The Wonderful Story of Lincoln Part 12

With fear and trembling she came into his presence, and in the greatest joy any woman can have she came away.

"When I was permitted to go in to see him," she said, in describing the scene, "he was alone. He immediately arose, with the most rea.s.suring respect, and, pointing to a chair by his side, said, 'Take this seat, Madam, and tell me what I can do for you.'"

She handed him, without speaking, a letter telling the truth about her son. He read it thoughtfully.

"Do you believe he will honor his parole if I permit him to go with you," he said, with great kindness in his voice.

"I am ready, Mr. President," she replied, "to peril my personal liberty that he will keep his parole."

"You shall have your boy, my dear Madam," he said. "To take him from the ranks of rebellion and give him to a loyal mother is the best investment that can be made by this government."

He handed her an order to give to the commanding officer at Fort McHenry.

"May G.o.d grant," he fervently added, "that your boy may prove a blessing to you and an honor to his country."

Lincoln's interest in the lowly and their sacrifices for the Union has become cla.s.sic in his letter to a Boston mother. A copy of this letter hangs on the wall in Brasenose College, Oxford University, England, as a model of pure and exquisite diction, which has never been excelled.

"Dear Madam:

"I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Ma.s.sachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may a.s.suage the anguish of your bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

"Yours sincerely and respectfully, A. LINCOLN."

IV. HUMANITY AND THE GREAT SCHOOL OF EXPERIENCE

Many people in estimating Lincoln's scholars.h.i.+p do not sufficiently recognize how much an eager student of life can learn in such wide experience as his among men. To say that he was uneducated or that he was self-made are alike erroneous. He was truly entered in the school of experience in which he chose the wisest interest as his teacher, and from which he graduated as a martyred president, one of the wisest masters of humanity.

It can hardly be said that Lincoln arrived slowly at a leaders.h.i.+p of men. He was only twenty-eight when he was regarded as one of the most influential men in his State. The nation was then in the midst of the religious belief that G.o.d intended slavery or he would not have made men black. Even at that early period Lincoln, with the boldness of a Martin Luther, declared that "the inst.i.tution of slavery is founded both on injustice and bad policy," though the great reformation was not yet at hand.

It is said that "those in gla.s.s houses should not throw stones."

Society and government have yet so many sins and wrongs to answer for that the people of slavery days can hardly be blamed for not seeing as we see now. Mankind seems to be only well started on the way to civilization. Now and then we are given a great far-seeing man and the vision of righteousness is made a little clearer. We see a little farther through him into the promised land of a better world.

To any one looking down upon the stormy United States of that period it could be seen that probably no one ever entered the presidency, and more probably never would, who seemed so dest.i.tute of influential a.s.sociates and political supporters. It was Lincoln alone and his faith in the unseen faithful of his ancient Israel. He knew the people. He knew they understood what the great crisis in their country's history meant for their ideals of America. They wanted a leader from among themselves, because they no longer trusted the politicians in high places.

In 1862 John James Piatt wrote:

"Stern be the Pilot in the Dreadful hour When a great nation, like a s.h.i.+p at sea, With the wroth breakers whitening at her lea, Feels her last shudder if the Helmsman cower; A G.o.d-like manhood be his mighty dower!"

This seems to show that the patriotic men of the literary East were not yet sure of him. In fact, it was not yet sure that there was any man anywhere who could remain sane and true through the rampant treason and raging strife.

A year later Frank Moore wrote:

"Stand like the rock that looks defiant Far o'er the surging seas that lash its form!

Composed, determined, watchful, self-reliant, Be master of thyself and rule the storm."

If the Americans who tried to destroy Was.h.i.+ngton could now appear among us and see what we and the world think of him, they would hardly attempt to justify what they said and did to ruin him. Many lived to realize their error in defaming Lincoln and to appreciate their pitiful malignity in spreading the gossip and slander about him. And yet a few strove on to save some of their reputation for intelligence or personal honor and honesty, until research and c.u.mulative evidence established the una.s.sailable truth of his standing and character as one of the n.o.blest and greatest of Americans.

