The way Lincoln answered unjustified people is ill.u.s.trated in his response to a delegation asking the appointment of a certain man to be commissioner to the Sandwich Islands. After praising his qualifications for the place, they urged the plea of his bad health.
The President said, "Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that there are eight other applicants for that place, and they are all sicker than your man."
Lincoln, in the great receptions, often heard flattering remarks that had been made short so as to be delivered quickly. But his apt replies were always equal to the remark. On one occasion, as the handshakers came by, an elderly gentleman from Buffalo said, "Up our way we believe in G.o.d and Abraham Lincoln." To which the President replied as he took the next hand, "My friend, you are more than half right."
Somewhat similar is a n.o.ble reply of Lincoln to some over-zealous religious friends which has become justly famous. A clergyman, heading a delegation with one of the many immature and injudicious appeals, said sadly, "I hope, Mr. Lincoln, that the Lord is on our side."
"I am not at all troubled about that," was the instant reply, "for I know that the Lord is always on the side of right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that this nation and I should be on the Lord"s side."
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 att.i.tude 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 G.o.d, 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."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Lincoln Monument--Springfield, Illinois.]
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 a.s.sail 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 grat.i.tude.
"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 G.o.d 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 pet.i.tioner.
"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.