Abraham Lincoln: Was He A Christian? Part 9

"'Secondly, that Jesus was not the son of G.o.d.'

"No leaf of this little volume has survived. Mr. Lincoln carried it in ma.n.u.script to the store of Mr. Samuel Hill, where it was read and discussed. Hill was himself an unbeliever, but his son considered his book 'infamous.' It is more than probable that Hill, being a warm personal friend of Lincoln feared that the publication of the essay would some day interfere with the political advancement of his favorite.

At all events, he s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of his hand, and thrust it into the fire, from which not a shred escaped" (lb., pp. 157, 158).

Colonel Lamon is confident that while Lincoln finally ceased to openly promulgate his Freethought opinions, he never abandoned them. He says:

"As he grew older, he grew more cautious; and as his New Salem a.s.sociates, and the aggressive Deists with whom he originally united at Springfield, gradually dispersed, or fell away from his side, he appreciated more and more keenly the violence and extent of the religious prejudices which freedom in discussion from his standpoint would be sure to arouse against him. He saw the immense and augmenting power of the churches, and in times past had practically felt it. The imputation of Infidelity had seriously injured him in several of his earlier political contests; and, sobered by age and experience, he was resolved that that same imputation should injure him no more. Aspiring to lead religious communities, he foresaw that he must not appear as an enemy within their gates; aspiring to public honors under the auspices of a political party which persistently summoned religious people to a.s.sist in the extirpation of that which is denounced as the 'nation's sin,' he foresaw that he could not ask their suffrages whilst aspersing their faith. He perceived no reason for changing his convictions, but he did perceive many good and cogent reasons for not making them public"

(lb., pp. 497, 498).

But he never told anyone that he accepted Jesus as the Christ, or performed a single one of the acts which necessarily follow upon such a conviction.

"At Springfield and at Was.h.i.+ngton he was beset on the one hand by political priests, and on the other by honest and prayerful Christians.

He despised the former, respected the latter, and had use for both. He said with characteristic irreverence that he would not undertake to 'run the churches by military authority;' but he was, nevertheless, alive to the importance of letting the churches 'run' themselves in the interest of his party. Indefinite expressions about 'Divine Providence,' the 'Justice of G.o.d,' 'the favor of the Most High,' were easy, and not inconsistent with his religious notions. In this, accordingly, he indulged freely; but never in all that time did he let fall from his lips or his pen an expression which remotely implied the slightest faith in Jesus as the son of G.o.d and the Savior of men" (Ib., p. 502).

Lamon was Lincoln's intimate and trusted friend at Was.h.i.+ngton, and had he changed his belief, his biographer, as well as Noah Brooks and the Illinois clergyman, would have been in possession of the fact.

In 1851 Lincoln wrote a letter of consolation to his dying father, in which he counseled him to "confide in our great and good and merciful Maker." This letter was given to the public by Mr. Herndon, and has been cited by the orthodox to prove that Lincoln was a believer. Adverting to this letter Lamon says:

"If ever there was a moment when Mr. Lincoln might have been expected to express his faith in the atonement, his trust in the merits of a living Redeemer, it was when he undertook to send a composing and comforting message to a dying man.... But he omitted it wholly. He did not even mention the name of Jesus, or intimate the most distant suspicion of the existence of a Christ" (Ibid., p. 497).

Lincoln's mind was not entirely free from superst.i.tion, but though born and reared in Christendom, the superst.i.tious element in his nature was not essentially Christian. His fatalistic ideas, so characteristic of the faith of Islam, have already been mentioned by Mr. Herndon, and are thus referred to by Colonel Lamon:

"Mr. Lincoln was by no means free from a kind of belief in the supernatural.... He lived constantly in the serious conviction that he was himself the subject of a special decree, made by some unknown and mysterious power, for which he had no name" (Ibid., p. 503).

"His mind was filled with gloomy forebodings and strong apprehensions of impending evil, mingled with extravagant visions of personal grandeur and power. His imagination painted a scene just beyond the veil of the immediate future, gilded with glory yet tarnished with blood. It was his 'destiny'--splendid but dreadful, fascinating but terrible. His case bore little resemblance to those of religious enthusiasts like Bunyan, Cowper, and others. His was more like the delusion of the fatalist conscious of his star" (Ibid,, p. 475).

