CHAPTER XIII. OTHER TESTIMONY AND OPINIONS
New York World—Boston Globe—Chicago Herald—Manford's
Magazine—Herald and Review—Chambers's Encyclopedia—
Encyclopedia Britannica—People's Library of Information—
The World's Sages—Every-Day Life of Lincoln—Hon. Jesse W.
Weik—Chas. W. French—Cyrus O. Poole—A Citizen of
Springfield—Henry Walker—Win. Bissett—Frederick Heath—
Rev. Edward Eggleston—Rev. Robert Collyer—Allen Thorndike
Rice—Robert C. Adams—Theodore Stanton-Geo. M. McCrie—Gen.
M. M. Trumbull—Rev. David Swing, D.D.—Rev. J. Lloyd Jones—
Rev. John W. Chadwick.
The matter selected for this chapter is of a miscellaneous nature, consisting of the statements of those who, for the most part, are not known to have been personally acquainted with Lincoln. It embraces the opinions of journalists, encyclopedists, biographers, and others. If their words cannot be accepted as the testimony of competent witnesses, they may at least be regarded as the verdict of honest jurors.
NEW YORK WORLD.
In the New York World, fifteen years ago, appeared the following: "While it may fairly be said that Mr. Lincoln entertained many Christian sentiments, it cannot be said that he was himself a Christian in faith or practice. He was no disciple of Jesus of Nazareth. He did not believe in his divinity and was not a member of his church. He was at first a writing Infidel of the school of Paine and Volney, and afterward a talking Infidel of the school of Parker and Channing."
Alluding to the friendly attitude he assumed toward the church and Christianity during the war, this article concludes:
"If the churches had grown cold—if the Christians had taken a stand aloof—that instant the Union would have perished; Mr. Lincoln regulated his religious manifestations accordingly. He declared frequently that he would do anything to save the Union, and among the many things he did was the partial concealment of his individual religious opinions. Is this a blot upon his fame? Or shall we all agree that it was a conscientious and patriotic sacrifice?"
BOSTON GLOBE.
As evidence of Lincoln's piety, we are referred to a picture where Lincoln, with his son Tad, is supposed to be reverentially poring over the pages of the Bible. The history of this picture, however, has often been explained, and its apparently religious character shown to be quite secular. The Boston Globe, in a recent issue, says: "The pretty little story about the picture of President Lincoln and his son Tad reading the Bible is now corrected for the one-hundredth time. The Bible was Photographer Brady's picture album, which the President was examining with his son while some ladies stood by. The artist begged the President to remain quiet and the picture was taken. The truth is better than fiction, even if its recital conflicts with a pleasing theory."
CHICAGO HERALD.
During February, 1892, the Chicago Herald published an editorial on Lincoln's religion. Being one of the latest contributions to this subject, and appearing in one of the principal journals of Lincoln's own state, it is of especial importance. It is a candid statement of what nearly every journalist of Illinois knows or believes to be the facts. From it I quote as follows: "He was without faith in the Bible or its teachings. On this point the testimony is so overwhelming that there is no basis for doubt. In his early life Lincoln exhibited a powerful tendency to aggressive Infidelity. But when he grew to be a politician he became secretive and non-committal in his religious belief. He was shrewd enough to realize the necessity of reticence with the convictions he possessed if he hoped to succeed in politics.
"It is matter of history that in 1834, at New Salem, Ill., Lincoln read and circulated Volney's 'Ruins' and Paine's 'Age of Reason,' giving to both books the sincere recommendation of his unqualified approval. About that time or a little later he wrote an extensive argument against Christianity, intending to publish it. In this argument he contended that the Bible was not inspired and that Jesus Christ was not the son of God. He read this compilation of his views to numerous friends, and on one occasion when so engaged his friend and employer, Samuel Hill, snatched the manuscript from the author's hands and threw it into the stove, where it was quickly consumed. A Springfield friend said of him in 1838, 'Lincoln was enthusiastic in his Infidelity.' John T. Stuart, who was his first law partner, declares: 'Lincoln was an avowed and open Infidel. He went further against Christian belief than any man I ever heard. He always denied that Jesus was the Christ of God.' David Davis stated that 'Lincoln had absolutely no faith in the Christian sense of the term.'
"These authorities ought to be conclusive, but there is further testimony. This latter is important as explanatory of Lincoln's frequent allusions in his Presidential messages and proclamations to the Supreme Being. To the simplicity of his nature there was added a poetic temperament. He was fond of effective imagery, and his references to the Deity are due to the instinct of the poet. After his death Mrs. Lincoln said: 'Mr. Lincoln had no faith and no hope in the usual acceptation of those words. He never joined a church.' She denominates what has been mistaken for his expressions of religious sentiment as 'a kind of poetry in his nature,' adding 'he was never a Christian.' Herndon, who was his latest law partner and biographer, is even more explicit. He says: 'No man had a stronger or firmer faith in Providence—God—than Mr. Lincoln, but the continued use by him late in life of the word God must not be interpreted to mean that he believed in a personal God. In 1854 he asked me to erase the word 'God' from a speech which I had written and read to him for criticism, because my language indicated a personal God, whereas he insisted no such personality ever existed.' So it must be accepted as final by every reasonable mind that in religion Mr. Lincoln was a skeptic. But above all things he was not a hypocrite or pretender. He was a plain man, rugged and earnest, and he pretended to be nothing more. He believed in humanity, and he was incapable of Phariseeism. He had great respect for the feelings and convictions of others, but he was not a sniveler. He was honest and he was sincere, and taking him simply for what he was, we are not likely soon to see his like again."
MANFORD'S MAGAZINE.
