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“Reluctant To Publish Their Failures”
Friend Weik:
I have just thought of a new fact, which is as follows: Some time about 1855 I went into a bookstore in this city and saw a book, a small one, entitled, called, I think, The Annual of Science. I looked over it casually and liked it and bought it. I took the book to Lincoln and H.’s office. Lincoln was in, reading a newspaper of value; he said to me: “Well, Billy, you have got a new book, which is good, I suppose. What is it? Let me see it.” He took the book in his hand, looked over the pages, read the title, introductions, and probably the first chapter, and saw at a glance the purpose and object of the book, which were as follows: to record, teach, and fully explain the failures and successes of experiments of all philosophies and scientists, everywher including chemistry, mechanics, etc. He instantly rose up and said that he must buy the whole set, started out and got them. On returning to the office, he said: “I have wanted such a book for years, because I sometimes make experiments and have thoughts about the physical world that I do not know to be true or false. I may, by this book, correct my errors and save time and expense. I can see where scientists and philosophers have failed and avoid the rock on which they split or can see the means of their success and take advantage of their brains, toil, and knowledge. Men are greedy to publish the successes of efforts, but meanly shy as to publishing the failures of man. Many men are ruined by this one-sided practice of concealment of blunders and failures.” This he said substantially to me with much feeling, vim, and force. The last time that he spoke of the book to me he spoke in glowing terms.
Enclosed I send you a letter of mine, published in the ReligioPhilosophical Journal of December 12, 1885.
Your friend,
W. H. HERNDON.
Quoted in Emanuel Hertz, The Hidden Lincoln, p. 113.
“The Memory of that Scene has never been Effaced”
Suddenly there was a cheering welcome, the acting ceased temporarily out of respect to the entering Presidential party. Many in the audience rose to their feet in enthusiasm and vociferously cheered, while looking around. Turning, I saw in the aisle a few feet behind me, President Lincoln, Mrs. Lincoln, Major Rathbone and Miss Harris. Mrs. Lincoln smiled very happily in acknowledgment of the loyal greeting, gracefully curtsied several times and seemed to be overflowing with good cheer and thankfulness. I had the best opportunity to distinctly see the full face of the President, as the light shone directly upon him. After he had walked a few feet he stopped for a moment, looked upon the people he loved and acknowledged their salutations with a solemn bow. His face was perfectly stoical, his deep set eyes gave him a pathetically sad appearance. The audience seemed to be enthusiastically cheerful, but he alone looked peculiarly sorrowful, as he slowly walked with bowed head and drooping shoulders toward the box. I was looking at him as he took his last walk. The memory of that scene has never been effaced. The party was preceded by a special usher, who opened the door of the box, stood to one side, and after all had entered closed the door and took a seat outside, where he could guard the entrance to the box. The play was resumed and mv attention was concentrated on the stage until I heard a disturbance at the door of the President s box. With many others I looked in that direction, and saw a man endeavoring to persuade the reluctant usher to admit him. At last he succeeded in gaining an entrance, after which the door was closed and the usher resumed his place.
Quoted in Charles A. Leale,Lincoln’s last hours.
“I am going to Pardon that Young Soldier”
He was so kind-hearted and lenient, and virtually set aside so many sentences of courts martial, that the commanding generals remonstrated very often, insisting that he was ruining the discipline of the army.
I never asked him to pardon a soldier or to release one from the army, for good cause, that he did not do it. On one occasion I was at the White House and in the ante-room were scores of people waiting for an opportunity to obtain admission to see the President. At the end of the room sat a gray headed old man upon the window seat, sobbing as though his heart would break. Moved by compassion I asked him what his trouble was. He said that his darling boy, 19 years of age, was sentenced to be shot, and he had been waiting two days to see the President but could not get in, and to-morrow noon the boy was to be shot. I asked him to follow me, saying that I would take him in to see the President. He told his story to Mr. Lincoln, who replied with much feeling that he could not do it, for the commanding general had just telegraphed him from Fortress Monroe, where the boy was, imploring him to cease interfering with the sentences of courts martial. But the abundant tears and imploring looks of the old man were too much for the kind-hearted President. He said, ” Let the generals telegraph, if they please, but I am going to pardon that young soldier.” He immediately sent a dispatch to suspend the execution of the sentence until further orders from him. Thereupon the old man burst out crying afresh, and in a tremulous voice said, ” Mr. President, that is not a pardon, it only asks for a suspension until further orders from you.” ” My dear man,” exclaimed Mr. Lincoln, ” if your son lives until I order him shot, he will live longer than ever Methusaleh did.” The old man departed, invoking blessings upon the head of the good President.
Quoted in John B. Alley, in Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Rice (1886 edn.), pp. 584.
“He was so Simple, so Child-like, so Sincere”
He was so simple, so child-like, so sincere, that it seemed to me that that was the chief reason why he was so little appreciated during his Presidency by his compeers in public life. He exhibited a degree of wisdom and firmness of purpose, a sagacity and soundness of judgment absolutely without parallel among the statesmen of his day ; while his toleration of difference of opinion, his sagacity in harmonizing discordant elements and his politic treatment of envious and ambitious rivals, exceeded anything I have ever seen in any other of our statesmen. In illustration of this I may say, that he had in his Cabinet several rivals in whose judgment or fitness he had but little confidence. Yet he managed to make them and the country believe that he was on the most excellent terms with each and all of them.
Quoted in John B. Alley, in Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Rice (1886 edn.), pp. 576.
”The Kings Cure-All for all Evils”
”The Kings Cure-All for All Evils”
Wednesday, December 28[?], 1864
On January 31, 1865, the House — by a vote of 119 to 56 — passed a Constitutional amendment prohibiting involuntary servitude, except for crime, throughout the United States. To Lincoln, the measure was “a very fitting, if not an indispensable adjunct to the winding up of this great difficulty.” The Emancipation Proclamation fell short “of what the constitutional amendment will do when finally consummated,” he maintained. It would be “the king’s cure all for all evils.” ^
It was a hard pull to swing the required two-thirds majority in the House and Lincoln personally took a hand in the political maneuverings. He was a hardheaded, practical politician. He had to be in order to perpetuate himself and his party in power. “He handled and moved men remotely as we do pieces upon a chessboard,” Leonard Swett remembered. He was “a trimmer, and such a trimmer the world has never seen . . . yet Lincoln never trimmed in principles, it was only in his conduct with men.” He used patronage to “feed the hunger” of political factions. And when he set about procuring approval of the Thirteenth Amendment, he resorted “to almost any means” to achieve for “that down-trodden race such a boon.” 2
Lincoln began lobbying for the amendment in December. He called House members to the White House for conferences and apparently made a number of deals. James S. Rollins of Missouri was among those who answered Lincoln’s summons. After the war, Rollins wrote:
I was prompt in calling upon him and found him alone in his office. He received me in the most cordial manner, and said in his usual familiar way: “Rollins, I have been wanting to talk to you for sometime about the thirteenth amendment proposed to the Constitution of the United States, which will have to be voted on now, before a great while.” I said: “Well, I am here, and ready to talk upon that subject.” He said: “You and I were old whigs, both of us followers of that great statesman, Henry Clay, and I tell you I never had an opinion upon the subject of slavery in my life that I did not get from him. I am very anxious that the war should be brought to a close at the earliest possible date, and I don’t believe this can be accompUshed as long as those fellows down South can rely upon the border states to help them; but if the members from the border states would unite, at least enough of them to pass the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, they would soon see that they could not expect much help from that quarter, and be willing to give up their opposition and quit their war upon the government; this is my chief hope and main reliance to bring the war to a speedy close, and I have sent for you as an old whig friend to come and see me, that I might make an appeal to you to vote for this amendment. It is going to be very close, a few votes one way or the other will decide it.”
To this I responded: “Mr. President, so far as I am concerned you need not have sent for me to ascertain my views on this subject, for although I represent perhaps the strongest slave district in Missouri, and have the misfortune to be one of the largest slaveowners in the county where I reside, I had already determined to vote for the thirteenth amendment.” He arose from his chair, and grasping me by the hand, gave it a hearty shake, and said: “I am most delighted to hear that.”
He asked me how many more of the Missouri delegates in the House would vote for it. I said I could not tell; the republicans of course would; General [Benjamin] Loan, Mr. [Henry T.] Blow, Mr. [Sempronius H.] Boyd, and Colonel [Joseph W.] McClurg. He said: “Won’t General [Thomas L.] Price vote for it? He is a good Union man.” I said I could not answer. “Well, what about Governor [Austin A.] King?” I told him I did not know. He then asked about Judges [William A.] Hall and [Elijah H.] Norton. I said they would both vote against it, I thought.
