Why Lincoln Laughed

by Russell H. Conwell

“Cheer up, Abe! Cheer up!” was the hourly advice of the sympathetic pioneers among whom he lived. But the sorrowing stranger was, after all, friendless, and he could not cheer up alone. He was an orphan, homeless; he had no sister, no brother, no wife to soothe, advise, or caress him. The floods of sorrow had swallowed him up and he struggled alone. Few, indeed, are the men or women who have descended so deep and endured to remember it.

Down into the darkness came faint voices saying over and over, “Cheer up, Abe!” If he could muster the courage to do as they said, he would be saved from death or the insane asylum, which is more dreaded than the grave. Nothing but cheer could be of any use.

One dear old saint told him to remember that his sweetheart’s soul was not dead, and that she, undoubtedly, wished him to complete his law studies and to make himself a strong, good man. “For her sake, go on with life and fill the years with good deeds!”

Years afterward he must have thought of that when, in the dark days of General McClelland’s failures, he urged the soldiers to “cheer up and thus become invincible.” Mr. Lincoln, in 1863, when speaking of his regard for the Bible, said that once he read the Bible half through carefully to find a quotation which he saw first in a scrap of newspaper, which declared, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” That must have been done in those sad days when the darkness was still upon him.

How little has the world yet appreciated the important maxim given to those who seek success, “to smile and smile, and smile again.” It is a very practical and a very useful direction. But it may be a hypocritical camouflage when it has no important reflex influence on the man himself.

The same idea was expressed with serious emphasis by Lincoln in 1858, when he urged the teachers of Keokuk, Iowa, to let the children laugh. He said that a hearty, natural laugh would cure many ills of mankind, whether those ills were physical, mental, or moral. The truth and usefulness of that statement it has taken science and religion more than a half century to accept. Now the study of good cheer is one of the major sciences. Some psychologists contend that laughter is one of the greatest aids to digestion and is highly conducive to health; therefore, Hufeland, physician to the King of Prussia, commended the wisdom of the ancients, who maintained a jester who was always present at their meals and whose quips and cranks would keep the table in a roar.

It was an important declaration made by the humorous “Bob” Burdette, when he said that an old physician of Bellevue Hospital had assured him that a cheerful priest who visited the hospital daily “had cured more patients by his laughter than had any physician with his prescriptions.” Burdette rated himself, in his uses of fun, as the “oiler-up of human machinery”; and good cheer and righteousness followed him closely, keeping ever within the sound of his voice. The life-giving, invigorating spirit of good cheer made Abraham Lincoln’s great mind clearer and held him to his faith that right makes might, and that night is but the vestibule of morning.

If Lincoln was the founder, as many believe, of the “modern school of good cheer,” he was a mighty benefactor of the human race. The idea of healing by suggestion, by hopeful influences, and by faith has given rise to many societies, schools, churches, and healers, all having for their basic principle the healthful stimulation of the weak body by the use of faith—that is to say, cheer. Innumerable cases of the prevention of insanity, and some cases of the complete restoration of hopeless lunatics, by laughter and fresh confidence are now known to the medical profession. One draught of deep, hearty laughter has been known to effect an immediate cure of such nervous disorders, especially neuralgia, hysteria, and insomnia. The doctor who smiles sincerely is two doctors in one. He heals through the body and he heals through the mind.

When this teaching is applied to the eradication of immorality or the defeat of religious errors we are reminded of Lincoln’s remark that “the devil cannot bear a good joke.” That martyr is not going to recant who, on his way to the scaffold, can smile as he pats the head of a child. The believer in the assertion that “all things work together for good to those who love God” can laugh at difficulties, and he will be heard and followed by a throng. Spurgeon said that “a good joke hurled at the devil and his angels is like a bursting bomb of Greek fire.” Ridicule with laughter the hypocrite or evil schemer, and he will crouch at your feet or fly into self-destructive passion; but ridicule Abraham Lincoln and he lifts his clenched hand and smiles while he strikes. The cartoonist ever defeats the orator. People dance only under the impulse of cheerful music. These thoughts are recorded here because they were suggested by Abraham Lincoln and because they furnish a very satisfactory reason why Lincoln laughed.

The tales of Lincoln’s droll stories and perpetual fun making before he was twenty-four years old seem to have no trustworthy foundation. His use of humor as a duty and as a weapon in debate first appears distinctly about the year 1836, when he was admitted to the bar. He was almost unnoticed in the legislature until he secured sufficient confidence to use side-splitting jokes in the defeat of the opponents of righteousness. As paradoxical as it first may seem, joking, with Lincoln, was a serious matter. He had been saved by good cheer, and he was conscientiously determined to save others by the use of that same potent force.