There are two Christian publications that have had the fairness to admit the truth respecting Lincoln's belief. Manford's Magazine, a religious periodical published in Chicago, in its issue for January, 1869, contained the following: "That Mr. Lincoln was a believer in the Christian religion, as understood by the so-called orthodox sects of the day, I am compelled most emphatically to deny; that is, if I put faith in the statements of his most intimate friends in this city [Springfield]. All of them with whom I have conversed on this subject, agree in indorsing the statements of Mr. Herndon. Indeed, many of them unreservedly call him an Infidel." "The evidence on this subject is sufficient, the writer says, to place the name of Lincoln by the side of Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, and [Ethan] Allen, of Revolutionary notoriety, as Rationalists; besides being in company with D'Alembert, the great mathematician, Diderot, the geometrician, poet, and metaphysician; also with Voltaire, Hume, Gibbon, and Darwin."
Referring to the Infidel book, written by Lincoln, the writer says: "This work was subsequently thrown in Mr. Lincoln's face while he was stumping this district for Congress against the celebrated Methodist preacher, Rev. Peter Cartwright. But Mr. Lincoln never publicly or privately denied its authorship, or the sentiments expressed therein. Nor was he known to change his religious views any, to the latest period of his life."
The article concludes with these truthful words:
"Mr. Lincoln was too good a man to be a Pharisee; too great a man to be a sectarian; and too charitable a man to be a bigot."
HERALD AND REVIEW.
This work, in an abridged form, originally appeared in the Truth Seeker in 1889 and 1890. After its appearance, the Adventist Herald and Review, one of the fairest and most ably conducted religious journals in this country, said:
"The Truth Seeker has just concluded the publication of a series of fifteen contributed articles designed to prove that Abraham Lincoln, instead of being a Christian, as has been most strongly claimed by some, was a Freethinker. The testimony seems conclusive.... The majority of the great men of the world have always rejected Christ, and, according to the Scriptures, they always will; and the efforts of Christians to make it appear that certain great men who never professed Christianity were in reality Christians, is simply saying that Christianity cannot stand on its merits, but must have the support of great names to entitle it to favorable consideration."
CHAMBERS'S ENCYCLOPEDIA.
Alden's American Edition of "Chambers's Encyclopedia," one of the most popular as well as one of the most reliable of encyclopedias, says: "He [Lincoln] was never a member of a church; he is believed to have had philosophical doubts of the divinity of Christ, and of the inspiration of the Scriptures, as these are commonly stated in the system of doctrines called evangelical. In early life he read Volney and Paine, and wrote an essay in which he agreed with their conclusions. Of modern thinkers he was thought to agree nearest with Theodore Parker" (Art. Lincoln, Abraham).
ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA.
By whom the article on Lincoln in "Chambers's Encyclopedia" was written, whether by one of Lincoln's personal friends, or by a stranger, I know not. The article in the "Britannica" was written by his private secretary, Colonel Nicolay. In this article his religion is briefly summed up in the following words: "His [Lincoln's] nature was deeply religious, but he belonged to no denomination; he had faith in the eternal justice and boundless mercy of Providence; and made the Golden Rule of Christ his practical creed" (Am. Ed., vol. xiv, p. 669).
This statement at first glance presents a Christian appearance, and the reader is liable to infer that the writer aims to state that Lincoln was a Christian. But he does not. He aims to state in the least offensive manner possible that he was not—that he was simply a Deist. A person may have a "deeply religious" nature, and not be a Christian. He may have "faith in the eternal justice and boundless mercy of Providence," and yet have no faith whatever in Christianity. He may make "the Golden Rule of Christ [or Confucius] his practical creed," and at the same time wholly reject the dogma of Christ's divinity. The above statement is substantially true as applied to Lincoln, and it would be equally true if applied to that prince of Infidels, Thomas Paine. His nature was deeply religious; he had faith in the justice and mercy of Providence; and he, too, made the Golden Rule his practical creed.
PEOPLE'S LIBRARY OF INFORMATION.
Mrs. Lincoln was nominally a Presbyterian, and frequently, though not regularly, attended the Rev. Dr. Gurley's church in Washington. Lincoln usually accompanied her, not because he derived any pleasure or benefit from the services, but because he believed it to be a duty he owed to his wife who, in turn, generally accompanied him when he went to his church, the theater. "The People's Library of Information" contains the following relative to his church attendance:
"Lincoln attended service once a day. He seemed always to be in agony while in church.... His pastor, Dr. Gurley, had the 'gift of continuance,' and the President writhed and squirmed and gave unmistakable evidence of the torture he endured."
THE WORLD'S SAGES.
In "The World's Sages," Mr. Bennett writes as follows concerning Lincoln's belief: "Upon the subject of religious belief there is some diversity of claims. All his friends and acquaintances readily admit that in early manhood and middle age he was an unbeliever, or a Deist. In fact, he wrote a book or pamphlet vindicating this view. His most intimate friends that knew him best, claim that his opinions underwent no change in this respect; while a certain number of Christians have, since his death, undertaken to make out that he had become a convert to Christianity" (World's Sages, p. 773). "When the contradictory character of the evidence is taken into consideration, together with the fact that his nearest and most intimate friends would be most likely the ones to know of Mr. Lincoln's change, had any such taken place, the incredibility of the asserted change is easily appreciated" (Ibid, p-774).
THE EVERY-DAY LIFE OF LINCOLN.
In the Emancipation Proclamation appears the following paragraph, which contains the only allusion to Deity to be found in this immortal document: "And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God."
The appearance of the above paragraph in the Proclamation is thus accounted for in Francis F. Brown's "Every-Day Life of Lincoln," and agrees with Judge Usher's and Chief Justice Chase's account of it:
"It is stated that Mr. Lincoln gave the most earnest study to the composition of the Emancipation Proclamation. He realized, as he afterward said, that the Proclamation was the central act of his administration, and the great event of the Nineteenth Century. When the document was completed, a printed copy of it was placed in the hands of each member of the Cabinet, and criticisms and suggestions were invited. Mr. Chase remarked: 'This paper is of the utmost importance, greater than any state paper ever made by this Government. A paper of so much importance, and involving the liberties of so many people, ought, I think, to make some reference to Deity. I do not observe anything of the kind in it" (Every-Day Life of Lincoln, pp. 549,550).
