well, and much better, than I did. There was one trait
in Mr. Lincoln's character that I can never forget ; that
was his great kindness and generous sympathy for the
young men, who were struggling night and day, to reach a
place at the bar, as lawyers. I well remember his coming
in the office of Col. Baker, where I studied and read law,
almost every afternoon ; and with his cheerful face, and
hearty greeting, to myself and other students, " How are
you this afternoon, boys ?" seat himself, and take up some
text-book, that some of us were reading, and give us a
close and rigid examination, laughing heartily at our an-
swers, at times ; and always made the hour he spent with
us interesting and instructive ; occasionally relating, to
the great amusement of all present,, an anecdote ; and,
after the hour so spent, he could go to a back yard, used
by the students, and join them in a game of ball, with as
much zest as any of us. But, when his watch told him
the hour was out, he would at once quit the game, and
bid us good-evening. Many years after, years that the
writer had spent in the active practice of law, I met Mr.
Lincoln, and was associated with him in about the last
case he had any connection with. This, I think, was in
214 WILLIAM WALKER.
the year 1859, and after his name had become a house-
hold word in all the land after he had won imperishable
renown as a political debater, with Senator Douglas ; and
while his great mind was full of the momentous ques-
tions then agitating the public mind : he could not, and
did not, forget an old widow lady who had been, long
years before, kind to him, while he was struggling, alone
and unaided, in a new country, for the means to enable
him to qualify himself for the high position afterward
called upon, by his countrymen, to fill. This old widow
lady, named Armstrong, known by almost every one in
Menard Co. as Aunt Hannah, had a son a wild boy of
about twenty years of age who, with others, became in-
volved in a difficulty at a camp meeting, held in Mason
Co., near Salt Creek, resulting in the killing of a man
named Metzker. Young Armstrong, and another young
man, were indicted for murder in the first degree. Aunt
Hannah, young Armstrong's mother, employed the
writer, and a lawyer named Dillworth, to defend her son.
We obtained an order of court, allowing separate trials,
and took a change of venue, on the part of Armstrong,
to Cass Co., Illinois, in the spring of '59. Upon the
writer reaching Beardstown, and while in consultation
with my associate, at the hotel, Mr. Lincoln was an-
nounced. Upon entering, he gave us the gratifying
information that he would, at the request of Aunt Han-
nah, assist us in the case of her son. This was agree-
able news to us. We furnished Mr. Lincoln such facts
as had come to our knowledge ; he walked across the
room two or three times, was again seated, and asked us
for our line of defense, and the kind of jury we thought
WILLIAM WALKER. 215
of taking. We were in favor of young men. He asked
our reasons. We replied, the defendant being a young
man, we thought the sympathies of young men could be
more easily aroused in his behalf. Mr. Lincoln differed
with us, and requested the privilege of making the chal-
lenges, which we accorded to him, and to me. The most
remarkable-looking twelve men were sworn, that I had
ever seen in a jury-box. All were past middle life, and
the more strict the men were in enforcing obedience to
the law, and the good order of society, the better pleased
IVft. Lincoln was with them. The trial progressed, evi-
dence heard and instructions given, and the State was
heard from through its attorney. Mr. Lincoln made the
closing argument for the defense. A grander, or a more
powerful and eloquent speech, never, in my opinion, fell
from the lips of man ; and when he closed, there was not
a dry eye in the court-room. The young man was
acquitted, for which Mr. Lincoln would not receive a
cent. I have made this mention of some of my recol-
lections of Mr. Lincoln, longer, perhaps, than I ought
but I could not well avoid it for, taking him all in all, I
think him one of the greatest men America has ever
produced.
LEXINGTON, 1882.
2i6 REPLY TO GOVERNOR HICKS
REPLY
TO GOVERNOR HICKS AND MAYOR BROWN.
FOR the future, troops must be brought here,
but I make no point of bringing them through Baltimore.
Without any military knowledge myself, of course I
must leave details to General Scott. He hastily said
this morning, in the presence of these gentlemen,
" March them around Baltimore and not through it."
I sincerely hope the General, on fuller reflection, will
consider this practical and proper, and that you will not
object to it. By this, a collision of the people of Balti-
more with the troops will be avoided, unless they go out
of their way to seek it. I hope you will exert your in-
fluence to prevent this. Now and ever I shall do all in
my power for peace, consistently with the maintenance of
the government.
APRIL 20, 1861.