When Lamon's work appeared, Holland, backed by the Christian element generally, fell upon it like a savage and sought, as far as possible, to suppress it. Lamon had committed an unpardonable offense. He had declared to the world that Lincoln had died a disbeliever, and, what was worse, he had proved it. Holland's attack was made in an eight-column review of Lamon's "Life," which was published in _Scribner's Monthly_, for August, 1872. In order to give an air of candor and judicial fairness to his venomous criticisms, he opens with this flattering recognition of its merits: "It is not difficult to see how Colonel Lamon, who during Mr. Lincoln's Presidency held an office in the District of Columbia, which must have brought him into somewhat frequent intercourse with the President, and who, indeed, had come with him from Springfield to the Capital, should feel that there rested on him a certain biographical duty. And certainly he was in possession of a ma.s.s of material so voluminous, so original, and so fresh that in this respect at least his fitness for the work was remarkably complete. Moreover, Mr.

W. H. Herndon, who was Mr. Lincoln's partner in the practice of the law at Springfield, and was, of course, closely intimate with his partner in a business way,... added to Colonel Lamon's material the valuable doc.u.ments which he had himself collected, and the memoranda which, with painstaking and lawyer-like ability, he had recorded from the oral testimony of living witnesses.

"As far as the story of Mr. Lincoln's childhood and early life is concerned, down to the time when his political life began, it has never been told so fully, with such spirit and zest, and with such evident accuracy, as by Colonel Lamon."

Nearly the entire review is devoted to a denunciation of Lamon's exposition of Lincoln's religious opinions. He repeatedly p.r.o.nounces this "an outrage on decency," and characterizes Lincoln's Free-thought companions as "heathen," "barbarians," and "savages." The review concludes as follows:

"The violent and reckless prejudice, and the utter want of delicacy and even of decency by which the book is characterized, in such instances as this, will more than counterbalance the value of its new material, its fresh and vigorous pictures of Western life and manners, and its familiar knowledge of the 'inside politics' of Mr. Lincoln's administration, and will even make its publication (by the famous publishers whose imprint imparts to it a prestige and authority which its authors.h.i.+p would fail to give) something like a national misfortune.

In some quarters it will be readily received as the standard life of the good President. It is all the more desirable that the criticism upon it should be prompt and unsparing."

Christianity must have the support of Lincoln's great name. To secure it Holland is willing to misrepresent the honest convictions of Lincoln's lifetime, to traduce the characters of his dearest friends, and to rob a brother author and a publisher of their just reward.

Lamon states that during the last years of Lincoln's life he ceased to proclaim his Infidel opinions because they were unpopular. Referring to this statement, Holland says: "The eagerness with which this volume strives to cover Mr. Lincoln's memory with an imputation so detestable is one of the most pitiable exhibitions which we have lately witnessed."

This outburst of righteous indignation, coming from the source it does, is peculiarly refres.h.i.+ng. To appreciate it, we have only to open Holland's work, and read such pa.s.sages as the following: "I am obliged to appear different to them." "It was one of the peculiarities of Mr.

Lincoln to hide these religious [Christian] experiences from the eyes of the world." "Who had never in their whole lives heard from his lips one word of all these religious convictions and experiences." "They [his friends] did not regard him as a religious man." "All this department of his life he had kept carefully hidden from them." "There was much of his conduct that was simply a cover to these thoughts--an effort to conceal them" (Holland's Life of Lincoln, pp. 239, 240).

Consummate hypocrisy in a Christian is all right with this moralist; but for a Freethinker to withhold his views from an intolerant religious world is a detestable crime.

As a biographer of Lincoln, Holland possessed many advantages over Lamon. His work was written and published immediately after the awful tragedy, when almost the entire reading public was deeply interested in everything that pertained to Lincoln's life. So far as Lincoln's religious views are concerned, he advocated the popular side of the question; for while those outside of the church cared but little about the matter, the church desired the influence of his great name, and was ready to reward those who a.s.sisted her in obtaining it. Holland, too, had an established reputation as an author--had nearly as large a cla.s.s of readers as any writer in this country. His name alone was sufficient to guarantee a large circulation to any book he might produce. Lamon, on the other hand, possessed but a single advantage over his rival, that of having the truth on his side. And while "truth is mighty," and will in the end prevail, yet how often is it "crushed to earth" and for the time obscured. In view of all this, it is not strange that the public should be so slow to reject the fictions of Holland and accept the facts of Lamon.