The amendment suggested was allowed by the President, and Mr. Chase requested to supply the words he desired to be inserted. The paragraph quoted was accordingly prepared by him and included in the Proclamation. This fact is also admitted by Holland in his "Life of Lincoln" (p. 401).
HON. JESSE W. WEIK.
Judge Weik, of Greencastle, Ind., who was associated with Mr. Herndon in the preparation of his "Life of Lincoln," in a lecture on "Lincoln's Boyhood and Early Manhood," delivered in Plymouth Church, Indianapolis, Feb. 4, 1891. said:
"As a young man he sat back of the country store stove and said the Bible was not inspired, and Christ was not the Son of God" (Indianapolis News, Feb. 5, '91).
CHARLES WALLACE FRENCH.
One of the last biographies of Lincoln that has appeared is "Abraham Lincoln The Liberator," written by Charles W. French. After citing with approval some of Mr. Herndon's statements regarding Lincoln's belief, Mr. French says:
"The world was his [Lincoln's] church. His sermons were preached in kindly words and merciful deeds" (p. 91).
CYRUS O. POOLE.
I quote next from a monograph on "The Religious Convictions of Abraham Lincoln," written by Cyrus O. Poole. Referring to Arnold's and Holland's biographies of Lincoln, Mr. Poole says: "Most sectarians now think, write, and act as if they had a copyright to apply 'Christian' to everything good and God-like about this President; yet no one presumed to call him a Christian until after his death. It may be a soul-saving process like the ancient one of Pope Gregory in the sixth century. It is related that one day he was meditating on an anecdote of the Pagan Emperor Tragan's having turned back, when at the head of his legions on his way to battle, to render justice to a poor widow who flung herself at his horse's feet. It seemed to Gregory that the soul of a prince so good could not be forever lost, Pagan though he was; and he prayed for him, till a voice declared Tragan to have been saved through his intercession. And thus, through the prayer of a Christian Pope, a pagan of the first, was materialized into a Christian in the sixth century, and was, of course, transferred from hell to heaven. Now behold how a modern politician [Arnold] can play theologian in Christianizing Abraham Lincoln.
"There is now hope for Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, as well as the chieftains, Red Jacket, Tecumseh, and Black Hawk."
Respecting Lincoln's message to his dying father, Mr. Poole, himself a firm believer in the doctrine of immortality, says: "This prophetic affirmation of a continued existence, is the only written evidence of his views on this momentous question that can be found."
In addition to the above, I cull from the same work the following brief extracts:
"He lived in a remarkably formative and progressive period, and was in all matters fully abreast with his time. As a truthful thinker, he greatly excelled any of the statesmen of his day."
"Lincoln, like Socrates, was a man so natural, so thoughtful, rational, and sagacious, that he clearly saw that the popular traditional theology of his day and age was not religion."
A CITIZEN OF SPRINGFIELD.
A gentleman residing in Springfield, Ill., who was intimately acquainted with Lincoln from the time he located in that city up to the time he removed to Washington, a period of nearly twenty-five years, in a letter dated Aug. 20, 1887, writes as follows: "I will say in regard to Mr. Lincoln's religious views that he was not orthodox in his belief, unless he changed after he left Springfield. He was heterodox—did not believe in the divinity of Christ—in short, was a Freethinker. Now I do not want to be brought into public notice in this matter."
In deference to this writer's request his name is omitted, and this omission destroys, to a great extent, the value of his testimony. It is inserted not because it adds any particular weight to the evidence already adduced, but as a specimen of a very large amount of evidence of the same character that must be withheld simply because the persons writing or interviewed shrink from publicity. A chapter, yes, a volume, of this anonymous testimony might be given. At least a hundred personal friends of Lincoln, living in and about Springfield, privately and confidentially assert that he was an Infidel, but will not permit their names to be used. Twenty years ago a majority of them would not have objected to their statements being published: but the relentless war waged by the church against those who have publicly certified to the facts has sealed their lips.
HENRY WALKER.
I now present to the reader another citizen of Springfield, one who is not afraid to publicly express an honest opinion. Mr. Henry Walker, who has resided in that city for many years, writes as follows concerning Lincoln's religious belief: "After inquiring of those who were intimate and familiar with him, I arrive at the conclusion that he was a Deist." "There is a rumor current here that he once wrote an anti-Christian pamphlet, but his friends persuaded him not to publish it."
Mr. Walker was not personally acquainted with Lincoln. His conclusion is simply based upon the information obtained from those who were acquainted with him. His statement, like the preceding one, is introduced not so much because of any especial value attaching to it as mere testimony, but because it fairly represents the common sentiment of those who have investigated this subject, and particularly those who are on familiar terms with Lincoln's old associates in Illinois. The knowledge of our anonymous witness was shared by Dr. Smith, Mr. Arnold, and Mr. Edwards; the opinion expressed by Mr. Walker was the opinion privately entertained by Dr. Holland, it is the opinion privately entertained by Mr. Bateman, yes, and unquestionably the opinion privately entertained by Mr. Reed himself.
WILLIAM BISSETT.
An article on Lincoln's religion written by Mr. Wm. Bissett, of Santa Ana, Cal., and recently published in the Truth Seeker, contains some evidence that deserves to be recorded. Mr. Bissett narrates the following: "In the Spring of 1859 we moved into Livingston county, Mo., near Chillicothe. We at once became acquainted with a man by the name of William Jeeter. Mr. Jeeter was a native of Kentucky, and if I mistake not, was born and raised in the same part of the country that Mr. Lincoln was but about that I am not sure. Mr. Jeeter told me that Lincoln and himself settled in Illinois when they were young men, and boarded together for a number of years. He says he knew every act of Lincoln's life up to the time he (Jeeter) left Illinois, a few years before Mr. Lincoln's nomination for the Presidency. I was helping Jeeter build a house for himself when we received the news of Mr. Lincoln's nomination; that is why we came to speak so particularly about him.
