In one instance I find a palpable mistake. It is in regard to a tender to Mr. Guthrie through me of a position in his Cabinet. The history of that transaction was about this: I met Mr. Lincoln by appointment in Chicago after his election but before he had gone to Washington. He seemed very anxious to avoid bloodshed and said that he would do almost anything saving the sacrifice of personal honor and the dignity of the position to which he had been elevated to avoid war.
He asked about Mr. Guthrie and spoke of him as a suitable man for Secretary of War. He asked very particularly as to his strength with the people and if I knew him well enough to say what would be his course in the event of war. I frankly gave my opinion as to what I thought would be his course—which is not necessary here to repeat. He requested me to see Mr. Guthrie. But by all means to be guarded and not to give any man the advantage of the tender of a Cabinet appointment to be declined by an insulting letter. I did see Mr. Guthrie and never tendered him any office for I was not authorized to do so. This is a very different thing from being authorized to tender an appointment.
Yours truly
J. F. Speed.
When Mr. Lincoln was asked during conferences incident to making up his cabinet if it was just or wise to concede so many seats to the Democratic element of the Republican party he replied that as a Whig he thought he could afford to be liberal to a section of the Republican party without whose votes he could not have been elected.
[4] Page 49, line 5, after the word "fealty."
When Mr. Lincoln was being importuned to appoint to his Cabinet another man from Maryland rather than Mr. Blair, he said laughingly: "Maryland must, I think, be a good State to move from," and then told a story of a witness who on being asked his age replied, "Sixty." Being satisfied that he was much older, the judge repeated the question, and on receiving the same answer, admonished the witness, saying that the Court knew him to be much older than sixty. "Oh," said the witness, "you're thinking about that fifteen years that I lived down on eastern shore of Maryland; that was so much lost time and don't count."
[5] Page 78, line 7, after the word "brute."
That neither section had the monopoly of all the virtues reminds us of the conversation between General Butler and a gentleman from Georgia in 1861, when the latter said, "I do not believe there is an honest man in Massachusetts." After a moment's reflection he added: "I beg to assure you, Mr. Butler, I mean nothing personal." The General responded: "I believe there are a great many honest men in Georgia; but in saying so, sir, I too mean nothing personal."
[G] General Fry, in the New York "Tribune."
[H] Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this Continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.