That Lamon's "Life of Lincoln" is wholly undeserving of adverse criticism, is not claimed. He has, perhaps, given undue prominence to some matters connected with Lincoln's private affairs which might with propriety have been consigned to oblivion. A larger manifestation of charity, too, for the imperfections of those with whom Lincoln mingled, especially in the humbler walks of life, would not have detracted from its merit. And yet, those who desire to know Lincoln as he really was, should read Lamon rather than Holland. In Lamon's work, Lincoln's character is a rugged oak, towering above its fellows and clothed in nature's livery; in Holland's work, it is a dead tree with the bark taken off, the knots planed down, and varnished.

In the New York _World_ appeared the following just estimate of these two biographies:

"Mr. Ward H. Lamon is the author of one 'Life of Lincoln,' and Dr. J.

G. Holland is the author of another. Mr. Lamon was the intimate personal and political friend of Mr. Lincoln, trusting and trusted, from the time of their joint practice in the Illinois Quarter Sessions to the moment of Mr. Lincoln's death at Was.h.i.+ngton. Dr. Holland was nothing to Mr.

Lincoln--neither known nor knowing. Dr. Holland rushed his 'Life' from the press before the disfigured corpse was fairly out of sight, while the public mind lingered with horror over the details of the tragedy, and, excited by morbid curiosity, was willing to pay for its gratification. Mr. Lamon waited many years, until all advent.i.tious interest had subsided, and then with incredible labor and pains, produced a volume founded upon materials which for their fulness, variety, and seeming authenticity are unrivaled in the history of biographies.

"Dr. Holland's single volume professed to cover the whole of Mr.

Lincoln's career. Mr. Lamon's single volume was modestly confined to a part of it. Dr. Holland's was an easy, graceful, off-hand performance, having but the one slight demerit of being in all essential particulars untrue from beginning to end. Mr. Lamon's was a labored, cautious, and carefully verified narrative which seems to have been accepted by disinterested critics as entirely authentic.

"Dr. Holland would probably be very much shocked if anybody should ask him to bear false witness in favor of his neighbor in a court of justice, but he takes up his pen to make a record which he hopes and intends shall endure forever, and in that record deliberately bears false witness in favor of a public man whom he happened to admire, with no kind of offense to his serene and 'cultured' conscience. If this were all--if Dr. Holland merely a.s.serted his own right to compose and publish elaborate fictions on historical subjects--we might comfort ourselves with the reflection that such literature is likely to be as evanescent as it is dishonest, and let him pa.s.s in silence. But this is not all. He maintains that it is everybody's duty to help him to deceive the public and to write down his more conscientious compet.i.tor. He turns up the nose of 'culture' and curls the lip of 'art' at Mr. Lamon's homely narrative of facts, and gravely insists that all other noses and all other lips shall be turned up and curled because his are. He implores the public, which he insulted and gulled with his own book, to d.a.m.n Mr.

Lamon's, and he puts his request on the very ground that Mr. Lamon has stupidly gone and narrated undeniable truths, whereby he has demolished an empty shrine that was profitable to many, and broken a painted idol that might have served for a G.o.d.

"The names of Holland and Lamon are not of themselves and by themselves ill.u.s.trious; but starting from the t.i.tle-pages of the two Lives of Lincoln, and representing, as they do, the two schools of biography writers, the one stands for a principle and the other for the want of it."

CHAPTER VIII. TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHN T. STUART AND COL. JAMES H. MATHENY

Testimony of Hon. John T. Stuart--Testimony of Col. James H. Matheny--Stuart's Disclaimer--Matheny's Disclaimer-- Examination and Authors.h.i.+p of Disclaimers, Including the Edwards and Lewis Letters.

Besides his own testimony concerning Lincoln's unbelief, Colonel Lamon cites the testimony of ten additional witnesses: Hon. Wm. H. Herndon, Hon. John T. Stuart, Col. James H. Matheny, Dr. C. H. Ray, Wm. H.

Hannah, Esq, Mr. Jas. W. Keys, Hon. Jesse W. Fell, Col. John G. Nicolay, Hon. David Davis and Mrs. Mary Lincoln. The testimony of Mr. Herndon having already been presented, the testimony of Mr. Stuart and Colonel Matheny will next be given. This testimony was procured by Mr. Herndon for the purpose of refuting the erroneous statements of Dr. Holland.