"Mr. Jeeter told me that Mr. Lincoln was not a believer in the Christian religion; that is, he did not believe the Bible was an inspired work, nor that Jesus Christ was the son of God. 'Nevertheless,' said Mr. Jeeter,' he was one of the most honest men I ever knew. If I had a million dollars I wouldn't be afraid to trust it to Lincoln without the scratch of a pen, I know the man so well.' Mr. Jeeter was a strong believer in the Christian religion and a mem-bier of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, and a very fine and reliable man."
FREDERICK HEATH.
The following is from an article on Lincoln by Mr. Frederick Heath, of Milwaukee, Wis.:
"Two years ago I was associated with Major Geo. H. Norris, a wealthy orange-grower of Florida, in that state, and was in a degree his confidant. In earlier years, while a lawyer in Illinois, Major Norris (he was at one time mayor of Ottawa, Ill.) was quite closely associated with Mr. Lincoln, and he gave me to understand that Mr. Lincoln was an extreme skeptic. They were thrown together a good deal at Springfield, where they were trying cases before the supreme court. Lincoln would frequently keep them from sleep by his stories and arguments, and frequently spoke of religious matters in a way that showed he was convinced of the delusion of faith. I wish I could quote the Major's words as to Lincoln's remarks on religion, but will not venture to frame them, as this is a subject that demands truth and exactness."
REV. EDWARD EGGLESTON.
When Lincoln went to New York in the winter of 1860, to deliver his Cooper Institute address, he had occasion to remain over Sunday in that city. At the suggestion of a friend, he visited the famous Five Points, and attended a Sunday-school where the spawn of New York's worst inhabitants to the number of several hundred were assembled. Importuned for a speech, he made a few remarks to the children, and the fact was published in the papers. The idea of this Infidel politician addressing a Sunday-school was so ludicrous that it caused much merriment among his friends at Springfield. When he returned home one of them, probably Colonel Matheny, called on him to learn what it all meant. The conversation that followed, including Lincoln's explanation of the affair, is thus related by the noted preacher and author, Edward Eggleston: "He started for 'Old Abe's' office; but bursting open the door impulsively, found a stranger in conversation with Mr. Lincoln. He turned to retrace his steps, when Lincoln called out, 'Jim! What do you want?' 'Nothing.' 'Yes, you do; come back.'
"After some entreaty Jim approached Mr. Lincoln, and remarked, with a twinkle in his eye, 'Well, Abe, I see you have been making a speech to Sunday-school children. What's the matter?' 'Sit down, Jim, and I'll tell you all about it.' And with that Lincoln put his feet on the stove and began: 'When Sunday morning came, I didn't know exactly what to do. Washburne asked me where I was going. I told him I had nowhere to go; and he proposed to take me down to the Five Points Sunday-school, to show me something worth seeing. I was very much interested by what I saw. Presently, Mr. Pease came up and spoke to Mr. Washburne, who introduced me. Mr. Pease wanted us to speak. Washburne spoke, and then I was urged to speak. I told them I did not know anything about talking to Sunday-schools, but Mr. Pease said many of the children were friendless and homeless, and that a few words would do them good. Washburne said I must talk. And so I rose to speak; but I tell you, Jim, I didn't know what to say. I remembered that Mr. Pease said that they were homeless and friendless, and I thought of the time when I had been pinched by terrible poverty. And so I told them that I had been poor; that I remembered when my toes stuck out through my broken shoes in winter; when my arms were out at the elbows; when I shivered with the cold. And I told them there was only one rule.
"That was, always do the very best you can. I told them that I had always tried to do the very best I could; and that, if they would follow that rule, they would get along somehow. That was about what I said'" (Every-Day Life of Lincoln, pp. 322, 323).
The foregoing is significant. Lincoln was not an advocate of Sunday-schools. He had probably never visited one before. As generally conducted, he regarded them as simply nurseries of superstition. He could not indorse the religious ideas taught in them, and he was not there that day to antagonize them. As a consequence, this ready talker—this man who had been making speeches all his life—was, for the first time, at a loss to know what to say. He could not talk to them about the Bible—he could not tell them that "it is the best gift which God has given to man"—that "all the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book"—that "but for this book we could not know right from wrong"—he could not tell them how Jesus had died for little children, and all this, because he did not believe it. But he obeyed his own life-long rule, did the best he could under the embarrassing circumstances, and gave them a little wholesome advice entirely free from the usual Sunday-school cant.
REV. ROBERT COLLYER.
Robert Collyer states that Lincoln, just before he was elected President, visited the office of the Chicago Tribune, and picking up a volume of Theodore Parker's writings, turned to Dr. Ray and remarked: "I think that I stand about where that man stands."
ALLEN THORNDIKE RICE.
The lamented Allen Thorndike Rice, whose brilliant editorial management of the North American Review has placed this periodical in the front rank of American magazines, in his Introduction to the "Reminiscences of Lincoln," says: "The Western settlers had no respect for English traditions, whether of Church or of State. Accustomed all their lives to grapple with nature face to face, they thought and they spoke, with all the boldness of unrestrained sincerity, on every topic of human interest or of sacred memory, without the slightest recognition of any right of external authority to impose restrictions, or even to be heard in protest against their intellectual independence. As their life developed the utmost independence of creed and individuality, he whose originality was the most fearless and self-contained was chief among them. Among such a people, blood of their blood and bone of their bone, differing from them only in stature, Abraham Lincoln arose to rule the American people with a more than kingly power, and received from them a more than feudal loyalty."
So eager is the church for proofs of Lincoln's piety that the most incredible anonymous story in support of this claim is readily accepted and published by the religious press as authentic history. By this means the masses have gradually come to regard Lincoln as a devout Christian. It is evident that Mr. Rice had these fabulous tales in mind when he wrote the following: "Story after story and trait after trait, as varying in value as in authenticity, has been added to the Lincolniana, until at last the name of the great war President has come to be a biographic lodestone, attracting without distinction or discrimination both the true and the false."
ROBERT C. ADAMS.
The noted author, Capt. Robert C. Adams, of Montreal, Can., says: "It is significant that in political revolution it is the Freethinker who is usually the leader. Franklin, Paine, Jefferson, Washington, were the chief founders of the American Republic, and Lincoln presided at its second birth Mazzini and Garibaldi are the heroes of United Italy; Rousseau, Voltaire, and Victor Hugo have been the chief inspirers of Democratic France "(New Ideal).
