Abraham Lincoln has left us abundant testimony in words and works of his code of morals and religious creed. He was a man of keen perception of right and wrong, of acute conscience and deep religious sentiment, although he was not "orthodox." He declined to join a church because of conscientious scruples. He would not confess a faith that was not in him. His reason forbade him to accept some of the doctrines taught by the Baptist and Christian churches, to which his parents belonged, and the Presbyterian denomination, of which his wife was a member. Nevertheless, he was regular and reverential in his attendance upon worship. Shortly after his marriage he rented a pew in the First Presbyterian Church of Springfield, and occupied it with his wife and children at the service each Sunday morning unless detained by illness. In Washington he was an habitual attendant of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, and his pastor, the Reverend Dr. Gurley, who was also his intimate friend, tells us that he was "a true believer" and "entirely without guile." One of Lincoln's mental traits was his inability to accept or put aside a proposition until he understood it. His conscience required him to see his way clearly before making a start, and his honesty of soul would not allow him to make a pretence that was not well founded. No consideration or argument would induce him to abandon a line of conduct or accept a theory which his analytical powers or sense of caution taught him to doubt.
From his mother he inherited a rigid honesty which was demanded by public opinion in early days and was the safeguard of the frontier. There were no locks upon371 the cabin doors nor upon the stables. A man who committed a theft would not be tolerated in a community, and if he took a horse or a cow or any article which was necessary for the sustenance of a family he was outlawed, if he escaped with his life. Merchants never thought of locking up their stores, and often left them entirely unprotected for days at a time while they went to the nearest source of supply to replenish their stock or were absent for other reasons. If their patrons found no one to serve them, they helped themselves, and, as prices varied little from year to year, they were able to judge for themselves of the value of the goods, and reported the purchase and paid the bill the next time they found the merchant at home.
When Abraham Lincoln was clerking for Denton Offutt, he walked three miles one evening after the store was closed to return a sixpence which had been overpaid. On another occasion he gave four ounces for half a pound of tea and delivered the difference before he slept. For this and other acts of the same sort he became known as "Honest Old Abe," but he was no more conspicuous for that quality than many of his neighbors. He was the type and representative of a community which not only respected but required honesty, and were extremely critical and intolerant towards moral delinquencies. Accustomed all their lives to face danger and grapple with the mysterious forces of nature, their personal and moral courage were qualities without which no man could be a leader or have influence. A liar, a coward, a swindler, and an insincere man were detected and branded with public contempt. Courage and truth were commonplace and recognized as essential to manhood.
Abraham Lincoln's originality, fearlessness, and self-confidence, his unerring perceptions of right and wrong, made him a leader and gave him an influence which other men did not have. He was born in the same poverty372 and ignorance, he grew up in the same environment, and his muscles were developed by the same labor as his neighbors', but his mental powers were much keener and acute, his ambition was much higher, and a consciousness of intellectual superiority sustained him in his efforts to rise above his surroundings and take the place his genius warranted. Throughout his entire life he adhered to the code of the frontier. As a lawyer he would not undertake a case unless it was a good one. He often said he was a very poor man on a poor case. His sense of justice had to be aroused before he could do his best. If his client were wrong, he endeavored to settle the dispute the best way he could without going into court; if the evidence had been misrepresented to him, he would throw up the case in the midst of the trial and return the fee. The public knowledge of that fact gave him great influence with the courts and kept bad clients away from him.
To a man who once offered him a case the merits of which he did not appreciate, he made, according to his partner, Mr. Herndon, the following response:
"Yes, there is no reasonable doubt that I can gain your case for you. I can set a whole neighborhood at loggerheads; I can distress a widowed mother and her six fatherless children, and thereby get for you six hundred dollars which rightly belong, it appears to me, as much to them as it does to you. I shall not take your case, but I will give you a little advice for nothing. You seem a sprightly, energetic man. I would advise you to try your hand at making six hundred dollars in some other way."
He carried this code of morals into the Legislature, and there are several current anecdotes of his refusal to engage in schemes that were not creditable. On one occasion a caucus was held for consultation over a proposition Lincoln did not approve. The discussion lasted until midnight, but he took no part in it. Finally,373 an appeal was made to him by his colleagues, who argued that the end would justify the means. Lincoln closed the debate and defined his own position by saying,—
"You may burn my body to ashes and scatter them to the winds of heaven; you may drag my soul down to the regions of darkness and despair to be tormented forever; but you will never get me to support a measure which I believe to be wrong, although by doing so I may accomplish that which I believe to be right."
Lincoln did not often indulge in hysterical declamation, but that sentence is worth quoting because it contains his moral code.
