Lincoln loved laughter; he loved to laugh himself and he liked to hear others laugh. All who knew him, all who have written of him, from John Hay, years ago, to Harvey O’Higgins in his recent work, tell how, in the darkest moments our country has ever known, Lincoln would find time to illustrate his arguments and make his points by narrating some amusing story. His humor never failed him, and through its help he was able to bear his great burden.
I first met Lincoln at the White House[Pg 2] during the Civil War. To-day it seems almost impossible that I shook his hand, heard his voice, and watched him as he laughed at one of his own stories and at the writings of Artemus Ward, of which he was so fond. Yet, as I remember it, I did not feel at that time that I was in the presence of a personality so extraordinary that it would fascinate men for centuries to come. I was a young man, and it was war time; perhaps that is the reason. On the contrary, he seemed a very simple man, as all great men are—I might almost say ordinary, throwing his long leg over the arm of the chair and using such commonplace, homely language. Indeed, it was hard to be awed in the presence of Lincoln; he seemed so approachable, so human, simple, and genial.
Did he use his humor to disarm opposition, to gain good will, or to throw a mantle around his own melancholy thoughts? Did he believe, as Mark Twain said, that “Everything human is[Pg 3] pathetic; the secret source of humor is not joy, but sorrow?” I am sure I cannot say. I only know that humor to Lincoln seemed to be a safety valve without which he would have collapsed under the crushing burden which he carried during the Civil War.
Until he was twenty-four and was admitted to the bar, he was a quiet, serious, brooding young fellow, but apparently he discovered the effectiveness of humor, for he began using it when he was arguing before the court. Some of his contemporaries say that he was humorous in the early part of his life, but that, as time went on and he gained confidence through success, he used humor less and less in his public utterances. This is partly true, for there is no trace of humor in his presidential addresses. But that he was humorous in his daily life and that he continued to read and laugh over the many jokes he read is too obvious to deny. You cannot think of Lincoln without thinking[Pg 4] at the same time of that very American trait which he possessed and which seems to spring from and within the soil of the land—homely humor.
One day when I was at the White House in conversation with Lincoln a man bustled in self-importantly and whispered something to him. As the man left the room Lincoln turned to me and smiled.
“He tells me that twelve thousand of Lee’s soldiers have just been captured,” Lincoln said. “But that doesn’t mean anything; he’s the biggest liar in Washington. You can’t believe a word he says. He reminds me of an old fisherman I used to know who got such a reputation for stretching the truth that he bought a pair of scales and insisted on weighing every fish in the presence of witnesses.
“One day a baby was born next door, and the doctor borrowed the fisherman’s scales to weigh the baby. It weighed forty-seven pounds.”
Lincoln threw back his head and[Pg 5] laughed; so did I. It was a good story. Now what do you think of this? Only recently I picked up a newspaper and read that same Lincoln anecdote, and it was headed, “A New Story.”
It was in connection with a death sentence that I first went to call upon President Lincoln. This was in December, 1864. I was a captain then in a Massachusetts regiment brigaded with other regiments for the work of the North Carolina coast defense, under command of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler. A young soldier and boyhood playmate of mine from Vermont had been sentenced by court martial to be shot for sending communications to the enemy. What had actually happened was this. The fighting at that time in our part of the country was desultory—a matter of skirmishes only. As must inevitably happen, even between hostile bodies of men speaking the same language, a certain amount of “fraternizing” (although that word was not used then) went on between[Pg 6] the outposts and pickets of the opposing forces. In some cases the pickets faced one another on opposite sides of a narrow stream. Often this would continue for days or weeks, the same men on the same posts, and something very like friendship—the friendship of respectful enemies—would spring up between individuals in the two camps. They would sometimes go so far as to exchange little delicacies, tobacco and the like, across the line, No Man’s Land, as it was called in the last war. In some places the practice actually sprang up of whittling little toy boats and sailing them across a stream, carrying a tiny freight. This act was usually reciprocated to the best of his pitiful ability by Johnny Reb on the opposite bank.