THEODORE STANTON
In the Westminster Review for September, 1891, Mr. Stanton had an article discussing the moral character and religious belief of Abraham Lincoln. Of his religious belief, he says: "If Lincoln had lived and died an obscure Springfield lawyer and politician he would unquestionably have been classed by his neighbors among Freethinkers. But, as is customary with the church, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, when Lincoln became one of the great of the world an attempt was made to claim him. In trying to arrive at a correct comprehension of Lincoln's theology this fact should be borne in mind in sifting the testimony.
"Another very important warping influence which should not be lost sight of was Lincoln's early ambition for political preferment. Now, the shrewd American politician with an elastic conscience joins some church, and is always seen on Sunday in the front pews. But the shrewd politician who has not an elastic conscience—and this was Lincoln's case—simply keeps mum on his religious views, or, when he must touch on the subject, deals only in platitudes."
After citing the testimony of many of Lincoln's friends, Mr. Stanton concludes: "A man about whose theology such things can be said is of course far removed from orthodoxy. It may even be questioned whether he is a Theist, whether he is a Deist. That he is a Freethinker is evident; that he is an Agnostic is probable."
GEO. M. CRIE.
In the Open Court for Nov. 26, 1891, Mr. McCrie contributes an article on "What Was Abraham Lincoln's Creed?" Concerning Lincoln's allusions to God, he says: "A Deity thus shelved or not shelved, according to the dictates of political expediency, or of individual opinion as to the 'propriety' of either course is no Deity at all. He is as fictional as the 'John Doe' or 'Richard Roe' of a legal writ, and anyone making use of such a creation—the puppet, not the parent, of his own Egoity—is supposed to know with what he is dealing. Orthodox religionism may well despair of Abraham Lincoln as of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, or President Jefferson."
GEN. M. M. TRUMBULL
Gen. Trumbull, of Chicago, in the Open Court of Dec. 3,1891, writes: "The religion that begs the patronage of presidents doubts its own theology, for the true God needs not the favor of men.... Some of his [Lincoln's] tributes to Deity are merely rhetorical emphasis, but others were not. Cicero often swore 'By Hercules,' as in the oration against Catiline, although he believed no more in Hercules than Abraham Lincoln believed in any church-made God."
REV. DAVID SWING, D.D.
In a sermon on "Washington and Lincoln," the most eminent and popular divine of Chicago, Dr. Swing, said:
"It is often lamented by the churchmen that Washington and Lincoln possessed little religion except that found in the word 'God.' All that can here be affirmed is that what the religion of those two men lacked in theological details it made up in greatness. Their minds were born with a love of great principles.... There are few instances in which a mind great enough to reach great principles in politics has been satisfied with a fanatical religion.... It must not be asked for Washington and Lincoln that, having reached greatness in political principles, they should have loved littleness in piety."
REV. JENKIN LLOYD JONES.
The Rev. J. Lloyd Jones, one of Chicago's most eloquent divines, in a sermon preached in All Souls Church, Dec. 9, 1888, gave utterance to the following:
"Are there not thousands who have loved virtue who did not accept Jesus Christ in any supernatural or miraculous fashion, who if they knew of him at all knew of him only as the Nazarine peasant—the man Jesus? Such was Abraham Lincoln, the tender prophet of the gospel of good will upon earth; Charles Sumner, the great apostle of human liberty; Gerrit Smith, the St. John of political reform; William Ellery Channing, our sainted preacher; Theodore Parker, the American Luther, hurling his defiance at the devils of bigotry; John Stuart Mill and Harriet Martineau—yes, to take an extreme case, the genial and over-satirical Robert G. Ingersoll, are among those who love goodness and foster nobility, though they have no clear vision into futurity and confess no other lordship in him of Nazareth save the dignity of aim and tenderness of life."
REV. JOHN W. CHADWICK.
In an address delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston, May 30, 1872, the Rev. John W. Chadwick, of Brooklyn, N. Y., referring to the proposed religious amendment to the Constitution of the United States, said: "Of the six men who have done most to make America the wonder and the joy she is to all of us, not one could be the citizen of a government so constituted; for Washington and Franklin and Jefferson, certainly the three mightiest leaders in our early history, were heretics in their day, Deists, as men called them; and Garrison and Lincoln and Sumner, certainly the three mightiest in these later times, would all be disfranchised by the proposed amendment.
"Lincoln could not have taken the oath of office had such a clause been in the Constitution."
CHAPTER XIV. EVIDENCE GATHERED FROM LINCOLN'S LETTERS SPEECHES, AND CONVERSATIONS
The Bible and Christianity—Christ's Divinity—Future
Rewards and Punishments—Freedom of Mind—Fatalism—
Providence—Lines in Copy-book—Parker—Paine—Opposition of
Church—Clerical Officious-ness Rebuked—Irreverent Jokes—
Profanity—Temperance Reform—Indorsement of Lord
Bolingbroke's Writings—Golden Rule.
The testimony of one hundred witnesses will now be supplemented by evidence from the tongue and pen of Lincoln himself. The greater portion of what he wrote and uttered against Christianity has perished; but enough has been preserved to demonstrate, even in the absence of other evidence, that he was not a Christian. From his letters, speeches, and recorded conversations, the following radical sentiments have been extracted.
Notwithstanding the efforts of Holland and Bate-man to prove that Lincoln was a believer in Christianity, it is admitted that in his conversation with Bateman, he said:
"I am not a Christian" (Holland's Life of Lincoln, pp. 236, 237).
When his Christian friends at Petersburg interfered to prevent his proposed duel with Shields, and told him that it was contrary to the teachings of the Bible and Christianity, he remarked:
"The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my profession" (Letter of W. Perkins). While at Washington, in a letter to his old friend, Judge Wakefield, written in 1862, in answer to inquiries respecting his belief and the expressed hope that he had become convinced of the truth of Christianity, he replied as follows:
"My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the Scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them."