Hon. John T. Stuart, who was for a time a member of Congress from Illinois, was the first law partner of Lincoln. He says:

"Lincoln went further against Christian beliefs and doctrines and principles than any man I ever heard: he shocked me. I don't remember the exact line of his argument--suppose it was against the inherent defects, so called, of the Bible, and on grounds of reason. Lincoln always denied that Jesus was the Christ of G.o.d--denied that Jesus was the son of G.o.d, as understood and maintained by the Christian church.

The Rev. Dr. Smith, who wrote a letter, tried to convert Lincoln from Infidelity so late as 1858, and couldn't do it" (Lamon's Life of Lincoln, p. 488).

Col. James H. Matheny was one of Lincoln's most intimate friends, and was for many years his chief political manager. He testifies as follows:

"I knew Mr. Lincoln as early as 1834-7; know he was an Infidel. He and W. D. Herndon used to talk Infidelity in the Clerk's office in this city, about the years 1837-40. Lincoln attacked the Bible and the New Testament on two grounds: first, from the inherent or apparent contradictions under its lids; second, from the grounds of reason.

Sometimes he ridiculed the Bible and the New Testament, sometimes seemed to scoff at it, though I shall not use that word in its full and literal sense. I never heard that Lincoln changed his views, though his personal and political friend from 1834 to 1860. Sometimes Lincoln bordered on Atheism. He went far that way and shocked me. I was then a young man, and believed what my good mother told me. Stuart and Lincoln's office was in what is called Hoffman's Row, on North Fifth street, near the public square. It was in the same building as the Clerk's office, and on the same floor. Lincoln would come into the Clerk's office, where I and some young men--Evan Butler, Newton Francis and others--were writing or staying, and would bring the Bible with him; would read a chapter, argue against it. Lincoln then had a smattering of geology, if I recollect it.

Lincoln often, if not wholly, was an Atheist; at least, bordered on it.

Lincoln was enthusiastic in his Infidelity. As he grew older, he grew more discreet, didn't talk much before strangers about his religion; but to friends, close and bosom ones, he was always open and avowed, fair and honest; but to strangers, he held them off from policy. Lincoln used to quote Burns. Burns helped Lincoln to be an Infidel, as I think; at least he found in Burns a like thinker and feeler.

"From what I know of Mr. Lincoln and his views of Christianity, and from what I know as honest, well-founded rumor; from what I have heard his best friends say and regret for years; from what he never denied when accused, and from what Lincoln has hinted and intimated, to say no more, he did write a little book on Infidelity, at or near New Salem, in Menard county, about the year 1834 or 1835. I have stated these things to you often.

"Judge Logan, John T. Stuart, yourself, know what I know, and some of you more.

"Mr. Herndon, you insist on knowing something which you know I possess, and got as a secret, and that is, about Lincoln's little book on Infidelity. Mr. Lincoln _did_ tell me that he _did write a little book oil Infidelity_. This statement I have avoided heretofore; but, as you strongly insist upon it--probably to defend yourself against charges of misrepresentations--I give it to you as I got it from Lincoln's mouth"

(Life of Lincoln, pp. 487, 488).

The evidence of Stuart and Matheny, as recorded in Lamon's work, having been presented, it is now proper to state that this evidence has, in a measure, been repudiated by them. Dr. Reed, in his lecture, produced letters from them disclaiming in part or modifying the statements imputed to them. Dr. Reed says: "I have been amazed to find that the princ.i.p.al persons whose testimony is given in this book to prove that their old friend lived and died an Infidel, never wrote a word of it, and never gave it as their opinion or allowed it to be published as covering their estimate of Mr. Lincoln's life and religious views."

Alluding to Stuart's evidence, he says: "Mr. Lamon has attributed to Mr. Stuart testimony the most disparaging and damaging to Mr. Lincoln's character and opinions--testimony which Mr. Stuart utterly repudiates, both as to language and sentiment." Regarding Matheny's testimony, he says: "Mr. Matheny testifies that he never wrote a word of what is attributed to him; that it is not a fair representation of either his language or his opinions, and that he never would have allowed such an article to be published as covering his estimate of Mr. Lincoln's life and character."

The following is the disclaimer of Mr. Stuart:

"Springfield, Dec. 17th, 1872.