in the White House,
happened to find Major Eckert in. He saw he was counting greenbacks.
So he said jokingly:

"I believe you never come to business now but to handle money!"

The officer pleaded that it was a mere coincidence, and instanced
a story in point:

"A certain tailor in Mansfield, Ohio, was very stylish in dress and
airy in manner. Passing a storekeeper's door one day, the latter
puffed himself up and emitted a long blow, expressive of the inflation
to oozing-point of the conceited tailor, who indignantly turned and
said: 'I will teach you to blow when I am passing!' to which the
storekeeper replied: 'And I'll teach you not to pass when I am
blowing!'"

"Very good!" returned the hearer. "That is very like a story _I_
heard of a man driving about the country in an open buggy, caught
at night by a pouring rain. Passing a farmhouse, a man, apparently
struggling with the effects of whisky, thrust his head out of a
window, and shouted loudly:

"'Hello!'

"The traveler stopped for all of his hurry for shelter and asked what
was wanted.

"'Nothing of you!' was the blunt reply.

"'Well, what in the infernals are you shouting 'Hello' for when people
are passing?' angrily asked the traveler.

"'Well, what in the infernals are you passing for when people are
shouting hello?'"

The rival story-tellers parted "at evens."

* * * * *

THE ONLY DISCREDIT.

A backhanded compliment of the acutest nature is credited to Lincoln
as a lawyer and gentleman. A Major Hill accused him of maligning Mrs.
Hill, upon which Lincoln denied the accusation and apologized with
"whitewash" which blacked the bystander:

"I entertain the highest regard for Mrs. Hill, and the only thing I
know to her discredit is that she is Major Hill's wife!"

* * * * *

NO RE-LIE-ANCE OF THEM!

Mrs. Secretary Welles, more susceptible about press attacks on her
idol--and everybody in Washington officialdom's idol--the President,
called attention to fresh quips and innuendoes.

"Pshaw! let pass; the papers are not always reliable. That is to say,
Mrs. Welles," interposed the object of the missiles, "they lie, and
then they _re-lie_!"

* * * * *

NO VICES--FEW VIRTUES.

Some one was smoking in the presence of the President, and had
complimented him on having no vices--such as drinking or smoking.

"That is a doubtful compliment," said the host. "I recollect being
once outside a coach in Illinois, and a man sitting beside me offered
me a. cigar. I told him I had no vices. He said nothing, smoked for
some time, and then grunted out:

"'It's my experience that folks who have no vices have plaguey few
virtues.'"

(Mrs. General Lander--Miss Jean Davenport, of stage life, the original
of Dickens' "Miss Crummies"--must have heard this in the presidential
circle, for she would say: "If a man has no petty vices, he has great
ones.")

A later version ascribes the reproof to a brother Kentuckian, also
a stage companion, variation sufficient to prove the happening.

* * * * *

THE APPLES OF HIS EYE.

"Up in the State, out my way," says the narrator, "there was a farmer
in the days when his sort were not called agriculturists; he kep' an
orchard, at the same time, without being called a horticulturist.
He was just another kind of 'Johnny Appleseed,' for he doted on apples
and used to beg slips and seeds of any new variety until he had one
hundred and eighty-two trees in his big orchard. I have counted them
and longed for them, early, mid, and late harvest--he fit off the bug
and the blight and the worm like a wizard. If there was any one thing
save his orchard he doted upon it was a daughter o' his'n, her name
being Rose, and all that you can cram of lush and bright-red and
rosy-posy nicety into that name. An' yet he hankered much on the
latest addition to his garden--a New York State apple as he sent for
and 'tended to at great outlay of time, anyway. 'This here daughter'
and 'that there apple-tree' were his delights. You might say the Rose
and the Baldwin, that were the brand of the fruit, were the apples of
his two eyes!

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