The Lincoln Story Book Part 1

The Lincoln Story Book.

by Henry L. Williams.

PREFACE.

The Abraham Lincoln Statue at Chicago is accepted as the typical Westerner of the forum, the rostrum, and the tribune, as he stood to be inaugurated under the war-cloud in 1861. But there is another Lincoln as dear to the common people--the Lincoln of happy quotations, the speaker of household words. Instead of the erect, impressive, penetrative platform orator we see a long, gaunt figure, divided between two chairs for comfort, the head bent forward, smiling broadly, the lips curved in laughter, the deep eyes irradiating their caves of wisdom; the story-telling Lincoln, enjoying the enjoyment he gave to others.

This talkativeness, as Lincoln himself realized, was a very valuable a.s.set. Leaving home, he found, in a venture at "Yankee notion-pedling,"

that glibness meant three hundred per cent, in disposing of flimsy wares. In the camp of the lumber-jacks and of the Indian rangers he was regarded as the pride of the mess and the inspirator of the tent.

From these stages he rose to be a graduate of the "college" of the yarn-spinner--the village store, where he became clerk.

The store we know is the township vortex where all a.s.semble to "swap stories" and deal out the news. Lincoln, from behind the counter--his pulpit--not merely repeated items of information which he had heard, but also recited doggerel satire of his own concoction, punning and emitting sparks of wit. Lincoln was hailed as the "capper" of any "good things on the rounds."

Even then his friends saw the germs of the statesman in the lank, homely, crack-voiced hobbledehoy. Their praise emboldened him to stand forward as the spokesman at schoolhouse meetings, lectures, log-rollings, huskings auctions, fairs, and so on--the folk-meets of our people. One watching him in 1830 said foresightedly: "Lincoln has touched land at last."

In commencing electioneering, he cultivated the farming population and their ways and diction. He learned by their parlance and Bible phrases to construct "short sentences of small words," but he had all along the idea that "the plain people are more easily influenced by a broad and humorous ill.u.s.tration than in any other way." It is the Anglo-Saxon trait, distinguishing all great preachers, actors, and authors of that breed.

He acknowledged his personal defects with a frankness unique and startling; told a girl whom he was courting that he did not believe any woman could fancy him; publicly said that he could not be in looks what was rated a gentleman; carried the knife of "the homeliest man"; disparaged himself like a Brutus or a Pope Sixtus. But the ma.s.s relished this "plain, blunt man who spoke right on."

He talked himself into being the local "Eminence," but did not succeed in winning the election when first presented as "the humble" candidate for the State Senate. He stood upon his "imperfect education," his not belonging "to the first families, but the seconds"; and his shunning society as debarring him from the study he required.

Repulsed at the polls, he turned to the law as another channel, supplementing forensic failings by his artful story-telling. Judges would suspend business till "that Lincoln fellow got through with his yarn-spinning" or underhandedly would direct the usher to get the rich bit Lincoln told, and repeat it at the recess.

Mrs. Lincoln, the first to weigh this man justly, said proudly, that "Lincoln was the great favorite everywhere."

Meanwhile his fellow citizens stupidly tired of this Merry Andrew--they "sent him elsewhere to talk other folks to death"--to the State House, where he served several terms creditably, but was mainly the fund of jollity to the lobby and the chartered jester of the lawmakers.

Such loquacious witchery fitted him for the Congress. Elected to the House, he was immediately greeted by connoisseurs of the best stamp-- President Martin van Buren, "prince of good fellows;" Webster, another intellect, saturnine in repose and mercurial in activity; the convivial Senator Douglas, and the like. These formed the rapt ring around Lincoln in his own chair in the snug corner of the congressional chat-room. Here he perceived that his rusticity and shallow skimmings placed him under the trained politicians. It was here, too, that his stereotyped prologue to his digressions--"That reminds me"--became popular, and even reached England, where a publisher so ent.i.tled a joke-book. Lincoln displaced "Sam Slick," and opened the way to Artemus Ward and Mark Twain. The longing for elevation was fanned by the a.s.sociation with the notables--Buchanan, to be his predecessor as President; Andrew Johnson, to be his vice and successor; Jefferson Davis and Alex. H. Stephens, President and Vice-President of the C. S. A.; Adams, Winthrop, Sumner, and the galaxy over whom his solitary star was to shine dazzlingly.

A sound authority who knew him of old p.r.o.nounced him "as good at telling an anecdote as in the '30's." But the fluent chatterer reined in and became a good listener. He imbibed all the political ruses, and returned home with his quiver full of new and victorious arrows for the Presidential campaign, for his bosom friends urged him to try to gratify that ambition, preposterous when he first felt it attack him.