In a discussion touching upon the paternity of Jesus, he said:
"There must have been sexual intercourse between man and woman, and not between God and his daughter."
The above words were uttered in the presence of Mr. Green Caruthers and Mr. W. A. Browning, of Springfield.
Lincoln contended that Jesus was either the son of Joseph and Mary, or the illegitimate son of Mary.
In a conversation with his friend, Mr. E. H.
Wood, of Springfield, concerning the doctrine of endless punishment, he said:
"There is no hell."
In regard to this subject, he often observed: "If God be a just God, all will be saved or none" (Manford's Magazine).
The orthodox idea of God—a God that creates poor, fallible beings, and then forever damns them for failing to believe what it is impossible for them to believe—he abhorred. The Golden Rule was his moral standard, and by this standard he measured not only the conduct of man, but of God himself. Like the irrepressible Dr. T. L. Brown, he wanted God to "damn others as he would be damned himself." He delighted to repeat the epitaph of the old Kickapoo Indian, Johnnie Kongapod:
"Here lies poor Johnnie Kongapod;
Have mercy on him, gracious God,
As he would do if he were God
And you were Johnnie Kongapod."
Lincoln thought that God ought at least to be as merciful as a respectable savage.
Many contend that the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, even if untrue, has a restraining influence upon the masses of mankind. That Lincoln did not share this fallacious opinion, is shown by the following extract from an address delivered in Springfield in 1842: "Pleasures to be enjoyed, or pains to be endured, after we shall be dead and gone, are but little regarded.... There is something so ludicrous, in promises of good, or threats of evil, a great way off, as to render the whole subject with which they are connected, easily turned into ridicule. 'Better lay down that spade you're stealing, Paddy—if you don't, you'll pay for it at the Day of Judgment.' 'Be the powers, if ye'll credit me so long I'll take another'" (Lincoln Memorial Album, p. 91).
Commenting upon the question of one's returning and communicating with his friends after death, he observed: "It is a doubtful question whether we ever get anywhere to get back" (Statement of E. H. Wood).
He did not believe in the freedom of the will. An observation which he repeatedly made was the following:
"No man has a freedom of mind" (Testimony of W. H. Herndon).
His fatalistic notions are confirmed by his own words: "I have all my life been a fatalist. What is to be will be; or, rather, I have found all my life, as Hamlet says:
'There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.'"
(Every-Day Life of Lincoln, p. 198).
The following was a favorite maxim with him:
"What is to be will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree" (Statement of Mrs. Lincoln).
In a speech on Kansas, delivered in 1856, he used the following words in regard to Providence: "Friends, I agree with you in Providence; but I believe in the Providence of the most men, the largest purse, and the longest cannon" (Lincoln's Speeches, p. 140).
The writer has in his possession, among others of Lincoln's papers, a leaf from his copybook, tattered and yellow from age, on which, seventy years ago, Lincoln, a school-boy of fourteen, wrote the following characteristic lines:
"Abraham Lincoln, his hand and pen;
He will be good, but God knows when."
If by good he meant pious, the prophecy was never fulfilled.
But a short time before he was elected President, he said to Dr. Ray: "I think that I stand about where that man [Theodore Parker] stands" (Statement of Rev. Eobert Collyer).
The author whose writings exerted the greatest influence upon Lincoln's mind, in a theological way, was Thomas Paine. Ah! that potential "Age of Reason!" Criticise it as you may, no one ever yet carefully perused its pages and then honestly affirmed that the Bible is the infallible word of God. Hern-don and others declare that Paine was a part of Lincoln from 1834 till his death. To a friend he said:
"I never tire of reading Paine" (Statement of James Tuttle).
In the later years of his life, when the subject of religion was mentioned, with a knowing smile, he was wont to remark:
"It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to Infidelity" (Manford's Magazine).
It has been stated that Lincoln was opposed in his political campaigns on account of his disbelief. This is confirmed by a letter he wrote to Martin M. Morris, of Petersburg, Ill., March 26,1843. In this letter, he says:
"There was, too, the strangest combination of church influence against me. Baker is a Campbellite; and therefore, as I suppose, with few exceptions, got all that church. My wife has some relatives in the Presbyterian churches, and some with the Episcopal churches; and therefore, wherever it would tell, I was set down as either the one or the other, while it was everywhere contended that no Christian ought to go for me, because I belonged to no church—was suspected of being a Deist.... Those influences levied a tax of a considerable per cent upon my strength throughout the religious controversy" (Lamon's Life of Lincoln, p. 271).
He never changed his opinions, and the church never ceased to oppose him. In the Bateman interview, seventeen years later, he was compelled to note its relentless intolerance:
"Here are twenty-three ministers of different denominations, and all of them are against me but three; and here are a great many prominent members of the churches, a very large majority of whom are against me" (Holland's Life of Lincoln, p. 236).
For thirty years the church endeavored to crush Lincoln, but when, in spite of her malignant opposition, he achieved a glorious immortality, this same church, to hide the mediocrity of her devotees, attempts to steal his deathless name.
In a speech delivered in Springfield, in 1857, alluding to the negro, he said: "All the powers of the earth seem rapidly combining against him. Mammon is after him,... and the theology of the day is fast joining in the cry" (Lincoln Memorial Album, p. 100).
The theology of the day was orthodox Christianity. "In this sentence," says Mr. Herndon, "he intended to hit Christianity a left-handed blow, and a hard one."
In his Second Inaugural address, referring to the contending Christian elements in the civil war, he says: "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other."
What a commentary upon the hypocritical assumption that Christians possess an infallible moral standard, is contained in the above words!