The lesson of personal justice and integrity is learned slowly where freedom has long seemed to mean political license to distort and defame party opponents. But election slanders die out as the people emerge from party possession and mastery. After the election is over, still increasing numbers become conscious that most of the evils told of the opposition have either been lies or the distorted halftruths that are more misleading to the honest-intentioned minds.

But, fortunately, one of Lincoln's great sayings has been proven true even in the miscellaneous freedom of Americans. To an insignificant interruption on an insignificant occasion, one of those famous sayings popped up, as it were from the ma.s.s of thinking in Lincoln's mind, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

Lincoln's great pa.s.sion for friends.h.i.+p in the midst of his prophetic vision is shown in the last paragraph of his first inaugural address.

He said, "I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though pa.s.sion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched as they surely will be, by the better angels of our nature."

V. SIMPLE INTERESTS THAT NEVER GROW OLD

Lincoln's great sympathy for those who mourn is expressed in a letter of condolence to a friend whose father had just died.

"Dear f.a.n.n.y:

"In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to all, and to the young it comes with bittered agony because it takes them unawares. The older have learned ever to expect it. You cannot now realize that you will ever feel happier. Is this not so?

And yet, it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say, and you need only to believe it to feel better at once. The memory of your dear father, instead of an agony, will be a sad, sweet feeling in your heart of a purer and holier sort than you have known before.

"Your sincere friend, A. LINCOLN."

His fatherly feeling toward childhood is shown in many stories of his younger son Tad.

Little Tad had all the impetuosity of energetic childhood. His father's example of kindness once led him into conflict with the White House cook. Tad never saw a hungry-looking boy that he didn't invite him in to have something to eat. This generosity was a light that could not be hid under a bushel. The number of hungry boys increased surprisingly. At last Peter, the cook, thought that Mrs. Lincoln must be told. He accordingly refused entrance to a hungry bunch that Tad brought in. Tad was very angry that his benevolence and his authority should be thus disputed. He flew upstairs to see his mother, but she was nowhere to be found. At this crisis he saw his father coming up the yard with Secretary Seward. They were discussing some important affairs of state, but that was insignificant in comparison with Tad's grievance. He ran out to carry his complaint to the head of the nation.

"Father," he cried, running up to the Executive in Chief of the United States, "Peter won't let me feed these hungry boys. Two of them are boys of soldiers. Isn't it our kitchen? I'm going to discharge Peter.

He doesn't obey orders."

Secretary Seward was very much amused.

The President turned to him as if much perplexed.

"Seward," he said, "advise with me. This case requires great diplomacy."

Mr. Seward patted Tad on the head and said, "My boy, be careful that you don't run the government into debt."

Then Lincoln took his little boy's hand in his, saying, "Tell Peter that you really have to obey the Bible which tells you to feed the hungry, and that he ought to be a better Christian."

Tad went to Peter with the astonis.h.i.+ng news that his father didn't believe the White House cook was a Christian.

The religious problem of "feeding the hungry" won quickly over the economic problem of White House expenses. Childhood was not defeated in its sympathies, and, like every other moral question, it was solved in the spirit of social democracy.

Secretary Seward writes of this that in less than an hour they pa.s.sed back through the yard on their way to a Cabinet meeting and about a dozen small boys were sitting on the kitchen steps having a state dinner at the expense of the government.

VI. SOME INCIDENTS FROM THE GREAT YEARS

Little incidents of appreciative consideration marked all of Lincoln's way.

One afternoon in Chicago, while many noted visitors were gathered about him, a little boy entered the room, and, seeing Lincoln, took off his cap, whirled it over his head and shouted, "Hurrah for Lincoln!"

Mr. Lincoln gently made his way through the crowd, picked the little boy up in his arms, held him out at arm's length, studied him a moment seriously, and then shouted, in like enthusiasm, as he set the boy down, "Hurrah for you!"

Honorable W. D. Kell tells an incident that occurred in asking Lincoln to do something for Willie Bladen.