I can imagine one of the reasons for the suppression of Herndon’s original manuscript when I note, with amusement, the vigor and indignation with which a later biographer defends Mr. Lincoln from the terrible accusation of “sitting around and telling anecdotes to amuse a crowd.”
Those who take the least pains to ascertain the facts as to Mr. Lincoln’s story telling habits soon convince themselves that nothing said upon the subject could well be an exaggeration. In his day, the broadest, vulgarest anecdotes were current in the South and West, and thousands of public men, who ought to have been ashamed of themselves for doing so, made a practice of repeating these stories to juries in the court house, to crowds on the hustings, and to groups in the streets, stores and hotels.
Upon one occasion, while I was in conversation with Thomas H. Tibbles, a surviving personal acquaintance of John Brown and Abraham Lincoln, I interrogated him eagerly as to both. Directing his attention to this matter of Mr. Lincoln’s alleged fondness for the relation of smutty stories, Mr. Tibbles very promptly replied that the very first time he ever saw Mr. Lincoln he was directed to his room in the hotel by a series of bursts of loud laughter. Mr. Tibbles’ curiosity was aroused by the continuous hilarity which resounded from this particular room and he went to it. There he found a great, long, raw-boned man seated in a chair with his big feet up on the table, telling smutty yarns to a circle of men who were exploding with laughter at the end of each story.
Every man must be judged by the standards of his time. People of elegance and refinement, according to the standards of the Elizabethan age, listened to comedies which were considered in good taste then, but which would not be tolerated in any decent community now. The manners of the West and of the rural South in Mr. Lincoln’s day, were quite different from what they are now. Even now, however, there are men who call themselves gentlemen, and women who think they are ladies, that make a specialty of cultivating a talent for the relation of doubtful stories. The fact that Mr. Lincoln let his gift of entertainment and his fondness for the humorous lead him down to the low plane of his audience does not by any means indicate a defect of heart or mind. As a lawyer and as a politician, it was a part of his business to cultivate popularity. He made friends in just such circles as that into which Mr. Tibbles walked. The men who laughed with Mr. Lincoln, enjoying the inimitable way in which he related anecdotes, naturally warmed to him, and they gave him verdicts and votes.
Mr. P. D. Ross, Editor of the Ottawa (Canada) National, claims that Mr. Lincoln was “The greatest man the world has produced”, and the editor of Harper’s Weekly soberly falls into line.
Well, there should be some standard by which one is enabled to measure a man’s greatness. Mr. Lincoln was a lawyer, a statesman, and a chief magistrate of a republic. In each of these capacities let us see what was his rank.
Does any one claim that he was the greatest lawyer that ever lived? Surely not. There is not the slightest doubt that Mr. Lincoln was a famous verdict getter. He could do about as much with a jury as any advocate in the West, but he certainly never won any court house victories that were more famous than those of Dan Voorhees, Emory Storrs, Bob Ingersoll, Matt Carpenter, Sargent Prentiss, Robert Toombs and of scores of other lawyers who could easily be named. In knowledge of the law, force of mental power of the judicial sort,—such as Chief Justice John Marshall and Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate had,—does anybody for a moment claim that Mr. Lincoln out-ranks all other lawyers? Surely not. He is not to be named in the same class as Reverdy Johnson, Jeremiah Black, or Senator Edmunds, Charles O’Connor,—to say nothing of Jeremiah Mason, of Massachusetts, and Luther Martin, of Maryland, William Pinckney, of the same State, and Edmund Randolph, of Virginia.
Mr. Lincoln served in Congress. Did he cut any figure there? None whatever. He appeared to be out of his element. His Congressional record is not to be compared to that of Thaddeus Stevens or Stephen A. Douglas. We look into the lives of such men as Benjamin Franklin, the elder Adams, of Thomas Jefferson, of Clay, Calhoun and Webster, of Alexander Hamilton and George Washington, and there is no trouble in finding their foot-prints on the sands of time; but in the achievements of statesmanship where are the foot-prints of Mr. Lincoln? You will look into the statute-books in vain to find them. We have a great financial policy, born of the creative, forceful statesmanship of Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay; we have a great protective system, owing its origin to the same two statesmen; we have a great homestead policy, which owes its birth to Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee; we have a great national policy of internal improvements, but Mr. Lincoln was not its father. Consequently, there is not a single national line of policy which owes its paternity to this statesman whom Mr. Ross classes as “The greatest man the world has produced.”
In the State of Illinois, compare Mr. Lincoln’s work with Mr. Jefferson’s work in the State of Virginia. Did Mr. Lincoln leave his impress any where upon the established order in Illinois? I have never heard of it. In Virginia, Jefferson found the church and state united, both taxing the people and dividing the spoils. Mr. Jefferson divorced the church from the state, confiscated the church’s ill-gotten wealth, devoting it to charitable and educational purposes; and put an end to legalized religious intolerance. In Virginia there was a land monopoly, perpetuated by entails and primogenitures. Mr. Jefferson made war upon it, broke it up, and thus overthrew the local aristocracy. He formulated a school system and established in America its first modern college. Can anything which Mr. Lincoln, the statesman, did in Illinois compare with Mr. Jefferson’s work in Virginia?
So far as national statesmanship is concerned, Mr. Lincoln is not to be classed with either of “The Great Trio”, nor with Mr. Jefferson, nor with Alexander Hamilton. Each of the five named were statesmen of the first order, possessing original, creative ability in that field of work. There is no evidence whatever that Mr. Lincoln possessed that talent.