The custom served to while away the tedious hours of picket duty, and it is doubtful if any of these young fellows thought of their acts as constituting a serious military offense. But such in fact[Pg 7] it was; and when my young friend was caught red-handed in the act of sending a Northern newspaper into the Rebel lines he was straightway brought to trial on the terrible charge of corresponding with the enemy. He was found guilty and sentenced to be shot.
When the time for the execution of this sentence had nearly arrived I determined, as a last resort, to go and lay the case before the President in person, for it was evident, from the way matters had gone, that no mercy could be hoped for from any lesser tribunal. Fortunately, I was able to secure a few days’ leave of absence. I made the trip up to Hampton Roads by way of the old Dismal Swamp Canal. Hampton Roads was by this time under undisputed control of the union forces, naval and military, and Fortress Monroe was, in fact, General Butler’s headquarters.
From this point it was a simple, if somewhat tedious, matter to get to Washington. But for one young officer the trip went all[Pg 8] too quickly. The nearer loomed the nation’s capital and the culmination of his momentous errand the more he became amazed at his own temerity, and it required the constant thought of a gray-haired mother, soon to be broken hearted by sorrow and disgrace, to hold him steadfast to his purpose.
I had seen Lincoln only once in my life, and that was merely as one of the audience in Cooper union, in New York, when he delivered his great speech on abolition. That had taken place on February 17, 1860, nearly five years before—long enough to make many changes in men and nations—yet the thought of that tall, awkward orator with his total lack of sophistication and his great wealth of human sympathy did much to hearten me for the coming interview. Unconsciously, as the miles jolted past in my journey to Washington, my mind slipped back over those five tremendous years and I seemed to live again the events, half pitiful, but wholly amazing,[Pg 9] of that great meeting in the great auditorium of old Cooper union.
At that time I was a school-teacher from the Hampshire highlands of the Berkshire Hills, and a neighbor of William Cullen Bryant. Through his kindness, my brother, who was also a teacher, and myself received an invitation to hear this speech by a then little-known lawyer from the West. We were told at the hotel that the Cooper union lectures were usually discussions on matters of practical education, and we therefore used our tickets of admission more out of deference to Mr. Bryant for his kindness than from any interest in the debate.
When we approached the entrance to the building, however, we were soon aware that something unusual was about to happen. On the corner of the street near by we were accosted by a crowd of young roughs who demanded of us whether or not we were “nigger men.” We thought that the roughs meant to ask if we were[Pg 10] black men, and answered decidedly, “No!” What the mob meant to ask was, were we in favor of freeing the negroes. Acting, therefore, upon the innocent answer, they thrust into our hands two dry onions, with the withered tops still adhering to the bulbs, while the ragged crowd yelled, “Keep ’em under yer jacket and when yer hear the five whistles throw them at the feller speakin’.”
My brother and I took the onions, unconscious of the meaning of such strange missiles, and entered the hall with the crowd. There was great excitement, and yet we could not understand why, for no one seemed to know even the name of the speaker.
“Who is going to speak?” was the question asked all round us, which we asked also, although we had heard the unfamiliar name of Lincoln.
In one part of the hall we heard several vociferous answers: “Beecher! Beecher!” and some of the crowd seemed satisfied[Pg 11] that the great preacher was to be the orator of the evening. Two burly policemen pushed into the corner from which the noisiest tumult came, and we began to surmise that those onions were “concealed weapons” and that the best policy was to be sure to keep them concealed. Many descriptions of that audience have been given by men from various viewpoints, but few have emphasized the important fact that when the people entered the hall the large majority were bitterly opposed to the abolitionists’ cause. One-third of the audience was seemingly intent on mobbing the speaker, for some of the men carried missiles more offensive than onions.
Mark Twain sagaciously wrote that the trouble with old men’s memories is that they remember so many things “that ain’t so.” That warning may often be useful, even to those who are the most confident that their memories are infallible, but I should like to say, and quite modestly, that I still have a clear vision[Pg 12] of that startling occasion and can testify to what I saw, heard, and felt in that hall on that memorable evening.