As President he was called upon to deliver a reprimand to an officer who had been tried by court-martial for quarrelling. It was probably the "gentlest," say his biographers, Nicolay and Hay, "ever recorded in the annals of penal discourses." It was as follows:
"The advice of a father to his son, 'Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in, bear it that the opposed may beware of thee!' is good, but not the best. Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he afford to take all the consequences, including the vitiating of his temper and the loss of self-control. Yield larger things to which you can show no more than equal right, and yield lesser ones, though clearly your own. Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite."
Even as a boy in Indiana he acquired a reputation for gentleness, kindness, and good-nature. He was appealed to by people in trouble, and his great physical strength and quick intelligence made him a valuable aid on all occasions. Once he saved the life of the town drunkard, whom he found freezing by the roadside on a winter night. Picking him up in his arms, he carried374 him to the nearest tavern and worked over him until he revived. The people who lived in the neighborhood of Gentryville, Indiana, and New Salem, Illinois, where his early life was spent, have many traditions of his unselfishness and helpful disposition. He chopped wood for poor widows and sat up all night with the sick; if a wagon stuck in the mud, he was always the first to offer assistance, and his powerful arms were equal to those of any three men in the town. When he was living at the Rutledge tavern at New Salem he was always willing to give up his bed to a traveller when the house was full, and to sleep on a counter in his store. He never failed to be present at a "moving," and would neglect his own business to help a neighbor out of difficulty. His sympathetic disposition and tender tact enabled him to enter the lives of the people and give them assistance without offence, and he was never so happy as when he was doing good.
His religious training was limited. His father and mother, while in Kentucky, belonged to the sect known as Free-will Baptists, and when they went to Indiana they became members of the Predestinarian Church, as it was called; not from any change in belief, but because it was the only denomination in the neighborhood. Public worship was very rare, being held only when an itinerant preacher visited that section. Notice of his approach would be sent throughout the neighborhood for twenty miles around, and the date would be fixed as far in advance as possible. When the preacher appeared he would find the entire population gathered in camp at the place of meeting, which was usually at cross-roads where there were fodder for the horses and water for man and beast. After morning preaching people from the same neighborhood or intimate acquaintances would gather in groups, open their lunch-baskets, and picnic together. At the afternoon service children and "confessors" would be baptized, and towards night the party375 would separate for their homes, refreshed in faith and uplifted in spirit.
When Thomas Lincoln removed to Illinois he united with the Christian church commonly called "Campbellites," and in that faith he died.
Abraham Lincoln's belief was clear and fixed so far as it went, but he rejected important dogmas which are considered essential to salvation by some of the evangelistic denominations. "Whenever any church will inscribe over its altar as a qualification for membership the Saviour's statement of the substance of the law and Gospel, 'Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself,' that church will I join with all my heart and soul."
He was an habitual reader of the Bible. He was more familiar with its contents than most clergymen, and considered it the highest example of literature in existence as well as the highest code of morals. His study of the Bible and familiarity with its pages are shown in his literary style and frequent quotations. In 1864 he wrote his old friend, Joshua Speed, "I am profitably engaged reading the Bible. Take all of this book upon reason that you can and the balance upon faith and you will live and die a better man."
He had no sympathy with theologians. He frequently declared that it was blasphemy for a preacher to "twist the words of Christ around so as to sustain his own doctrine," and often remarked that "the more a man knew of theology the farther he got away from the true spirit of Christ."
"John," he one day said to a friend, "it depends a great deal how you state a case. When Daniel Webster did it, it was half argument. Now, you take the subject of predestination, for example. You may state it one way and you cannot make much out of it; you state it another and it seems quite reasonable."
376 When he was a young man at New Salem in 1834 Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason" and Volney's "Ruines" made a great impression upon him, and he prepared a review of these books, which it is supposed he intended to read before a literary society that had been organized in the neighborhood. His friend, Samuel Hill, with his old-fashioned notions of atheism, got hold of the manuscript and burned it. Lincoln was quite indignant at the time, but afterwards admitted that Hill had done him a service. This incident has often been cited as evidence that Lincoln was an agnostic, just as other incidents in his life have been used to prove that he was a spiritualist, and still others that he was a Freemason; but he was none of them. He commended Masonry, but never joined that order; his inquisitive mind led him to investigate certain spiritualistic phenomena, and his essay at New Salem was nothing more than a presentation of the views of two famous unbelievers without personal endorsement.
