ABBOTT LETTER
truly says the charge of infidelity was made against Mr. Lincoln when he was a candidate for Congress in 1848; and then adds: "Mr. Lincoln did not deny the charge, because it was true." The charge of infidelity was made against Lincoln at that time, and I suppose Lincoln made no public denial of the charge, for the reason that the canvass was being made on political grounds, and not religious faith or belief. This much was said at the time, as I well remember to be the facts in the case.
About the time of building the flatboat on the Sangamon River in 1830, when Lincoln was quite a young man, a
RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
was the topic in which Lincoln took a part; and in the argument Lincoln used the language that, according to the history of the case, in the New Testament, Christ was a bastard and his mother a base woman. This he may have used at the time, as young men sometimes do use vain language, and seventeen years afterward, when he was a candidate for Congress against
PETER CARTWRIGHT
a Methodist preacher, that vain remark was remembered, and Tom Paine having used similar language, Lincoln was published in some of the papers as an infidel. The above was the explanation published at the time, and the charge of infidelity did no harm. Had Lincoln been known as an infidel, or believed to be one at that time, I am certain he would have been beaten badly by Cartwright in the canvass.
Again, Mr. Herndon, in his Abbott letter (I believe it is), says: "It is not to be found in print that Lincoln ever used the word Christ." In fact, Herndon says, "he never did use it, only to deny Christ as the son of God." Now that statement may be true, that he did not use the term Christ: but if Mr. Herndon will examine the speeches of the public men of this nation, I believe I am safe in saying that Mr. Lincoln used and
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