The "Lincoln Memorial Album" pretends to give the Second Inaugural complete, but omits the words quoted. As this address comes almost immediately after his reputed speech to the "Illinois clergyman," the editor probably noticed a lack of harmony between the two, and thought that the retention of these heretical words would cast suspicion upon the genuineness of that remarkable confession. The "Memorial Album" is a meritorious work, but had Mr. Oldroyd manifested as great a desire to present the genuine utterances of Lincoln as the apocryphal, its value would have been enhanced. The unmutilated version of the last Inaugural may be found in Holland's "Life of Lincoln," pp. 503, 504; Arnold's "Life of Lincoln," pp. 403, 404; Arnold's "Lincoln and Slavery," pp. 625-627; and "The Every-Day Life of Lincoln," pp. 681, 682.
No President, probably, was ever so much annoyed by the clergy as Lincoln. The war produced an increased religious fervor, and theological tramps innumerable, usually labeled "D. D.," visited the White House, each with a mission to perform and a precious morsel of advice to offer. In the following caustic words, he expresses his contempt for their officiousness: "I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and by religious men who are certain they represent the Divine will.... I hope it will not be irreverent in me to say, that if it be probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me" (Religious Convictions of Abraham Lincoln).
Equally pertinent, and, indeed, similar was his language to a pious lady, a Friend, who came as God's agent to instruct him what to do: "I have neither time nor disposition to enter into discussion with the Friend, and end this occasion by suggesting for her consideration the question, whether, if it be true that the Lord has appointed me [she claimed that he had] to do the works she has indicated, it is [(is it) PG Ed.] not probable that he would have communicated knowledge of the fact to me as well as to her?" (Every-Day Life of Lincoln, pp. 536, 537).
He steadily prohibited his generals from meddling with the religious affairs of those residing within the limits of their respective departments, and at the same time counseled them not to permit the pretended sanctity of the church to shield offenders from justice.
In a letter to General Curtis, censuring the provost marshal of St. Louis for interfering with church matters, he writes: "The United States Government must not undertake to run the churches. When an individual in a church, or out of it, becomes dangerous to the public interest he must be checked" (Nicolay and Hay's Life of Lincoln).
In an order relating to a church in Memphis, issued May 13, 1864, he said: "If there be no military need for the building, leave it alone, neither putting any one in or out of it, except on finding some one preaching or practicing treason, in which case lay hands upon him, just as if he were doing the same thing in any other building" (Ibid).
During the war his attention was called to the notoriously bad character of army chaplains. He expressed his contempt for them, and for orthodox preachers generally, by relating the following story: "Once, in Springfield, I was going off on a short journey, and reached the depot a little ahead of time. Leaning against the fence just outside the depot was a little darky boy, whom I knew, named Dick, busily digging with his toe in a mud-puddle. As I came up, I said, 'Dick, what are you about? 'Making a church,' said he. 'A church?' said I; 'what do you mean?' 'Why, yes,' said Dick, pointing with his toe, 'don't you see? there is the shape of it; there's the steps and front door—here's the pews, where the folks set—and there's the pulpit.' 'Yes, I see,' said I, 'but why don't you make a minister?' 'Laws,' answered Dick, with a grin, 'I hain't got mud enough'" (Anecdotes of Lincoln, p. 86).
The most highly aristocratic church in Washington is St John's Episcopal church. So very aristocratic is it that applicants for membership deem it necessary to give references respecting their social standing in the community. The New York Star relates the following joke which Lincoln once perpetrated at the expense of this church: "One day during the war a young officer called on him to secure an appointment in the army, and brought with him letters of recommendation signed by the F. E. V.'s in the District of Columbia. There had been no application for office before President Lincoln so strongly supported by the aristocracy, and, turning to the young man, he said he would give him the appointment and handed him back the papers. 'Don't you want to place the papers on file?' asked the office-seeker. 'I supposed that was the custom.' 'Yes, that is the custom,' said President Lincoln, 'but you had better take them with you, as you might want to join St. John's church.'"
Did Lincoln ever use profane language? If he did, this fact will afford no evidence to Freethinkers that he was a disbeliever in Christianity. Freethinkers are as free from this vice, if vice it be, as Christians. Very pious persons, however, such as Lincoln is represented to have been by his Christian biographers, are very careful about their use of profane words. Christ commanded his followers to pray in private, and bade them swear not at all. Devout Christians usually pray in public and swear in private. Lincoln was but little addicted to profanity, but if he had occasion to use a word of this character he did not go to his closet to use it. In a business letter to a friend, he said:
"A d———d hawk-billed Yankee is here besetting me at every turn" (Lamon's Life of Lincoln, p. 316).
In a letter to Speed, concerning an alleged murder case, he wrote:
"Hart, the little drayman that hauled Molly home once, said it was too damned bad to have so much trouble and no hanging" (Ibid, p. 321).
For the sake of pleasing the "fools," he attached his signature to "the pious nonsense of Seward," With equal readiness he indorsed the profane nonsense (?) of Stanton. During the war the patriotic Lovejoy had devised a military scheme which he believed would prove beneficial to the Union cause, and obtained an order from the President for its execution. He took the order to Stanton, but all that ever resulted from it was the following spirited colloquy:
"'Did Lincoln give you an order of that kind?' said Stanton. 'He did, sir.' 'Then he is a d———d fool,' said the irate Secretary. 'Do you mean to say the President is a d———d fool?' asked Lovejoy, in amazement. 'Yes, sir, if he gave you such an order as that.' The bewildered Illinoisan betook himself at once to the President, and related the result of his conference. "Did Stanton say I was a d———d fool?' asked Lincoln at the close of the recital. 'He did, sir, and repeated it.' After a moment's pause, and looking up, the President said:
'If Stanton said I was a d———d fool, then I must be one, for he is nearly always right, and generally says what he means'" (Every-Day Life of Lincoln, pp. 483, 484).
At a Cabinet meeting, in 1863, when a conflict between the President and Congress regarding the admission of certain representatives from loyal districts of the South, which he favored, was threatened, he turned to Secretary Chase, and exclaimed: "There it is, sir. I am to be bullied by Congress, am I? If I do I'll be d———d!"
When Lincoln visited New Orleans he attended a slave sale. A beautiful girl, almost white, was placed upon the auction block and exposed to the grossest indignities. As he turned to leave, boiling with indignation, he exclaimed:
"By God, if I ever get a chance to hit that institution, I will hit it hard" (Arnold's Life of Lincoln, Note).
