“Next morning I sat in the ante-room while several officers were relieved. At length I was told to enter the President’s room. Mr. Lincoln was in the hands of the barber.
“‘Come in, Palmer,’ he called out, ‘come in. You’re home folks. I can shave before you. I couldn’t before those others, and I have to do it some time.’
“We chatted about various matters, and at length I said:
“‘Well, Mr. Lincoln, if anybody had told me that in a great crisis like this the people were going out to a little one-horse town and pick out a one-horse lawyer for President I wouldn’t have believed it.’
“Mr. Lincoln whirled about in his chair, his face white with lather, a towel under his chin. At first I thought he was angry. Sweeping the barber away he leaned forward, and placing one hand on my knee said:
“‘Neither would I. But it was a time when a man with a policy would have been fatal to the country. I have never had a policy. I have simply tried to do what seemed best each day, as each day came.’
“Lincoln was not an eloquent man. He was a strong lawyer, and an ingenious one. His stronghold was his ability to reason logically and clearly. He was a very self-contained man, and not easily excited. I remember the night when the news of his election was received at Springfield. The patriotic ladies of the town were serving a lunch in an upper room opposite the capitol. Mr. Lincoln was there, and read the returns as they were brought to him. The returns from New York decided the day. Mr. Lincoln stood up and read the telegram. He was the calmest man in the room. When he had finished he said, simply, ‘Well I must go and tell my wife.’”
HIS FAMOUS SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
Lincoln was an orator as well as a statesman and many of his speeches will go down in history through all time. In his second inaugural address he made use of the following striking expressions: