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“His Prevailing Mood Is One Of Depression”
He spends ten days on this journey through the Northern States, for everywhere people wish to see him and to listen to him. A good many are disappointed, for his prevailing mood is one of depression, but sometimes he amazes adversaries whom curiosity has brought to his meetings. On the whole, he is pale and sad throughout this journey, and only cheers up when Hill plays the banjo and sings coon songs to him. He feels, as a great many others doubtless feel, that torchlight processions and serenades are out of keeping with the conditions of the time. He has, moreover, to be extremely careful in what he says ; and sometimes, after preparing a speech, he has to modify it at the last moment because of telegraphic news from Alabama, where the Southerners are holding a congress at this very moment. That is why the speeches made during this journey are so unequal. Nevertheless, they are one and all adorned by the way in which they are addressed to the heart of the people, and by their conciliatory tone.
By Emil Ludwig,”Abraham Lincoln: And the Times that Tried His Soul” , Ludwig-244-19
Words : Generous
Lincoln and Secretary of War Simon Cameron
To the Senate and House of Representatives
May 26, 1862
“Cameron Gratefully Remembered”
By John G. Nicolay and John Hay
“I have never Served a President”
By John G. Nicolay and John Hay, July 24, 1861
Lincoln and Mary Lincoln
“He Bore it as Christ Might have Done”
By Adam Badeau，March 26, 1865
“Do Good To Them Who Hate You”
By Mary Lincoln
“He Offered the Hand of Friendship to those”
By Carl Schurz , November 10, 1864
“He Took Them All With The Utmost Innocence And Good-nature”
1849
McClellan
“Lincoln Tolerated Such Flagrant Breaches Of Protocol”
1861
“Not To Be Making Points Of Etiquette Personal Dignity”
November 13, 1861
“He Defends McClellan Against The Supervision”
“Lincoln Took Upon Himself The Whole Blame”
April 5, 1861. Welles diary, Vol. I (1960 edn.), pp. 23–25.
“Lincoln, Once More, Assumed The Blame”
Gustavus V. Fox ，May 1, 1861
“Lincoln Had Stood By Him”
Blairs，1864
“In This Matter Lincoln Is Too Easy-going”
John C. Fremont September 2, 1861
“Despite A Blizzard Of Such Indictments”
July 29, 1861
“Are Not These Criticisms Already Acrimonious Enough”
1861
Letter to James Hackett (November 2, 1863)
November 2, 1863
“Patient Tolerance”
Portrait painter Albert Jasper Conant，August 1860
“He Was Constantly Out With The Common People”
“A Breeze Had Sprung Up Over The Domestic Sea”
Mary Lincoln
“I Have Had As My Daily Portion”
“Keep Up Your Courage”
“What Did Mrs. Lincoln Say”
“Always Criticizing Her Husband”
Magnanimity
“If He Could Do So ‘unbeknown’ to Him”
By William T. Sherman, March 28, 1865
“Let them Have their Horses to Plow With”
By David D. Porter, March 28, 1865
“Leave them their Guns to Shoot Crows With”
By David D. Porter, April 5, 1865
“Tell the Folks He Got Away from me”
By William Henry Crook, April 10, 1865
“He Shook his Hands as if Scaring Sheep”
By Gideon Welles, April 14, 1865
“It’s Best to Let him Run”
By Assistant Secretary of War Charles A. Dana, April 14, 1865
“Enemies! We Must Never Speak of that”
By Marquis de Chambrun, April 9, 1865
“I Insisted Yesterday that We Fairly Captured it”
By Marquis de Chambrun, By William Henry Crook, April 10, 1865
“Spoke Very Kindly of General Lee and Others”
By Edwin M. Stanton , April 14, 1865
“There Was No Hatred in Lincoln’s Heart”
By Dale Carnegie
“Do Good To Them Who Hate You”
By Mary Lincoln
Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton
“He is the Rock on the Beach of Our National Ocean”
By George W. Julian, By Owen Lovejoy
“If Stanton Said I was a Damned Fool”
By George W. Julian, By Owen Lovejoy
“Act From a Favorite Child”
By Leonard Grover
Lincoln Appointed Stanton as Secretary of War
By George F. Harding, January 13, 1862
Lincoln and Secretary of Treasury Salmon P. Chase
By Henry Wilson, By John G. Nicolay, By John Hay, December 1864
“I Would Not Hesitate a Moment”
By Noah Brooks, December 1864
“I Know Meaner Things About Governor Chase”
By John B. Alley, December 1864
“I Should Have Been Recreant to My Convictions of Duty”
By Augustus Frank, By Francis B. Carpenter, December 1864
“I Should Despise Myself”
By Gideon Welles,By Zachariah T. Chandler, December 1864
“Would Rather Have Swallowed His Buckhorn Chair”
Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward
By John G. Nicolay, April 1, 1861