I had previously read and studied the great models of eloquence, and was then in New York, using my carefully hoarded pennies to hear Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. R. S. Stone, Doctor Storrs, Doctor Bellows, Archbishop McCloskey, and other orators of current fame. I had studied much for the purpose of teaching my classes, from the great models, from Cicero to Daniel Webster, and I had found my ideal in Edward Everett. But those two hours in Cooper union; like a sudden cyclone, were destined to shatter all my carefully built theories. After nearly sixty-two years of bewilderment I am still asking, “What was it that made that speech on that night an event of such world-wide importance?” It was not the physical man; it was not in what he said. Let us with open judgment meditate on the facts.
[Pg 13]The persons in the audience, and their city, as well, were antagonistic to Lincoln’s party associates. The negro-haters had seemingly pre-empted the hall. Stories of negro brutality had been published in the papers of that week. Lincoln was regarded as an adventurer from the “wild and woolly West.” He was expected to be an extremist. He was crude, unpolished, having no reputation in the East as a scholar. He was not an orator and had the reputation of being only a homely teller of grocery-store yarns. His voice was of a poor quality, grinding the ears sharply. He seemed to be a ludicrous scarecrow rival of the great gentleman, scholar, and statesman, William H. Seward. Even Lincoln’s own party in New York City bowed religiously to Seward, the idol of New York State. The Quakers and the adherents of the pro-slavery party were conscientiously opposed to war, especially against a civil war.
We now know that Lincoln’s speech had[Pg 14] been written in Illinois. As I saw him, on its delivery, he himself was trebly chained to his manuscript, by his own modest timidity, by the dictation of his party managers, and by the fact that when he spoke his written speech was already set up in type for the next morning’s papers.
In the chair on the platform as presiding officer sat the venerable poet of the New England mountains and the writer of keen political editorials. The minds of the intelligent auditors began to repeat “Thanatopsis” or “The Fringed Gentian” as soon as they saw the noble old man. His culture, age, reputation, dignified bearing, and faultless attire seemed in disparaging contrast to the appearance of the young visitor beside him. In addition to Mr. Bryant, the stage setting included, on the other side of the slender guest, a very ponderous fat man, whose proportions, in their contrasting effect upon the speaker of the evening, made his thin form so tall as to bring to mind Lincoln’s story of the[Pg 15] man “so tall they laid him out in a rope walk.”
Lincoln himself was seated in a half-round armchair. His awkward legs were tied in a kind of a knot in the rungs of the chair. His tall hat, with his manuscript in it, was near him on the floor. The black fur of the hat was rubbed into rough streaks. One of his trousers legs was caught on the back of his boot. His coat was too large. His head was bowed and he looked down at the floor without lifting his eyes.
Somebody whispered in one of the back seats, “Let’s go home,” and was answered, “No, not yet; there’ll be fun here soon!”
The entrance of the stranger speaker was greeted with neither decided nor hearty applause. In fact, the greeting for Mr. Bryant was far more enthusiastic. But there was a chilling formality in the effect of the whole of Mr. Bryant’s introduction. Nothing worth hearing was expected of the lank and uncouth stranger—that[Pg 16] was the impression made upon me. And when young Lincoln made an awkward gesture in trying to bow his thanks to Mr. Bryant, the audience began to smirk and giggle. Lincoln was evidently disturbed and felt painfully out of place. He seemed to be fearfully lacking in self-control and appeared to feel that he had made a ridiculous mistake in accepting such an invitation to such a place. One singular proof of Lincoln’s nervousness was in the fact that he had forgotten to take from the top of his ear a long, black lead pencil, which occasionally threatened to shoot out at the audience.
When I mentioned the pencil to Lincoln nearly five years later, he said that his absent-mindedness on that occasion recalled to him the story of an old Englishman who was so absent-minded that when he went to bed he put his clothes carefully into the bed and threw himself over the back of his chair.
When Mr. Bryant’s introduction was[Pg 17] concluded, Lincoln hesitated. He attempted to rise, and caught the toe of his boot under the rung of his chair. He ran his long fingers through his hair, which left one long tuft sticking up from the back of his head like an Indian’s feather. He looked pale, and he unrolled his manuscript with trembling fingers. He began to read in a low, hollow voice that trembled from uncertainty and nervousness—so low, in fact, that the crowd at the rear of the hall could not hear, and shouted: “Louder! Louder!”