Like Napoleon, Wellington, Bismarck, and other famous men, Lincoln was very superstitious. That peculiarity appeared frequently during his life. Even to the very day of his death, as related in Chapter VII., he told his Cabinet and General Grant of a dream which he was accustomed to have before important events in the war. A curious incident is related in his own language:
"A very singular occurrence took place the day I was nominated at Chicago, four years ago, of which I am reminded to-night. In the afternoon of the day, returning home from down town, I went upstairs to Mrs. Lincoln's reading-room. Feeling somewhat tired, I lay down upon a couch in the room, directly opposite a bureau, upon which was a looking-glass. As I reclined, my eye fell upon the glass, and I saw distinctly two images of myself, exactly alike, except that one was a little paler than the other. I arose, and lay down again377 with the same result. It made me quite uncomfortable for a few moments, but, some friends coming in, the matter passed out of my mind. The next day, while walking on the street, I was suddenly reminded of the circumstance, and the disagreeable sensation produced by it returned. I had never seen anything of the kind before, and did not know what to make of it. I determined to go home and place myself in the same position, and if the same effect was produced, I would make up my mind that it was the natural result of some principle of refraction of optics which I did not understand, and dismiss it. I tried the experiment, with a like result; and, as I had said to myself, accounting for it on some principle unknown to me, it ceased to trouble me. But some time ago I tried to produce the same effect here by arranging a glass and couch in the same position, without success."
He did not say, at this time, that either he or Mrs. Lincoln attached any significance to the phenomenon, but it is known that Mrs. Lincoln regarded it as a sign that the President would be re-elected.
President Lincoln once invited a famous medium to display his alleged supernatural powers at the White House, several members of the Cabinet being present. For the first half-hour the demonstrations were of a physical character. At length rappings were heard beneath the President's feet, and the medium stated that an Indian desired to communicate with him.
"I shall be happy to hear what his Indian majesty has to say," replied the President, "for I have very recently received a deputation of our red brethren, and it was the only delegation, black, white, or blue, which did not volunteer some advice about the conduct of the war."
The medium then called for a pencil and paper, which were laid upon the table and afterwards covered with a handkerchief. Presently knocks were heard and the378 paper was uncovered. To the surprise of all present, it read as follows:
"Haste makes waste, but delays cause vexations. Give vitality by energy. Use every means to subdue. Proclamations are useless. Make a bold front and fight the enemy; leave traitors at home to the care of loyal men. Less note of preparation, less parade and policy talk, and more action.—Henry Knox."
"That is not Indian talk," said the President. "Who is Henry Knox?"
The medium, speaking in a strange voice, replied, "The first Secretary of War."
"Oh, yes; General Knox," said the President. "Stanton, that message is for you; it is from your predecessor. I should like to ask General Knox when this rebellion will be put down."
The answer was oracularly indefinite. The medium then called up Napoleon, who thought one thing, Lafayette another, and Franklin differed from both.
"Ah!" exclaimed the President; "opinions differ among the saints as well as among the sinners. Their talk is very much like the talk of my Cabinet. I should like, if possible, to hear what Judge Douglas says about this war," said the President.
After an interval, the medium rose from his chair and, resting his left hand on the back, his right into his bosom, spoke in a voice no one could mistake who had ever heard Mr. Douglas. He urged the President to throw aside all advisers who hesitated about the policy to be pursued, and said that, if victory were followed up by energetic action, all would be well.
"I believe that," said the President, "whether it comes from spirit or human. It needs not a ghost from the bourne from which no traveller returns to tell that."
His taint of superstition, like his tendency to melancholy, was doubtless inherited from his ancestors and was shared by all sensitive people whose lives were379 spent in the mysterious solitude and isolation of the Western frontier. It is manifested by the denizens of the forests, the mountains, and the plains, and wherever else sensitive natures are subjected to loneliness and the company of their own thoughts. Lincoln's mind was peculiarly sensitive to impressions; his nature was intensely sympathetic, his imagination was vivid, and his observation was keen and comprehensive. With all his candor, he was reticent and secretive in matters that concerned himself, and the struggle of his early life, his dismal and depressing surroundings, the death of his mother, and the physical conditions in which he was born and bred were just the influences to develop the morbid tendency which was manifested on several occasions in such a manner as to cause anxiety and even alarm among his friends. He realized the danger of submitting to it, and the cure invented and prescribed by himself was to seek for the humorous side of every event and incident and to read all the humorous books he could find.
His poetic temperament was developed early and frequently manifested while he was in the White House. He loved melancholy as well as humorous poems. He could repeat hymns by the hundreds, and quoted Dr. Watts' and John Wesley's verses as frequently as he did Shakespeare or Petroleum V. Nasby or Artemas Ward. His favorite poem was "Oh! Why should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud."
Judge Weldon, of the Court of Claims, remembers the first time he heard him repeat it. "It was during a term of court, in the same year, at Lincoln, a little town named for Mr. Lincoln. We were all stopping at the hotel, which had a very big room with four beds, called the lawyers' room. Some of us thin fellows doubled up; but I remember that Judge Davis, who was as large then as he was afterwards, when a Justice of the Supreme Bench, always had a bed to himself. Mr. Lincoln380 was an early riser, and one morning, when up early, as usual, and dressed, he sat before the big old-fashioned fireplace and repeated aloud from memory that whole hymn. Somebody asked him for the name of the author; but he said he had never been able to learn who wrote it, but wished he knew. There were a great many guesses, and some said that Shakespeare must have written it. But Mr. Lincoln, who was better read in Shakespeare than any of us, said that they were not Shakespeare's words. I made a persistent hunt for the author, and years after found the hymn was written by an Englishman, William Knox, who was born in 1789 and died in 1825."
