Lincoln's Yarns and Stories Part 57

Secretary Stanton on one occasion said: "Now, Mr. President, those are the facts and you must see that your order cannot be executed."

Lincoln replied in a somewhat positive tone: "Mr. Secretary, I reckon you'll have to execute the order."

Stanton replied with vigor: "Mr. President, I cannot do it. This order is an improper one, and I cannot execute it."

Lincoln fixed his eyes upon Stanton, and, in a firm voice and accent that clearly showed his determination, said: "Mr. Secretary, it will have to be done."

It was done.

"RATHER STARVE THAN SWINDLE."

Ward Lamon, once Lincoln's law partner, relates a story which places Lincoln's high sense of honor in a prominent light. In a certain case, Lincoln and Lamon being retained by a gentleman named Scott, Lamon put the fee at $250, and Scott agreed to pay it. Says Lamon:

"Scott expected a contest, but, to his surprise, the case was tried inside of twenty minutes; our success was complete. Scott was satisfied, and cheerfully paid over the money to me inside the bar, Lincoln looking on. Scott then went out, and Lincoln asked, 'What did you charge that man?'

"I told him $250. Said he: 'Lamon, that is all wrong. The service was not worth that sum. Give him back at least half of it.'

"I protested that the fee was fixed in advance; that Scott was perfectly satisfied, and had so expressed himself. 'That may be,' retorted Lincoln, with a look of distress and of undisguised displeasure, 'but I am not satisfied. This is positively wrong. Go, call him back and return half the money at least, or I will not receive one cent of it for my share.'

"I did go, and Scott was astonished when I handed back half the fee.

"This conversation had attracted the attention of the lawyers and the court. Judge David Davis, then on our circuit bench (afterwards a.s.sociate Justice on the United States Supreme bench), called Lincoln to him. The Judge never could whisper, but in this instance he probably did his best. At all events, in attempting to whisper to Lincoln he trumpeted his rebuke in about these words, and in rasping tones that could be heard all over the court-room: 'Lincoln, I have been watching you and Lamon. You are impoveris.h.i.+ng this bar by your picayune charges of fees, and the lawyers have reason to complain of you. You are now almost as poor as Lazarus, and if you don't make people pay you more for your services you will die as poor as Job's turkey!'

"Judge O. L. Davis, the leading lawyer in that part of the State, promptly applauded this malediction from the bench; but Lincoln was immovable.

"'That money,' said he, 'comes out of the pocket of a poor, demented girl, and I would rather starve than swindle her in this manner.'"

DON'T AIM TOO HIGH.

"Billy, don't shoot too high--aim lower, and the common people will understand you," Lincoln once said to a brother lawyer.

"They are the ones you want to reach--at least, they are the ones you ought to reach.

"The educated and refined people will understand you, anyway. If you aim too high, your idea will go over the heads of the ma.s.ses, and only hit those who need no hitting."

NOT MUCH AT RAIL-SPLITTING.

One who afterward became one of Lincoln's most devoted friends and adherents tells this story regarding the manner in which Lincoln received him when they met for the first time:

"After a comical survey of my fas.h.i.+onable toggery,--my swallow-tail coat, white neck-cloth, and ruffled s.h.i.+rt (an astonis.h.i.+ng outfit for a young limb of the law in that settlement), Lincoln said:

"'Going to try your hand at the law, are you? I should know at a glance that you were a Virginian; but I don't think you would succeed at splitting rails. That was my occupation at your age, and I don't think I have taken as much pleasure in anything else from that day to this.'"

GAVE THE SOLDIER THE PREFERENCE.

July 27th, 1863, Lincoln wrote the Postmaster-General:

"Yesterday little indors.e.m.e.nts of mine went to you in two cases of postmasters.h.i.+ps, sought for widows whose husbands have fallen in the battles of this war.

"These cases, occurring on the same day, brought me to reflect more attentively than what I had before done as to what is fairly due from us here in dispensing of patronage toward the men who, by fighting our battles, bear the chief burden of saving our country.

"My conclusion is that, other claims and qualifications being equal, they have the right, and this is especially applicable to the disabled soldier and the deceased soldier's family."

THE PRESIDENT WAS NOT SCARED.

When told how uneasy all had been at his going to Richmond, Lincoln replied:

"Why, if any one else had been President and had gone to Richmond, I would have been alarmed; but I was not scared about myself a bit."

JEFF. DAVIS' REPLY TO LINCOLN.

On the 20th of July, 1864, Horace Greeley crossed into Canada to confer with refugee rebels at Niagara. He bore with him this paper from the President:

"To Whom It May Concern: Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war with the United States, will be received and considered by the executive government of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms and other substantial and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways."

To this Jefferson Davis replied: "We are not fighting for slavery; we are fighting for independence."

LINCOLN WAS a GENTLEMAN.

Lincoln was compelled to contend with the results of the ill-judged zeal of politicians, who forced ahead his flatboat and rail-splitting record, with the homely surroundings of his earlier days, and thus, obscured for the time, the other fact that, always having the heart, he had long since acquired the manners of a true gentleman.

So, too, did he suffer from Eastern censors, who did not take those surroundings into account, and allowed nothing for his originality of character. One of these critics heard at Was.h.i.+ngton that Mr. Lincoln, in speaking at different times of some move or thing, said "it had petered out;" that some other one's plan "wouldn't gibe;" and being asked if the War and the cause of the Union were not a great care to him, replied:

"Yes, it is a heavy hog to hold."

The first two phrases are so familiar here in the West that they need no explanation. Of the last and more pioneer one it may be said that it had a special force, and was peculiarly Lincoln-like in the way applied by him.

In the early times in Illinois, those having hogs, did their own killing, a.s.sisted by their neighbors. Stripped of its hair, one held the carca.s.s nearly perpendicular in the air, head down, while others put one point of the gambrel-bar through a slit in its hock, then over the string-pole, and the other point through the other hock, and so swung the animal clear of the ground. While all this was being done, it took a good man to "hold the hog," greasy, warmly moist, and weighing some two hundred pounds. And often those with the gambrel prolonged the strain, being provokingly slow, in hopes to make the holder drop his burden.