Thirty years later the chance came. He struck the blow—a mortal one.
The following is a prayer which Lincoln, while at the White House, put into the mouth of a belated traveler who was caught in a violent thunderstorm:
"O Lord, if it is all the same to you, give us a little more light and a little less noise!" (Six Months at the White House, p. 49).
Is it possible that a Christian and a Calvinist would repeat such an irreverent, not to say blasphemous, supplication? According to the Brooklyn Calvinist, God visits such supplicants with paralysis and petrifaction.
Like most Freethinkers, Lincoln was a genuine reformer. The Antislavery reform was not the only reform that enlisted his support. At an early day he espoused the Temperance cause. When the church was the ally of intemperance as it was of slavery—when, to use his own words, "From the sideboard of the parson down to the ragged pocket of the houseless loafer intoxicating liquor was constantly found," he was laboring and lecturing in behalf of the Washingtonian movement. With the fervor of an enthusiast, he exclaims in true Free-thought language: "Happy day, when, all appetites controlled, all passions subdued, all matter subjugated, mind, all-conquering mind, shall live and move, the monarch of the world! Glorious consummation! Hail, fall of fury! Reign of Reason, all hail!" (Lincoln Memorial Album, p. 96).
To sumptuary laws and to the denunciatory methods so common among orthodox Christians to-day, he was, however, strenuously opposed. He says: "It is not much in the nature of man to be driven to anything; still less to be driven about that which is exclusively his own business" (Ibid, p. 86).
"When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted" (lb., p. 87).
His nephew, Mr. Hall, informed me that Lincoln once made it cost a meddlesome clergyman, of Coles County, eighty dollars for seizing and destroying a quart of whisky, valued at twelve and a half cents, and belonging to a relative of theirs.
In this chapter I wish to present some radical thoughts, not from the pen of Lincoln himself, but which in the work from which they are taken bear unmistakable signs of his approval. Mr. D. W. C. Shattuck, an old and respected merchant of Way-land, Mich., has in his possession a book which belonged to Lincoln. Its history is as follows: Shortly after Lincoln's election to the Presidency a young man from Springfield, Ill., and a relative or intimate acquaintance of Lincoln's, came to board with Mr. Shattuck, who then resided in Kalamazoo. Looking over the contents of his trunk one day the young man picked up a book and at the same time remarked: "That book belongs to Abe Lincoln. I forgot to return it to him before leaving Springfield. It is his favorite book, and I must not fail to return it." Mr. Shattuck expressing a desire to peruse the work, it was handed to him, and the young man being soon after unexpectedly called away, it was forgotten. It proved to be a volume of the writings of Lord Bolingbroke, the great English Infidel. On a fly-leaf was the signature of Abraham Lincoln. In the work certain passages which seem to have especially impressed Lincoln are marked with a pencil and in a manner peculiar to him. The following are the passages he marked, which I have copied from the book, and which evidently received his unqualified indorsement:
"Abbadie says in his famous book, that the Gospel of St. Matthew is cited by Clemens Bishop of Borne, a disciple of the Apostles; that Barnabas cites it in his epistle; that Ignatius and Polycarp receive it; and that the same Fathers, that give testimony for Matthew, give it likewise for Mark. Nay, your lordship will find, I believe, that the present Bishop of London, in his third pastoral letter, speaks to the same effect. I will not trouble you nor myself with any more instances of the same kind. Let this, which occurred to me as I was writing, suffice. It may well suffice; for I presume the fact advanced by the minister and the Bishop is a mistake. If the Fathers of the First Century do mention some passages that are agreeable to what we read in our Evangelists, will it follow that these Fathers had the same gospels before them? To say so is a manifest abuse of history, and quite inexcusable in writers that knew, or should have known, that these Fathers made use of other gospels, wherein such passages might be contained, or they might be preserved in unwritten tradition. Besides which I could almost venture to affirm that these Fathers of the First Century do not expressly name the gospels we have of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John." "Writers of the Roman religion have attempted to show, that the text of the Holy Writ is on many accounts insufficient to be the sole criterion of orthodoxy; I apprehend too that they have shown it. Sure I am that experience, from the first promulgation of Christianity to this hour, shows abundantly with how much ease and success the most opposite, the most extravagant, nay the most impious opinions, and the most contradictory faiths, may be founded on the same text; and plausibly defended by the same authority. Writers of the Reformed religion have erected their batteries against tradition; and the only difficulty they had to encounter in this enterprise lay in leveling and pointing their cannon so as to avoid demolishing, in one common ruin, the traditions they retain, and those they reject. Each side has been employed to weaken the cause and explode the system of his adversary; and, whilst they have been so employed, they have jointly laid their axes to the root of Christianity; for thus men will be apt to reason upon what they have advanced. 'If the text has not that authenticity, clearness, and precision which are necessary to establish it as a divine and a certain rule of faith and practice; and if the tradition of the church from the first ages of it till the days of Luther and Calvin, has been corrupted itself, and has served to corrupt the faith and practice of Christians; there remains at this time no standard at all of Christianity. By consequence either this religion was not originally of divine institution, or else God has not provided effectually for preserving the genuine purity of it, and the gates of hell have prevailed, in contradiction to his promise, against the church.'" "I have read somewhere, perhaps in the works of St. Jerome, that this Father justifies the opinion of those who think it impossible to fix any certain chronology on that of the Bible; and this opinion will be justified still better, to the understanding of every man that considers how grossly the Jews blunder whenever they meddle with chronology." "The resurrection of letters was a fatal period; the Christian system has been attacked, and wounded too, very severely since that time."
When interrogated as to why he had never united with any church, Lincoln replied: "When you show me a church based on the Golden Rule as its only creed, then I will unite with it."
He never joined a church, because of all the Christian sects, not one could show such a creed. The Golden Rule—conceding to others the same rights he claimed for himself—was, however, the very cornerstone of Freethought, and hence he remained a Freethinker.