“Mr. Lincoln’s unselfish magnanimity”
Lincoln and Secretary of War Simon Cameron
May 26, 1862
To the Senate and House of Representatives
By John G. Nicolay and John Hay
“Cameron Gratefully Remembered”
“I have never Served a President”
By John G. Nicolay and John Hay, July 24, 1861
Lincoln and Mary Lincoln
“He Bore it as Christ Might have Done”
By Adam Badeau，March 26, 1865
“Especially If it be a Black Sheep”
Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, Maryland
April 18, 1864
Ladies and Gentlemen—Calling to mind that we are in Baltimore, we can not fail to note that the world moves. Looking upon these many people, assembled here, to serve, as they best may, the soldiers of the Union, it occurs at once that three years ago, the same soldiers could not so much as pass through Baltimore. The change from then till now, is both great, and gratifying. Blessings on the brave men who have wrought the change, and the fair women who strive to reward them for it.
But Baltimore suggests more than could happen within Baltimore. The change within Baltimore is part only of a far wider change. When the war began, three years ago, neither party, nor any man, expected it would last till now. Each looked for the end, in some way, long ere to-day. Neither did any anticipate that domestic slavery would be much affected by the war. But here we are; the war has not ended, and slavery has been much affected—how much needs not now to be recounted. So true is it that man proposes, and God disposes.
But we can see the past, though we may not claim to have directed it; and seeing it, in this case, we feel more hopeful and confident for the future.
The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatable things, called by the same name—liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatable names—liberty and tyranny.
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails to-day among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the processes by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty. Recently, as it seems, the people of Maryland have been doing something to define liberty; and thanks to them that, in what they have done, the wolf’s dictionary, has been repudiated.
It is not very becoming for one in my position to make speeches at great length; but there is another subject upon which I feel that I ought to say a word. A painful rumor, true I fear, has reached us of the massacre, by the rebel forces, at Fort Pillow, in the West end of Tennessee, on the Mississippi river, of some three hundred colored soldiers and white officers, who had just been overpowered by their assailants. There seems to be some anxiety in the public mind whether the government is doing it’s duty to the colored soldier, and to the service, at this point. At the beginning of the war, and for some time, the use of colored troops was not contemplated; and how the change of purpose was wrought, I will not now take time to explain. Upon a clear conviction of duty I resolved to turn that element of strength to account; and I am responsible for it to the American people, to the christian world, to history, and on my final account to God. Having determined to use the negro as a soldier, there is no way but to give him all the protection given to any other soldier. The difficulty is not in stating the principle, but in practically applying it. It is a mistake to suppose the government is indiffe[re]nt to this matter, or is not doing the best it can in regard to it. We do not to-day know that a colored soldier, or white officer commanding colored soldiers, has been massacred by the rebels when made a prisoner. We fear it, believe it, I may say, but we do not know it. To take the life of one of their prisoners, on the assumption that they murder ours, when it is short of certainty that they do murder ours, might be too serious, too cruel a mistake. We are having the Fort-Pillow affair thoroughly investigated; and such investigation will probably show conclusively how the truth is. If, after all that has been said, it shall turn out that there has been no massacre at Fort-Pillow, it will be almost safe to say there has been none, and will be none elsewhere. If there has been the massacre of three hundred there, or even the tenth part of three hundred, it will be conclusively proved; and being so proved, the retribution shall as surely come. It will be matter of grave consideration in what exact course to apply the retribution; but in the supposed case, it must come.
–Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 7.
Living though he was under the pressure of daily cares, of petty successes and failures, in the midst of party struggles, earthbound, he never lost sight of the guiding star of his endeavor, but, directing his gaze more and more fervently upward, realized the need, among concrete figures and positions, for stressing ever more insistently the moral law of the struggle.
In a speech delivered toward the close of the war, he said : “The world is in want of a good definition of the word liberty. We all declare ourselves to be for liberty, but we do not all mean the same thing. Some mean that a man can do as he pleases with himself and his property. With others it means that some men can do as they please with other men and other men’s labor. Each of these things is called liberty, although they are entirely different. To give an illustration : A shepherd drives the wolf from the throat of his sheep when attacked by him, and the sheep of course thanks the shepherd for the protection of his life; but the wolf denounces him as despoiling the sheep of his liberty — especially if it be a black sheep.”
Here, once more, we have one of those images in which the farmer becomes a logician, while the statesman enters into the outlook of the farmer, and thus is able to create immemorable parables for the people.
By Emil Ludwig,”Abraham Lincoln: And the Times that Tried His Soul” , Ludwig-390-02 1864-04-18
“We will Get you Safe Across”
Lincoln reply to critics of his administration: “Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were worth was in gold and you had put it in the hands of Blondin, to carry across the Niagara River on a rope. Would you shake the cable or keep shouting at him, ‘Blondin, stand up a little straighter — Blondin, stoop a little more — go a little faster — lean a little more to the north — lean a little more to the south?’ No, you would hold your breath as well as your tongue and keep your hands off till he was safe over. The government is carrying an enormous weight. Untold treasures are in their hands ; they are doing the very best they can. Don’t badger them. Keep silence, and we will get you safe across.”
By Francis B. Carpenter: Six Months at the White House, 1866, pp. 257-9. Emil Ludwig,”Abraham Lincoln: And the Times that Tried His Soul” , Ludwig-281-15
“There’s One Of My Children That Isn’t Dead Yet”
Again, when he is in a condition of tense anxiety because Burn- side has been hemmed in, has been unable to send news for a long time, and may have had to surrender, there comes a telegram saying that gunfire has been heard from the direction of Knoxville. “Glad of it,” says Lincoln. “It reminds me of Mrs. Sally Ward, a neighbor of mine. She had a very large family. Occasionally one of her very numerous progeny would be heard crying in some out-of-the-way place, and she would exclaim, ‘ There’s one of my children that isn’t dead yet ‘ ”
Ludwig-416-09
“Lincoln Was In Every Respect Moderate”
But Lincoln was in every respect moderate, whereas in one point Grant was the reverse. By his inclination, from time to time, to put his reserved and comparatively passive nature under the influ- ence of liquor, he showed that his character was not so well balanced as Lincoln’s, and he thus ruined his youth, while later this weakness postponed the public recognition of his successes. In Lincoln, who much excelled Grant in culture, force of mind, and philosophical grasp, the excess of unutilized energies manifested itself as spiritual preeminence, which brought him forth out of obscurity, and enforced recognition. For Lincoln, too, imagination, which Grant lacked, provided an infallible key to the understanding of his fellows, and became a guiding force. That was why, while Grant was only able to get into touch with Lincoln through personal contact, Lincoln was able to discern Grant’s abilities from afar, and, in the decisive year now beginning, to single him out from among all the other generals. Had it not been for Lincoln’s powers of imagination and judgment, Grant would never have gone forward to victory, and would never have become a popular hero.
