LINCOLN WAS LOADED FOR BEAR.
An eminent man of politics has said that the similes of the learned which liken Abraham Lincoln to King Henry IV. of France and other historical notables are far from the mark and reveal their miscomprehension of the Machiavel redeemed by moral goodness. He thinks that without the hypocrisy being censurable he was more of the type of Pope Sixtus the Fifth. This celebrity, who, like Lincoln, was in the hog business at one time, pretended silliness to be elected pontiff. The die cast, he stood forth in all his native strength, keeping the friends who did not try to sway him, and becoming a rod of steel where he had been rated as lead. [Footnote: Greeley stamped Lincoln as "the slowest piece of lead that ever crawled.">[ At the same time as he dispraised himself--mocked and laughed--he let out glimpses of true ambition. When his short-sighted advisers warmly crossed his ground of setting himself with freedom against the pro-slavery party, assuring him that he would thereby lose the senatorship as against Douglas, he confessed:
"I am after larger game. The battle of 1860 (for the chair of Washington) is worth a hundred of this."
"A BOUNTEOUS PRESIDENT--IF ANYTHING IS LEFT!"
"Mr. Speaker, we have all heard of the animal standing in doubt between two stacks of hay and starving to death; the like of that would never happen to General Cass. Place the stacks a thousand miles apart; he would stand stock-still, midway between them, and eat both at once; and the green grass along the line would be apt to suffer some, too, at the same time. By all means, make him President, gentlemen. He will feed you bounteously--if--if--there is anything left after he shall have helped himself."--(Speech, House of Representatives, July 27, 1848.)
THE ART OF BEING PAID TO EAT.
"I have introduced General Cass' accounts here chiefly to show the wonderful physical capacities of the man. They show that he not only did the labor of several men at the same time, but that he often did it at several places many hundred miles apart, at the same time! And at eating, too, his capacities are shown to be quite as wonderful. From October, 1821, to May, 1822, he ate ten rations a day in Michigan, ten a day here in Washington, and near five dollars' worth a day besides, partly on the road between the two places. And then there is an important discovery in his example: 'The art of being paid for what one eats, instead of having to pay for it.' Hereafter, if any nice man shall owe a bill which he cannot pay, he can just board it out!"--(Speech, House of Representatives, July 27, 1848.)
(A tilt at a general drawing rations for himself and staff.)
A VICE NOT TO SAY "NO!"
Mr. Lincoln said to General Viele: "If I have got one vice, it is not being able to say 'No.' And I consider it a vice. Thank God for not making me a woman! I presume if He had, He would have made me just as homely as I am, and nobody would have ever tempted me!"