The Lincoln Story Book Part 29

NO MAN IS INDISPENSABLE.

One of the Cabinet ministers disagreed with the majority on a vital question, and rose with a threat to resign. One of his friends advised the chairman to do anything to recover his aid, whereupon he sagely said:

"Our secretary a national necessity?--how mistaken you are! Yet it is not strange--I used to have similar notions. No, if we should all be turned out to-morrow, and could come back here in a week, we should find our places filled by a lot of fellows doing just as well as we did, and in many instances better! It was truth that the Irishman uttered when he answered the speaker: 'Is not one man as good as another?' with 'He is, sure, and a deal betther!' No, sir, this government does not depend on the life of any man!"

SLEEPING ON POST CANCELS A COMMISSION.

n.o.body who met Secretary Stanton--the Carnot of the war--would give him credit for joking, but Mr. Lincoln's example that way was infectious. The eldest son, Robert, was at college, but a captaincy was awaiting him when he could enter the army. So the war secretary for a pleasantry issued a mock commission to Tad, ranking him as a regular lieutenant. As long as he confined his supposed duties to arming the under servants and drilling the more or less fantastically, as well as he remembered, evolutions on the parade-grounds, where he accompanied his father, all was amusing. But he terminated his first steps in the school of "Hardee's Tactics," the standard text-book of the period, by bringing his awkward squad from the servants' hall, and, relieving the sentries, replaced the genuine with these tyros.

For the sake of the vacation they, the regulars, bowed to the commission with its potent Stanton and Lincoln, and United States Army seal. His brother, startled, intervened, but the cadet vowed he would put him in "the black hole," presumably the coal-shed. The President laughed, and when he went to check the usurpation he found the little lieutenant, overpowered by his brief authority, asleep. So he removed him from the service, put aside his commission, and, when he woke to the situation, made it plain that, being a real soldier and officer, he had forfeited his t.i.tle by falling asleep on post! He went then and formally discharged the sham sentinels placed by the boy's orders and replaced them by the "simon pures."

MY QUESTION!

A recent volume has undertaken the superfluous vindication of President Lincoln from being the mere ornamental figurehead of the republic during the Civil War. In fact, there are many instances of his incurring the reproach of interfering with the chiefs of departments, but it is testified to by a leading minister that he paid much less attention to details than was popularly supposed and invidiously a.s.serted in the capital. He "brought up with a round turn," to use river language, both General Fremont and other military commanders who tried to steal the finishing weapon he kept in store: to wit, the emanc.i.p.ation of the Southern slaves. Senator Cameron, as war secretary, advised in a report that the slaves should be armed to enable them successfully to rise against their masters. The President scratched out this recommendation, which would have spiked his gun, and perverted a great statesmanlike act into a fostered insurrection, saying:

"This will never do! _Secretary_ Cameron must take no such responsibility. This question belongs exclusively to me!"

"IF GOOD, HE'S GOT IT! IF T'AINT GOOD, HE AIN'T GOT IT!"

A revenue cutter conveyed a presidential party from Washington to Fortress Monroe, consisting of the chief, his secretaries of war and of the treasury, and General Egbert L. Viele--who preserved this tale.

On the way Secretary Stanton stated that he had telegraphed to General Mitch.e.l.l in Alabama "All right--go ahead!" though he did not know what emergency was thus to meet. He wished the executive to take the responsibility in case his ignorance erred.

"I will have to get you to countermand the order." So he hinted.

"Well," exclaimed the good-humored superior, "that is very much like a certain horse-sale in Kentucky when I was a boy (Lincoln was only eight when leaving Kentucky for Indiana). A particularly fine horse was to be sold, and the people gathered together. They had a small boy to ride the horse up and down while the spectators examined it for points. At last, one man whispered to the boy as he went by:

"'Look here, boy, ain't that hoss got the splints?'

"The boy replied: 'Master, I don't know what the splints is; but, if it is good for him, he has got it! If it ain't good for him, he ain't got it!' Now," finished the adviser, "if this was good for Mitch.e.l.l, it was all right; but, if it was not, I have to countermand, eh?"--(Noted by General Viele.)

LINCOLN GUESSED THE FIRST TIME.

Postmaster-General James reflects a dialogue between Lincoln and one of his Cabinet officers, evincing how the iron hand in the velvet glove squeezed persons into his own mold.

"Mr. President"--Secretary Stanton speaking--"I cannot carry out that order! It is improper, and I don't believe it is right."

"Well, I reckon, Mr. Secretary"--very gently--"that you will _hev_ to carry it out."

"But I won't do it--it's all wrong!"

"I guess you will hev to do it!"

He guessed right, the first time.

A PHANTOM CHASE.

Despite Chase's political enmity to him, President Lincoln said of Salmon Portland Chase: "I consider him one of the best, ablest, and most reliable men in the country." But he had to "let him slide" off upon the Supreme Court bench to have "knee-room" at the council-table.

He explained: "He wants to be President, and, if he does not give that up, it will be a great injury to him and a great injury to me. He can never be President."--(Ex-Secretary Boutwell, the authority.)

THE WORD FLIES, BUT THE WRIT REMAINS.

Mr. Chase bemoaning that in leaving home he had in the hurry forgot to write a letter, Lincoln sagely consoled:

"Chase, never regret what you don't write--it is what you do write that you are often called upon to feel sorry for!"--(Heard by General Viele.)

THE WAR-LORD.

Lincoln states that the community among whom he was brought up would have hailed him as a wizard who spoke the dead tongues; and, granting his legal studies made him familiar with Latin as lawyers use it, he carefully avoided those hurdles of the cla.s.sic orator, Latin quotations. Nevertheless, we have an exception to what would have pleased Lord Byron--the poet thought we have had enough of the cla.s.sics. The President, spying Secretary Stanton, of the War Department, inadvertently striking an imposing att.i.tude in the doorway of the telegraph-office in the Executive House, without knowing the President was here, at the desk, suddenly was aroused by hearing the jocose hail:

"Good evening, _Mars_!"--(Certified by Mr. A. B. Chandler, manager of the postal telegraph, War Department.)

FILE IT AWAY!