By Emil Ludwig,”Abraham Lincoln: And the Times that Tried His Soul” ,Ludwig-373-14
“With Him Justice And Truth Were Paramount”
With him justice and truth were paramount. If to him a thing seemed untrue he could not in his nature simulate truth. His retention by a man to defend a lawsuit did not prevent him from throwing it up in its most critical stage if he believed he was espousing an unjust cause. This extreme conscientiousness and disregard of the alleged sacredness of the professional cloak robbed him of much so-called success at the bar. He once wrote to one of our clients: “I do not think there is the least use of doing anything more with your lawsuit. I not only do not think you are sure to gain it, but I do think you are sure to lose it. Therefore the sooner it ends the better.”*
* Letter to H. Keeling, Esq., March 3, 1858, MS. By William H. Herndon，Jesse W. Weik “Herndon’s Lincoln: A True Story of a Great Life” , Herndon-295-181-10-35
“Hadn’t we Better Withdraw that Plea”
Messrs. Stuart and Edwards once brought a suit against a client of ours which involved the title to considerable property. At that time we had only two or three terms of court, and the docket was somewhat crowded. The plaintiff’s attorneys were pressing us for a trial, and we were equally as anxious to ward it off. What we wanted were time and a continuance to the next term. We dared not make an affidavit for continuance, founded on facts, because no such pertinent and material facts as the law contemplated existed. Our case for the time seemed hopeless. One morning, however, I accidentally overheard a remark from Stuart indicating his fear lest a certain fact should happen to come into our possession. I felt some relief, and at once drew up a fictitious plea, averring as best I could the substance of the doubts I knew existed in Stuart’s mind. The plea was as skilfully drawn as I knew how, and was framed as if we had the evidence to sustain it. The whole thing was a sham, but so constructed as to work the desired continuance, because I knew that Stuart and Edwards believed the facts were as I pleaded them. This was done in the absence and without the knowledge of Lincoln. The plea could not be demurred to, and the opposing counsel dared not take the issue on it. It perplexed them sorely. At length, before further steps were taken, Lincoln came into court. He looked carefully over all the papers in the case, as was his custom, and seeing my ingenious subterfuge, asked, “Is this seventh plea a good one?” Proud of the exhibition of my skill, I answered that it was. “But,” he inquired, incredulously, “is it founded on fact?” I was obliged to respond in the negative, at the same time following up my answer with an explanation of what I had overheard Stuart intimate, and of how these alleged facts could be called facts if a certain construction were put upon them. I insisted that our position was justifiable, and that our client must have time or be ruined. I could see at once it failed to strike Lincoln as just right. He scratched his head thoughtfully and asked, “Hadn’t we better withdraw that plea? You know it’s a sham, and a sham is very often but another name for a lie. Don’t let it go on record. The cursed thing may come staring us in the face long after this suit has been forgotten.” The plea was withdrawn. By some agency-not our own-the case was continued and our client’s interests were saved.
I only relate this incident to illustrate Lincoln’s far-seeing capacity; it serves to show how over-cautious he seemed to be with regard to how his record might look in the future. I venture the assertion that he was the only member of the bar in Springfield who would have taken such a conscientious view of the matter.
By William H. Herndon，Jesse W. Weik “Herndon’s Lincoln: A True Story of a Great Life”, Herndon-295-181-10-36
“I have not a Single Nail on which to Hang your Claim”
In the simplest and most natural way in the world, there are fused in his character the lineaments of the poet with those of the righteous man, and those of the logician with those of the moralist. Lincoln would have been an ideal judge. In the end, he became judge for the nation. The result of his peculiarities was, as all his colleagues declare, that he made a very poor advocate when, during the course of the proceedings, he came to feel that his client was in the wrong. Should he be sure of this when first approached, he would refuse to undertake the case. A lady sent him a check for two hundred and fifty dollars, asking him to act for her. He returned it with the remark: “I have not a single nail on which to hang your claim.”
By Emil Ludwig,”Abraham Lincoln: And the Times that Tried His Soul” Ludwig-131-10
“He Became Judge For The Nation”
In the simplest and most natural way in the world, there are fused in his character the lineaments of the poet with those of the righteous man, and those of the logician with those of the moralist. Lincoln would have been an ideal judge. In the end, he became judge for the nation.
By Emil Ludwig,”Abraham Lincoln: And the Times that Tried His Soul” Ludwig-131-10