''Abe'' Lincoln's Yarns and Stories, Alexander Kelly McClure [suggested reading TXT] 📗

even the semblance of ceremony, give me a better insight into the real character of the person and his true reason for seeking one.”

 

GOT HIS FOOT IN IT.

William H. Seward, idol of the Republicans of the East, six months after Lincoln had made his “Divided House” speech, delivered an address at Rochester, New York, containing this famous sentence:

“It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must, and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation.”

Seward, who had simply followed in Lincoln’s steps, was defeated for the Presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention of 1860, because he was “too radical,” and Lincoln, who was still “radicaler,” was named.

 

SAVED BY A LETTER.

The chief interest of the Illinois campaign of 1843 lay in the race for Congress in the Capital district, which was between Hardin—fiery, eloquent, and impetuous Democrat—and Lincoln—plain, practical, and ennobled Whig. The world knows the result. Lincoln was elected.

It is not so much his election as the manner in which he secured his nomination with which we have to deal. Before that ever-memorable spring Lincoln vacillated between the courts of Springfield, rated as a plain, honest, logical Whig, with no ambition higher politically than to occupy some good home office.

Late in the fall of 1842 his name began to be mentioned in connection with Congressional aspirations, which fact greatly annoyed the leaders of his political party, who had already selected as the Whig candidate E. D. Baker, afterward the gallant Colonel who fell so bravely and died such an honorable death on the battlefield of Ball’s Bluff.

Despite all efforts of his opponents within his party, the name of the “gaunt rail-splitter” was hailed with acclaim by the masses, to whom he had endeared himself by his witticisms, honest tongue, and quaint philosophy when on the stump, or mingling with them in their homes.

The convention, which met in early spring, in the city of Springfield, was to be composed of the usual number of delegates. The contest for the nomination was spirited and exciting.

A few weeks before the meeting of the convention the fact was found by the leaders that the advantage lay with Lincoln, and that unless they pulled some very fine wires nothing could save Baker.

They attempted to play the game that has so often won, by “convincing” delegates under instructions for Lincoln to violate them, and vote for Baker. They had apparently succeeded.

“The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley.” So it was in this case. Two days before the convention Lincoln received an intimation of this, and, late at night, wrote the following letter.

The letter was addressed to Martin Morris, who resided at Petersburg, an intimate friend of his, and by him circulated among those who were instructed for him at the county convention.

It had the desired effect. The convention met, the scheme of the conspirators miscarried, Lincoln was nominated, made a vigorous canvass, and was triumphantly elected, thus paving the way for his more extended and brilliant conquests.

This letter, Lincoln had often told his friends, gave him ultimately the Chief Magistracy of the nation. He has also said, that, had he been beaten before the convention, he would have been forever obscured. The following is a verbatim copy of the epistle:

“April 14, 1843.

“Friend Morris: I have heard it intimated that Baker is trying to get you or Miles, or both of you, to violate the instructions of the meeting that appointed you, and to go for him. I have insisted, and still insist, that this cannot be true.

“Sure Baker would not do the like. As well might Hardin ask me to vote for him in the convention.

“Again, it is said there will be an attempt to get instructions in your county requiring you to go for Baker. This is all wrong. Upon the same rule, why might I not fly from the decision against me at Sangamon and get up instructions to their delegates to go for me. There are at least 1,200 Whigs in the county that took no part, and yet I would as soon stick my head in the fire as attempt it.

“Besides, if any one should get the nomination by such extraordinary means, all harmony in the district would inevitably be lost. Honest Whigs (and very nearly all of them are honest) would not quietly abide such enormities.

“I repeat, such an attempt on Baker’s part cannot be true. Write me at Springfield how the matter is. Don’t show or speak of this letter.

“A. LINCOLN.”

 

Mr. Morris did show the letter, and Mr. Lincoln always thanked his stars that he did.

 

HIS FAVORITE POEM.

Mr. Lincoln’s favorite poem was “Oh! Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?” written by William Knox, a Scotchman, although Mr. Lincoln never knew the author’s name. He once said to a friend:

“This poem has been a great favorite with me for years. It was first shown to me, when a young man, by a friend. I afterward saw it and cut it from a newspaper and learned it by heart. I would give a great deal to know who wrote it, but I have never been able to ascertain.”

“Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?— Like a swift-fleeing meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.

“The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around, and together be laid; And the young and the old, and the low and the high, Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie.

“The infant a mother attended and loved; The mother, that infant’s affection who proved, The husband, that mother and infant who blessed —Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.

“The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye, Shone beauty and pleasure—her triumphs are by; And the memory of those who loved her and praised, Are alike from the minds of the living erased.

“The hand of the king, that the sceptre hath borne, The brow of the priest, that the mitre hath worn, The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

“The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap, The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep; The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread, Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

“The saint, who enjoyed the communion of heaven, The sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven; The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just, Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

“So the multitude goes—like the flower or the weed That withers away to let others succeed; So the multitude comes—even those we behold, To repeat every tale that has often been told:

“For we are the same our fathers have been; We see the same sights our fathers have seen; We drink the same stream, we view the same sun, And run the same course our fathers have run.

“The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think; From the death we are shrinking, our fathers would shrink; To the life we are clinging, they also would cling —But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing.

“They loved—but the story we cannot unfold; They scorned—but the heart of the haughty is cold; They grieved—but no wail from their slumber will come; They joyed—but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

“They died—aye, they died—and we things that are now, That walk on the turf that lies o’er their brow, And make in their dwellings a transient abode, Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

“Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, Are mingled together in sunshine and rain; And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

“‘Tis the wink of an eye,—‘tis the draught of a breath; —From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud: —Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?”

 

FIVE-LEGGED CALF.

President Lincoln had great doubt as to his right to emancipate the slaves under the War power. In discussing the question, he used to like the case to that of the boy who, when asked how many legs his calf would have if he called its tail a leg, replied, “five,” to which the prompt response was made that calling the tail a leg would not make it a leg.

 

A STAGE-COACH STORY.

The following is told by Thomas H. Nelson, of Terre Haute, Indiana, who was appointed minister to Chili by Lincoln:

Judge Abram Hammond, afterwards Governor of Indiana, and myself arranged to go from Terre Haute to Indianapolis in a stage-coach.

As we stepped in we discovered that the entire back seat was occupied by a long, lank individual, whose head seemed to protrude from one end of the coach and his feet from the other. He was the sole occupant, and was sleeping soundly. Hammond slapped him familiarly on the shoulder, and asked him if he had chartered the coach that day.

“Certainly not,” and he at once took the front seat, politely giving us the place of honor and comfort. An odd-looking fellow he was, with a twenty-five cent hat, without vest or cravat. Regarding him as a good subject for merriment, we perpetrated several jokes.

He took them all with utmost innocence and good nature, and joined in the laugh, although at his own expense.

After an astounding display of wordy pyrotechnics, the dazed and bewildered stranger asked, “What will be the upshot of this comet business?”

Late in the evening we reached Indianapolis, and hurried to Browning’s hotel, losing sight of the stranger altogether.

We retired to our room to brush our clothes. In a few minutes I descended to the portico, and there descried our long, gloomy fellow traveler in the center of an admiring group of lawyers, among whom were Judges McLean and Huntington, Albert S. White, and Richard W. Thompson, who seemed to be amused and interested in a story he was telling. I inquired of Browning, the landlord, who he was. “Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, a member of Congress,” was his response.

I was thunderstruck at the announcement. I hastened upstairs and told Hammond the startling news, and together we emerged from the hotel by a back door, and went down an alley to another house, thus avoiding further contact with our distinguished fellow traveler.

Years afterward, when the President-elect was on his way to Washington, I was in the same hotel looking over the distinguished party, when a long arm reached to my shoulder, and a shrill voice exclaimed, “Hello, Nelson! do you think, after all, the whole world is going to follow the darned thing off?” The words were my own in answer to his question in the stage-coach. The speaker was Abraham Lincoln.

 

THE “400” GATHERED THERE.

Lincoln had periods while “clerking” in the New Salem grocery store during which there was nothing for him to do, and was therefore in circumstances that made laziness almost inevitable. Had people come to him for goods, they would have found him willing to sell them. He sold all that he could, doubtless.

The store soon became the social center of the village. If the people did not care (or were unable) to buy goods, they liked to go where they could talk with their neighbors and listen to stories. These Lincoln gave them in abundance, and of a rare sort.

It was in these gatherings of the “Four