Once, when Charles Sumner called upon him, he found Lincoln blacking his boots.
“Why, Mr. President,” he exclaimed, “do you black your own boots?”
With a vigorous rub of the brush, the President replied,
“Whose boots did you think I blacked?”
The way Lincoln answered unjustified people is illustrated in his response to a delegation asking the appointment of a certain man to be commissioner to the Sandwich Islands. After praising his qualifications for the place, they urged the plea of his bad health.
The President said, “Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that there are eight other applicants for that place, and they are all sicker than your man.”
Lincoln, in the great receptions, often heard flattering remarks that had been made short so as to be delivered quickly. But his apt replies were always equal to the remark. On one occasion, as the handshakers came by, an elderly gentleman from Buffalo said, “Up our way we believe in God and Abraham Lincoln.” To which the President replied as he took the next hand, “My friend, you are more than half right.”
Somewhat similar is a noble reply of Lincoln to some over-zealous religious friends which has become justly famous. A clergyman, heading a delegation with one of the many immature and injudicious appeals, said sadly, “I hope, Mr. Lincoln, that the Lord is on our side.”
“I am not at all troubled about that,” was the instant reply, “for I know that the Lord is always on the side of right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that this nation and I should be on the Lord’s side.”