At this the speaker’s voice became a little stronger, and with this added strength came added confidence, so much so that there came suddenly a slight climax. The speaker looked up from his manuscript as though to note the effect of his words. But his eyes quickly dropped again to the paper in his shaking hands. The applause was fitful, and from the corner where the hoodlums were assembled came several distinct hisses.
[Pg 18]When the audience finally began to make out what he was endeavoring to say about the signers of the Declaration of Independence and their opposition to the extension of human slavery, there was for a time respectful silence.
How long the painful recital might have been permitted to continue no one can tell. The crowd, even that portion inclined to favor Lincoln’s views, was growing increasingly restless. Half an hour had passed. The ordeal could not go on much longer. Suddenly a leaf from the speaker’s manuscript accidentally and without his knowledge dropped to the floor. The moment he missed the leaf he turned a little paler than he had been and hesitated awkwardly.
For a moment the audience felt keenly the embarrassment of the situation. But the pause was brief. With an honest gesture of impatience and a movement forward as if he were about to leap into the audience, Lincoln lifted his voice,[Pg 19] swung out his long arms, and, as my brother remarked, “let himself go.”
Disregarding his written speech,[1] Lincoln launched into that part of the subject that was nearest his heart. In a voice that no longer was hollow or sepulchral, but rich and ringing, he denounced the institution of slavery. Yet he spoke of the South in the most affectionate terms. He said he loved the South, since “he was born there,” but that he loved the union more for what it had done united and what it was destined still to do united.
Wave after wave of telling eloquence rolled forth from this uncouth, gaunt figure and literally dashed itself against[Pg 20] the hard, resisting minds of that prejudiced audience. Already the feeble wits were engulfed in the overwhelming verbal torrents that came now like avalanches, and little by little even the most biased minds began to relent under the mystic persuasiveness of his voice and the unanswerableness of his logic, until nearly everybody in that throbbing and excited audience was convinced that slavery was one of the blackest crimes of which man could be found guilty. And even before the last words of his impassioned eloquence had passed his lips the audience was on its feet, and those most bitterly opposed to him politically arose too and applauded him.
Naturally, no verbatim report of that address can be recalled after sixty years. But the impression it made almost surpasses belief when told to those who were not there. There is no clearer descriptive term which could be applied to the speaker than to state, as some did, that “the orator[Pg 21] was transfigured.” No one thought of his ill-fitting new suit, of his old hat, of his protruding wrists or the disheveled hair, of his long legs, his bony face, or the one-sided necktie. The natural Abraham Lincoln had disappeared and an angel spake in his place. Nothing but language which seems extravagant will tell the accurate truth.
All manner of theories were advanced by those who heard the speech to account for the gigantic mystery of eloquent power which he exhibited. One said it was mesmerism; another that it was magnetism; while the superstitious said there was “a distinct halo about his head” at one place in the speech. No analysis of the speech as he wrote it, nor any recollection of the words, shows anything remarkable in language, figures, or ideas. The subtle, magnetic, spiritual force which emanated from that inspired speaker revealed to his audience an altogether different man from the one who began to read a different speech.[Pg 22] He did not approach the delicate sweetness of Mr. Bryant’s words of introduction, or reach the imaginative scenes and noble company which characterized Beecher’s addresses. Lincoln was less cutting than Wendell Phillips and had no definite style like Everett or Gough. As an orator he imitated no one, and surely no one could imitate him. Of the four Ohio voters who changed their votes in the Republican convention and made Lincoln’s nomination sure, two heard that Cooper union speech and claimed sturdily that they knew “old Abe” was right, but could not tell why.
Thus it appears throughout Lincoln’s public life. He was larger than his task, wider than his party, ahead of his time as an inspired prophet, and he seemed to be a spiritual force without material limitations. He began to grow at his death, and is conquering now in lands he never saw and rules over nations which cannot pronounce his name. Such individual influence[Pg 23] is next to the divine, and is of the same nature. Can we find a measure for such a man?
These facts and these thoughts were in my mind as I traveled to Washington to intercede for my condemned comrade. Such was the man to whom I was going. But it was to Lincoln the commander-in-chief, and not to Lincoln the impassioned orator, that I must make my plea.