The Life of Abraham Lincoln, from His Birth to His Inauguration as President

by Ward Hill Lamon

In this morbid and dreamy state of mind, Mr. Lincoln passed the greater part of his life. But his "sadness, despair, gloom," Mr. Herndon says, "were not of the kind that leads a badly-balanced mind into misanthropy and universal hate and scorn. His humor would assert itself from the hell of misanthropy: it would assert its independence every third hour or day or week. His abstractedness, his continuity of thought, his despair, made him, twice in his life, for two weeks at a time, walk that narrow line that divides sanity from insanity.... This peculiarity of his nature, his humor, his wit, kept him alive in his mind.... It was those good sides of his nature that made, to him, his life bearable. Mr. Lincoln was a weak man and a strong man by turns."

Some of Mr. Lincoln's literary tastes indicated strongly his prevailing gloominess of mind. He read Byron extensively, especially "Childe Harold," "The Dream," and "Don Juan." Burns was one of his earliest favorites, although there is no evidence that he appreciated highly the best efforts of Burns. On the contrary, "Holy Willie's Prayer" was the only one of his poems which Mr. Lincoln took the trouble to memorize. He was fond of Shakspeare, especially "King Lear," and "The Merry Wives of Windsor." But whatever was suggestive of death, the grave, the sorrows of man's days on earth, charmed his disconsolate spirit, and captivated his sympathetic heart. Solemn-sounding rhymes, with no merit but the sad music of their numbers, were more enchanting to him than the loftiest songs of the masters. Of these were, "Why should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud?" and a pretty commonplace little piece, entitled "The Inquiry." One verse of Holmes's "Last Leaf" he thought was "inexpressibly touching." This verse we give the reader:—

"The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has pressed In their bloom; And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb."

Mr. Lincoln frequently said that he lived by his humor, and would have died without it. His manner of telling a story was irresistibly comical, the fun of it dancing in his eyes and playing over every feature. His face changed in an instant: the hard lines faded out of it, and the mirth seemed to diffuse itself all over him, like a spontaneous tickle. You could see it coming long before he opened his mouth, and he began to enjoy the "point" before his eager auditors could catch the faintest glimpse of it. Telling and hearing ridiculous stories was one of his ruling passions. He would go a long way out of his road to tell a grave, sedate fellow a broad story, or to propound to him a conundrum that was not particularly remarkable for its delicacy. If he happened to hear of a man who was known to have something fresh in this line, he would hunt him up, and "swap jokes" with him. Nobody remembers the time when his fund of anecdotes was not apparently inexhaustible. It was so in Indiana; it was so in New Salem, in the Black-Hawk War, in the Legislature, in Congress, on the circuit, on the stump,—everywhere. The most trifling incident "reminded" him of a story, and that story reminded him of another, until everybody marvelled "that one small head could carry all he knew." The "good things" he said were repeated at second-hand, all over the counties through which he chanced to travel; and many, of a questionable flavor, were attributed to him, not because they were his in fact, but because they were like his. Judges, lawyers, jurors, and suitors carried home with them select budgets of his stories, to be retailed to itching ears as "Old Abe's last." When the court adjourned from village to village, the taverns and the groceries left behind were filled with the sorry echoes of his "best." He generally located his little narratives with great precision,—in Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois; and if he was not personally "knowing" to the facts himself, he was intimately acquainted with a gentleman who was.

Mr. Lincoln used his stories variously,—to illustrate or convey an argument; to make his opinions clear to another, or conceal them altogether; to cut off a disagreeable conversation, or to end an unprofitable discussion; to cheer his own heart, or simply to amuse his friends. But most frequently he had a practical object in view, and employed them simply "as labor-saving contrivances."

It was Judge Davis's opinion, that Mr. Lincoln's hilarity was mainly simulated, and that "his stories and jokes were intended to whistle off sadness." "The groundwork of his social nature was sad," says Judge Scott; "but for the fact that he studiously cultivated the humorous, it would have been very sad indeed. His mirth to me always seemed to be put on, and did not properly belong there. Like a plant produced in the hot-bed, it had an unnatural and luxuriant growth."

Although Mr. Lincoln's walk among men was remarkably pure, the same cannot be said of his conversation. He was endowed by nature with a keen sense of humor, and he found great delight in indulging it. But his humor was not of a delicate quality; it was chiefly exercised in hearing and telling stories of the grosser sort. In this tendency he was restrained by no presence and no occasion. It was his opinion that the finest wit and humor, the best jokes and anecdotes, emanated from the lower orders of the country people. It was from this source that he had acquired his peculiar tastes and his store of materials. The associations which began with the early days of Dennis Hanks continued through his life at New Salem and his career at the Illinois Bar, and did not desert him when, later in life, he arrived at the highest dignities.

