To say that Mr. Lincoln was a man who had the courage of his convictions would be rather an under-statement. This was part and parcel of his sense of justice. He wore it as he wore his clothes, except that it fitted him much better than his garments usually did. At the time I first knew him it was irksome to very many of his friends to be told that there ought to be an efficient fugitive slave law. But it was his conviction as a lawyer that there ought to be one, and he never failed to say so when interrogated, or when occasion required that that subject should be touched upon. And it is a fact that abolitionists like Lovejoy and Codding would take this from Lincoln without murmuring, when they would not take it from anybody else. He never would echo the popular cry, "No more slave States!" Whenever this subject was discussed he would say that if a Territory having the requisite population and belonging to us should apply for admission to the Union without fraud or constraint, yet with slavery, he could not see any other disposition to be made of her than to admit her. And when he had said this, even to an audience of radical antislavery men, there would be no protestations. Those who were not convinced would observe a respectful silence.
Mr. Lincoln's facial expression when in repose and when animated presented most remarkable contrasts. I have before me a photograph of him taken at Pittsfield, Illinois, during the campaign of 1858. It looks as I have seen him a hundred times, his lantern jaws and large mouth and solid nose firmly set, his sunken eyes looking at nothing yet not unexpressive, his wrinkled and retreating forehead cut off by a mass of tousled hair, with a shade of melancholy drawn like a veil over his whole face. Nothing more unlike this can be imagined than the same Lincoln when taking part in a conversation, or addressing an audience, or telling a story. The dull, listless features dropped like a mask. The melancholy shadow disappeared in a twinkling. The eye began to sparkle, the mouth to smile, the whole countenance was wreathed with animation, so that a stranger would have said: "Why, this man, so angular and somber a moment ago, is really handsome."
What more can be said of the qualities that first made Mr. Lincoln attractive to his contemporaries? These were debating power, honesty of purpose, a child-like temper, purity of life, and courage of conviction. All these traits will be seen in the following pages, rising, unfolding, expanding in a regular, orderly, human way as the young Lincoln grew to mature years.
What Mr. Lincoln was after he became President can be best understood by knowing what he was before. The world owes more to William H. Herndon for this particular knowledge than to all other persons taken together. It is no exaggeration to say that his death, which took place at his farm near Springfield, Illinois, March 18, 1891, removed from earth the person who, of all others, had most thoroughly searched the sources of Mr. Lincoln's biography and had most attentively, intelligently, and also lovingly studied his character. He was generous in imparting his information to others. Almost every life of Lincoln published since the tragedy at Ford's Theatre has been enriched by his labors. He was nine years the junior of Mr. Lincoln. Their partnership began in 1843, and it continued until it was dissolved by the death of the senior member. Between them there was never an unkind word or thought. When Mr. Lincoln became President, Mr. Herndon could have had his fortunes materially advanced under the new Administration by saying a word. He was a poor man then and always, but he chose to remain in his more humble station and to earn his bread by his daily labor.
Some six years ago Mr. Herndon conceived the project of writing a series of magazine articles intended to portray the youth and early manhood of Lincoln. Being somewhat infirm, he called Mr. Weik to his assistance, as he has explained in his preface. The magazine articles expanded insensibly to the present volumes. Lincolniana is increasing and is destined to increase. It has been enriched within recent years by the indispensable but too massive work of Nicolay and Hay, by the masterly essay of Schurz, and by the posthumous lecture of Greeley, which latter, being in reality if not in terms a hearty, ungrudging confession that he had underestimated Lincoln in his lifetime, is doubly welcome. As a portraiture of the man Lincoln—and this is what we look for above all things in a biography—I venture to think that Mr. Herndon's work will never be surpassed.
Horace White.
New York, February, 1892.