“Well,” he said, “are you on good terms with Price and King?” I responded in the affirmative, and that I was on easy terms with the entire delegation. He then asked me if I could not talk with those who might be persuaded to vote for the amendment, and report to him as soon as I could find out what the prospect was. I answered that I would do so with pleasure, and remarked at the same time, that when I was a young man, in 1848, I was the whig competitor of King for Governor of Missouri and as he beat me very badly, I thought now he should pay me back by voting as I desired him on this important question. I promised the President I would talk to this gentleman upon the subject. He said: “I would like you to talk to all the border state men whom you can approach properly, and tell them of my anxiety to have the measure pass; and let me know the prospect of the border state vote,” which I promised to do. He again said: “The passage of this amendment will clinch the whole subject; it will bring the war, I have no doubt, rapidly to a close.”
Quoted in “Conversations with Lincoln”, ed. Charles M. Segal (1961; New Brunswick, N.J., and London: Transaction Publishers, 2002), pp.363
“This Amendment Is A King’s Cure For All The Evils”
Response to a Serenade
February 1, 1865
The President said he supposed the passage through Congress of the Constitutional amendment for the abolishment of Slavery throughout the United States, was the occasion to which he was indebted for the honor of this call. [Applause.] The occasion was one of congratulation to the country and to the whole world. But there is a task yet before us—to go forward and consummate by the votes of the States that which Congress so nobly began yesterday. [Applause and cries—“They will do it,” &c.] He had the honor to inform those present that Illinois had already to-day done the work. [2] [Applause.] Maryland was about half through; but he felt proud that Illinois was a little ahead. He thought this measure was a very fitting if not an indispensable adjunct to the winding up of the great difficulty. He wished the reunion of all the States perfected and so effected as to remove all causes of disturbance in the future; and to attain this end it was necessary that the original disturbing cause should, if possible, be rooted out. He thought all would bear him witness that he had never shrunk from doing all that he could to eradicate Slavery by issuing an emancipation proclamation. [Applause.] But that proclamation falls far short of what the amendment will be when fully consummated. A question might be raised whether the proclamation was legally valid. It might be added that it only aided those who came into our lines and that it was inoperative as to those who did not give themselves up, or that it would have no effect upon the children of the slaves born hereafter. In fact it would be urged that it did not meet the evil. But this amendment is a King’s cure for all the evils. [Applause.] It winds the whole thing up. He would repeat that it was the fitting if not indispensable adjunct to the consummation of the great game we are playing. He could not but congratulate all present, himself, the country and the whole world upon this great moral victory.
-Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 8.
“Enemies! We Must Never Speak of That”
Arrived at the Potomac wharf, our party was forced to disperse. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, Senator Sumner, and myself drove home in the same carriage. We were nearing Washington when Mrs. Lincoln, who had hitherto remained silently looking at the town a short distance off, said to me: “That city is filled with our enemies.” On hearing this the President raised his arm and somewhat impatiently retorted, “Enemies! We must never speak of that.” This was on the evening of April 9th.
Quoted in Marquis de Chambrun, “Personal Recollections of Mr. Lincoln,” Scribner’s (1893), p. 35
“There Was No Hatred In Lincoln’s Heart”
After four years of fighting, there was no hatred in Lincoln’s heart for the people of the South. Time and again he said: ” ‘Judge not that ye be not judged.’ They are just what we would be in their position.”
By Dale Carnegie，“Lincoln, the Unknown”
Magnanimity
Drawing upon the rare wisdom of a temperament that consistently displayed uncommon magnanimity toward those who opposed him, he then issued his historic plea to his fellow countrymen: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan-to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
Quoted in “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”,By Doris Kearns Goodwin
“Since I Came into this Place”
In private conversation Lincoln manifested a singular reluctance to speak of himself as president, or to mention the office with any sort of personal reference to himself. He always used the phrase, “since I came into this place,” instead of saying, “since I became president.” The war he usually spoke of as “this great trouble,” and he seldom alluded to the enemy as “Confederates,” or “the Confederate government,” but he used the word “rebel” in his talk and in his letters.
Quoted in Noah Brooks, Washington, D.C., in Lincoln’s Time, ed. Herbert Mitgang (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971; Athens, Ga., and London: University of Georgia Press, 1989), p. 304.
So long as I have been here I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man’s bosom.
–Response to a Serenade, November 10,1864