Mr. Lincoln indulged in no sensual excesses: he ate moderately, and drank temperately when he drank at all. For many years he was an ardent agitator against the use of intoxicating beverages, and made speeches, far and near, in favor of total abstinence. Some of them were printed; and of one he was not a little proud. He abstained himself, not so much upon principle, as because of a total lack of appetite. He had no taste for spirituous liquors; and, when he took them, it was a punishment to him, not an indulgence. But he disliked sumptuary laws, and would not prescribe by statute what other men should eat or drink. When the temperance men ran to the Legislature to invoke the power of the State, his voice—the most eloquent among them—was silent. He did not oppose them, but quietly withdrew from the cause, and left others to manage it. In 1854 he was induced to join the order called Sons of Temperance, but never attended a single meeting after the one at which he was initiated.

Morbid, moody, meditative, thinking much of himself and the things pertaining to himself, regarding other men as instruments furnished to his hand for the accomplishment of views which he knew were important to him, and, therefore, considered important to the public, Mr. Lincoln was a man apart from the rest of his kind, unsocial, cold, impassive,—neither a "good hater" nor a fond friend. He unbent in the society of those who gave him new ideas, who listened to and admired him, whose attachment might be useful, or whose conversation amused him. He seemed to make boon-companions of the coarsest men on the list of his acquaintances,—"low, vulgar, unfortunate creatures;" but, as Judge Davis has it, "he used such men as tools,—things to satisfy him, to feed his desires." He felt sorry for them, enjoyed them, extracted from them whatever service they were capable of rendering, discarded and forgot them. If one of them, presuming upon the past, followed him to Washington with a view to personal profit, Mr. Lincoln would probably take him to his private room, lock the doors, revel in reminiscences of Illinois, new stories and old, through an entire evening, and then dismiss his enchanted crony with nothing more substantial than his blessing. It was said that "he had no heart;" that is, no personal attachments warm and strong enough to govern his actions. It was seldom that he praised anybody; and, when he did, it was not a rival or an equal in the struggle for popularity and power. His encomiums were more likely to be satirical than sincere, and sometimes were artfully contrived as mere stratagems to catch the applause he pretended to bestow, or at least to share it in equal parts. No one knew better how to "damn with faint praise," or to divide the glory of another by being the first and frankest to acknowledge it. Fully alive to the fact that no qualities of a public man are so charming to the people as simplicity and candor, he made simplicity and candor the mask of deep feelings carefully concealed, and subtle plans studiously veiled from all eyes but one. He had no reverence for great men, followed no leader with blind devotion, and yielded no opinion to mere authority. He felt that he was as great as anybody, and could do what another did. It was, however, the supreme desire of his heart to be right, and to do justice in all the relations of life. Although some of his strongest passions conflicted more or less directly with this desire, he was conscious of them, and strove to regulate them by self-imposed restraints. He was not avaricious, never appropriated a cent wrongfully, and did not think money for its own sake a fit object of any man's ambition. But he knew its value, its power, and liked to keep it when he had it. He gave occasionally to individual mendicants, or relieved a case of great destitution at his very door; but his alms-giving was neither profuse nor systematic. He never made donations to be distributed to the poor who were not of his acquaintance and very near at hand. There were few entertainments at his house. People were seldom asked to dine with him. To many he seemed inhospitable; and there was something about his house, an indescribable air of exclusiveness, which forbade the entering guest. It is not meant to be said that this came from mere economy. It was not at home that he wished to see company. He preferred to meet his friends abroad,—on a street-corner, in an office, at the Court House, or sitting on nail-kegs in a country store.

Mr. Lincoln took no part in the promotion of local enterprises, railroads, schools, churches, asylums. The benefits he proposed for his fellow-men were to be accomplished by political means alone. Politics were his world,—a world filled with hopeful enchantments. Ordinarily he disliked to discuss any other subject. "In his office," says Mr. Herndon, "he sat down, or spilt himself, on his lounge, read aloud, told stories, talked politics,—never science, art, literature, railroad gatherings, colleges, asylums, hospitals, commerce, education, progress, nothing that interested the world generally," except politics. He seldom took an active part in local or minor elections, or wasted his power to advance a friend. He did nothing out of mere gratitude, and forgot the devotion of his warmest partisans as soon as the occasion for their services had passed. What they did for him was quietly appropriated as the reward of superior merit, calling for no return in kind. He was always ready to do battle for a principle, after a discreet fashion, but never permitted himself to be strongly influenced by the claims of individual men. When he was a candidate himself, he thought the whole canvass and all the preliminaries ought to be conducted with reference to his success. He would say to a man, "Your continuance in the field injures me" and be quite sure that he had given a perfect reason for his withdrawal. He would have no "obstacles" in his way; coveted honors, was eager for power, and impatient of any interference that delayed or obstructed his progress. He worked hard enough at general elections, when he could make speeches, have them printed, and "fill the speaking trump of fame" with his achievements; but in the little affairs about home, where it was all work and no glory, his zeal was much less conspicuous. Intensely secretive and cautious, he shared his secrets with no man, and revealed just enough of his plans to allure support, and not enough to expose their personal application. After Speed left, he had no intimates to whom he opened his whole mind. This is the unanimous testimony of all who knew him. Feeling himself perfectly competent to manage his own affairs, he listened with deceptive patience to the views of others, and then dismissed the advice with the adviser. Judge Davis was supposed to have great influence over him; but he declares that he had literally none. "Once or twice," says he, "he asked my advice about the almighty dollar, but never about any thing else."