He had grown out of the sensitiveness that once made him beg the critics not to put him out by laughing at his appearance. He formed a boundless a.r.s.enal of images and similes; he learned the American humorist's art not to parade the joke with a discounting smile. He worked out Euclid to brace his fantasies, as the steel bar in a cement fence-post makes it irresistibly firm. But he allowed his vehement fervor to carry him into such flights as left the reporters unable to accompany his sentences throughout.

He was recognized as the destined national mouthpiece. He was not of the universities, but of the universe; the Mississippi of Eloquence, uncultivated, stupendous, enriched by sweeping into the innumerable side bayous and creeks.

Elected and re-elected President, he continued to be a surprise to those who shrank from levity. Lincoln was their puzzle; for he had a sweet sauce for every "roast," and showed the smile of invigoration to every croaking prophet. His state papers suited the war tragedies, but still he delighted the people with those tales, tagging all the events of what may be called the Lincoln era. The camp and the press echoed them though the Cabinet frowned--secretaries said that they exposed the ill.u.s.trious speaker to charges of "clownishness and buffoonery."

But this perennial good-humor--perfectly poised by the people-- alleviated the strain of withstanding that terrible avalanche threatening to dismember and obliterate the States and bury all the virtues and principles of our forefathers.

Even his official letters were in the same vein. Regarding the one to England which meant war, he asked of Secretary Seward if its language would be comprehended by our minister at the Victorian court, and added dryly: "Will James, the coachman at the door--will he understand it?"

Receiving the answer, he nodded grimly and said: "Then it goes!"

It went, and there was no war with the Bull.

Time has refuted the purblind purists, the chilly "wet-blankets"; and the Lincoln stories, bright, penetrative, piquant, and pertinent are our cla.s.sics. Hand in hand with "Father Abraham," the President next to Washington in greatness, walks "Old Abe, the Story-teller."

LINCOLN CALENDAR.

Abraham Lincoln, born February 12, 1809, Hardin County, Kentucky.

"Lincoln Day."

1817--Settled in Perry County, Indiana; father, mother, sister, and self.

1818--October 5, Mrs. Thomas Lincoln (Nancy Hanks) died; buried Spencer County, Indiana. In 1901, a monument erected to her memory, the base being the former Abraham Lincoln vault. Schooling, a few months, 1819, '20 and '28, about six months' school.

1819--Thomas (father of A. L.) marries again: Mrs. Johnson (Sally Bush) of Kentucky.

1830--March, Lincoln family remove into Illinois, near Decatur.

1831--Works for himself: boatbuilding and sailing, carpentering, hog-sticking, sawmilling, blacksmithing, river-pilot, logger, etc., in Menard County, Indiana.

1831--Election clerk at New Salem. Captain and private (re-enlisted) in Black Hawk War. Store clerk and merchant, New Salem. Studies for the law.

1832--First political speech. Henry Clay, Whig platform. Defeated through strong local vote. Deputy surveyor, at three dollars a day, Sangamon County.

1834--Elected to State legislature as Whig. (Resides in Springfield till 1861. Law partner with John L. Stuart till 1840.)

1835--Postmaster, New Salem; appointed by President Jackson.

1838 to 1840--Reelected to State legislature.

1840--Partner in law with S. T. Logan.

1842--Married Miss Mary Todd, of Kentucky. Of the four sons, Edward died in infancy; William ("Willie") at twelve at Washington; Thomas ("Tad") at Springfield, aged twenty; Robert M. T., minister to Great Britain, presidential candidate, secretary of war to President Garfield. His only grandson, Abraham, died in London, March, 1890.

1844--Proposed for Congress.

1845--Law partner with W. H. Herndon, for life.

1846--Elected to Congress, the single Whig Illinois member; voted antislavery; sought abolition in the D. C.; voted Wilmot Proviso.

Declined reelection.

1848--Electioneered for General Taylor.

1849--Defeated by Shields for United States senator.

1852--Electioneered for General Scott.

1854--Won the State over to the Republicans, but by arrangement transferred his claim to the senatorship to Trumbull. October, debated with Douglas. Declined the governorship in favor of Bissell.

1856--Organized the Republican Party and became its chief; nominated vice-president, but was not chosen by its first convention; worked for the Fremont-Dayton presidential ticket.

1858--Lost in the legislature the senatorship to Douglas.

1859--Placed for the presidential candidacy. Made Eastern tour "to get acquainted."

1860--May 9, nominated for President, "shutting out" Seward, Chase, Cameron, Dayton, Wade, Bates, and McLean.