The Lincoln Story Book / A Judicious Collection of the Best Stories and Anecdotes of the Great President, Many Appearing Here for the First Time in Book Form

by Unknown

RIGHTING WRONG HURTS, BUT DOES GOOD.

In May, 1861, all looked with anxiety to the letter by which the United States of America should reply to Great Britain furnishing the Confederated States with its first encouragement, the rights of belligerents. Without them their privateers were useless, as they could have gone into no ports and sold their prizes nowhere. Mr. Seward was in touch with the New England school. It clamored for war with any friend to the revolting States. But Lincoln corrected what was provocative in the original advice to our minister, Adams, at St. James'. The English were no longer held to have issued a proclamation without due grounds in usage or the law of nations. It became by the modification no more a proceeding about which we could warrantably go to war. For instance, the President changed the words "wrongful" into "hurtful." According to Webster, wrongful means unjust, injurious, dishonest; while hurtful implies that the course will cause injury. The original has vanished in that odd but certain way in which state documents disappear when casting odium on public men; they are mayhap "filed away"--in the stove!