All his life Lincoln was a temperance man. His first essay was a plea for temperance. His second was a eulogy of the Declaration of Independence. He belonged to the Sons of Temperance in Springfield, and frequently made temperance speeches. Judge Weldon remembers that he was once in Mr. Douglas's room at Springfield when Lincoln entered, and, following the custom, Mr. Douglas produced a bottle and some glasses and asked his callers to join him in a drink. Lincoln declined on the ground that for thirty years he had been a temperance man and was too old to change. Leonard Swett says,—
"He told me not more than a year before he was elected President that he had never tasted liquor in his life. 'What!' I said, 'Do you mean to say that you never tasted it?' 'Yes,' he replied, 'I never tasted it.'"
In one of his speeches is found this assertion: "Reasonable men have long since agreed that intemperance is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of all evils of mankind."
Mr. C. C. Coffin, a famous newspaper writer of that time, who accompanied the notification committee from the Chicago Convention to Springfield, related in his newspaper a few days later an incident that occurred on381 that occasion. He says that after the exchange of formalities Lincoln said,—
"'Mrs. Lincoln will be pleased to see you, gentlemen. You will find her in the other room. You must be thirsty after your long ride. You will find a pitcher of water in the library.'
"I crossed the hall and entered the library. There were miscellaneous books on the shelves, two globes, celestial and terrestrial, in the corners of the room, a plain table with writing materials upon it, a pitcher of cold water, and glasses, but no wines or liquors. There was humor in the invitation to take a glass of water, which was explained to me by a citizen, who said that when it was known that the committee was coming, several citizens called upon Mr. Lincoln and informed him that some entertainment must be provided.
"'Yes, that is so. What ought to be done? Just let me know and I will attend to it,' he said.
"'Oh, we will supply the needful liquors,' said his friends.
"'Gentlemen,' said Mr. Lincoln, 'I thank you for your kind intentions, but must respectfully decline your offer. I have no liquors in my house, and have never been in the habit of entertaining my friends in that way. I cannot permit my friends to do for me what I will not myself do. I shall provide cold water—nothing else.'"
Colonel John Hay, one of his secretaries and biographers, says, "Mr. Lincoln was a man of extremely temperate habits. He made no use of either whiskey or tobacco during all the years I knew him."
Mr. John G. Nicolay, his private secretary, says, "During all the five years of my service as his private secretary I never saw him drink a glass of whiskey and I never knew or heard of his taking one."
There is not the slightest doubt that Lincoln believed in a special Providence. That conviction appears frequently in his speeches and in his private letters. In382 the correspondence which passed between him and Joshua Speed during a period of almost hopeless despondency and self-abasement, Lincoln frequently expressed the opinion that God had sent their sufferings for a special purpose. When Speed finally acknowledged his happiness after marriage, Lincoln wrote, "I always was superstitious. I believe God made me one of the instruments of bringing your Fanny and you together, and which union I have no doubt He had foreordained. Whatever He designs He will do for me yet. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord is my text just now."
Later in life, writing to Thurlow Weed, he said, "Men are not flattered by being shown that there is a difference of purpose between the Almighty and themselves. To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny that there is a God governing the world."
In one of his speeches he said, "I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right; but it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side."
When he learned that his father was very ill and likely to die, he wrote his step-brother, John Johnston, regretting his inability to come to his bedside because of illness in his own family, and added,—
"I sincerely hope that father may yet recover his health; but, at all events, tell him to remember to call upon and confide in our great and good and merciful Maker, who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of a sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our heads, and He will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in Him. Say to him that if we could meet now it is doubtful whether it would not be more painful than pleasant; but that if it be his lot to go now, he will soon have a joyous meeting with the many loved ones gone before, and where the rest of us, through the help of God, hope ere long to join them."
383 At Columbus, Ohio, he said to the Legislature of that State, convened in joint session in the hall of the Assembly, "I turn, then, and look to the American people, and to that God who has never forsaken them."
In the capital of New Jersey, to the Senate, he said, "I am exceedingly anxious that this union, the Constitution, and the liberties of the people shall be perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for which the struggle was made, and I shall be most happy indeed if I shall be an humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this, His almost chosen people, for perpetuating the object of that great struggle."
That he believed in the efficacy of prayer there is no doubt. "I have been driven many times to my knees," he once remarked, "by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day."
A clergyman came to Washington from a little village in Central New York to recover the body of a gallant young captain who had been killed at the second battle of Bull Run. Having accomplished his errand, he was presented at the ............