"Here I am, and here is Mrs. Lincoln. That's the long and short of it!"
"ALL A MAN WANTS--TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!"
In one of his messages to Congress, the President foretold and denounced the tendency of wealth acquired in masses and rapidly by the war contractors and the like as "approaching despotism." He saw liberty attacked in "the effort to place capital on an equal footing with--if not above--labor in the structure of government." It is never to be forgotten that neither he nor his Cabinet officers were ever upbraided for corruption; [Footnote: It is true that Lincoln's first war minister, Simon Cameron, was accused of smoothing the way to certain fat war contracts, a wit suggesting Simony as the term, but no charges were really brought. Lincoln said that if one proof were forthcoming, he would have the Cameronian head--but Mr. Cameron died intact.] some, like Secretary Stanton, though handling enormous sums, died poor men comparatively. It is in accordance with this honesty of the "Honest Old Abe" rule that he said to an old friend whom he met in New York in 1859:
"How have you fared since you left us?"
The merchant gleefully replied that he had made a hundred thousand dollars in business. "And--lost it all!" with a reflection of Lincoln's and the Western cool humor. "How is it on your part?"
"Oh, very well; I have the cottage at Springfield, and about eight hundred dollars. If they make me vice-president with Seward, as some say they will, I hope I shall be able to increase it to twenty thousand. That is as much as any man ought to want!"
"I'LL HIT THE THING HARD!"
In Coffin's "Lincoln," it is stated that when Lincoln and Offutt, boating to New Orleans, attended a slave auction for the first time, the former said to his companion:
"By the Eternal, if ever I get a chance to hit this thing, I'll hit it hard!"
The oath was General-President Jackson's, and familiar as a household word at the day. The promise is premature in a youth of twenty. Herndon, twenty-five years associated with Lincoln, doubts, but says that Lincoln did allude to some such utterance. But it is Dennis Hanks, cousin of Lincoln, who affirms that they two saw such a sight, and that he knew by his companion's emotion that "the iron had entered into his soul."