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

STEEL AND STEAL.

President Lincoln asked a friend, a senator, immediately on his taking office, upon an embarrassed condition of affairs:

"Have you seen that prophecy about my administration in the papers? A prophet foretells that my rule will be one of steel! To which the wags retort: 'Well, Buchanan's was one of steal.'"

The Georgian slave-holder, late secretary of the treasury, was accused of "diverting" some millions to the South, as that for the war office similarly "diverted" ordnance and munitions to the same quarter; the head of the navy, with what "looked" like collusion, had scattered the war-vessels so as to be long delayed in concentrating.