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

WORRY TILL YOU GET RID OF THINGS.

On Colonel Halpine trying to make the chief see that even indoors there was danger, he debated about the two menaces--violence of "cranks" and of a political fanatic. He thought too well of the sense of the "people at Richmond," some of whom had been colleagues of his in his first stay in Washington as congressman.

"Do you think that they would like to have Hannibal Hamlin--his first vice-president--here any better than myself?"

The story is repeated with his second Vice substituted for the first, with the more justification, as "Andy" Johnson was impeached for his incompetency. Detective Baker put it this way: "As to the crazy folks, I must take my chances. The most crazy people being, I fear, some of my own too zealous adherents."

(He had the same idea as in an ancient Chinese proverb: "You may steal the captain out of his castle, but you cannot steal the castle.")

"I am but a single individual, and it would not help their cause, or make the least difference in the progress of the war." [Footnote: He might have said, as truly as his predecessor, John Tyler, reproached also for going about unguarded: "My body-guard is the people who elected me.">[--(Cited by F. B. Carpenter.)