LEONARD W. VOLK. 217
r I ^HE public services of Mr. Lincoln are well known
JL to the world. But there is much of the man,
the inner man and his real characteristics familiar
only to his neighbors and intimate friends, as they knew
him, before he was so suddenly called to the Presidency
of the United States, from a country village, where,
and near which most of his life had been spent, to assume
the " cares of state," and carry, Atlas-like, the destinies
of the Western Continent upon his brawny and hercu-
lean shoulders. The world at large will never know as
do those living neighbors and friends the real greatness
of the man. Personally, I had but little intimate
acquaintance with Mr. Lincoln, compared to what many
others had, and what I observed of his character was
mainly while sitting to me, prior to his nomination in
1860, for the clay model of his bust. But he impressed
me, before I ever spoke with him, with a feeling akin to
reverence a feeling of affection. He was just the man
to strike with favor every person who knew toil and pri-
vation and what could be more natural ? for he himself
had been a toiler at every drudgery, and experienced the
severest privations from earliest boyhood to mature man-
hood. Its effect was plainly visible in his figure, in the
form of the bones, muscle and sinew, in his motion and
in his speech. He was a plebeian in the truest sense, and
his prototype cannot be found among the great men of
ancient or modern times. He has been compared with
King Servius Tullius, but might with more propriety be
218 LEONARD W. VOLK.
compared with the Czar Alexander II. of Russia, who by
his own personal will freed so many millions of serfs, in
opposition to the wishes of his nobles ; while the former
freed no slaves, but granted some elective privileges to
the plebeian claims, subject always to the approval of the
patrician senators, and built a five-mile wall around
Rome. But neither of these despots (one a King and
the other an Emperor) possessed the characteristics of
Abraham Lincoln. The fact that all three were assas-
sinated does not signify much in making them resem-
blances of each other. In studying the marble and
bronze portraits of the rulers and great men of ancient
medieval and modern times, the writer has found none
possessing any decided resemblance to Mr. Lincoln,
whose features are distinctly in contrast with European
types and may properly be designated as purely Amer-
ican, Our own brief history gives us the names of five
distinctly remarkable men who were Presidents of the
United States, greater than all others, more remarkable
because they carved out and achieved their own immor-
tality, and none but one of these five referred to was a
college graduate, and he, by his own indomitable will,
perseverance and industry, through extreme poverty,
alone obtained a collegiate education. None of these
five men were sons of presidents, nor did they possess
wealthy and distinguished relatives (except, perhaps, the
first) to advance and place them in high stations. No !
they all earned their honors and promotion from stage to
stage, from young boyhood, in the rough, rugged school
of experience, toil and hardship, which ripened and fitted
them for every station to which they were successively
LEONARD W. VOLK. 219
advanced up to the highest and proudest positions in the
land. Nature had endowed these favorite sons with a
wealth of ideas, a wealth of self-reliance, industry, hon-
esty, patience and patriotism, far greater and more valu-
able than inherited riches, titles, or class privileges.
Imagine Abraham Lincoln, as a sturdy youth in the
depths of the primeval forests of the west, alone with his
axe, felling the giant trees, lopping off the limbs, dividing
the trunks in regular lengths, then, with beetle and
wedges splitting them into rails, now and then wearily
sitting on a stump or log, or lying on the ground to rest
himself, and snatching a few moments to study a book,
or perhaps contemplating the solitude of the forest, while
watching the birds and listening to their wild songs.
Then, in the grand moon-lit night, while floating silently
down the mighty Mississippi on his flat-boat, he doubt-
less thought, planned and dreamed of his ambitious
desire to rise in the world and get above his present
lowly condition. Noble and ambitious resolves were
weaving in his young brain. He, like the others of the
immortal five, believed in himself to be able to grapple
with the difficulties of life and take the responsibilities
thrust upon him by the people. It was fortunate for the
fame of these men that events of sufficient magnitude
occurred, affording the opportunities to prove to the
world their real fitness, talent and greatness to be
imperishably engraved upon history's tablets among the
immortal men of all ages. If the ambitious young men
of the present and future generations will earnestly study
and imitate these sublime characters, relying as they did
upon their own honest, patient toil and privation of lux-
22O
LEONARD W. VOLK.
uries, instead of leaning upon others or watching chances
to be placed high by those temporarily in power to sud-
denly tumble from unearned stations some of them
may reap the reward and honors of Washington, Jack-
son, Lincoln, Grant and Garfield.
CHICAGO, 1882.
GEORGE STONEMAN. 221
is and can be but one opinion regarding
the life and work performed by that great man
Lincoln. He did more to perpetuate the existence of
free institutions and a republican form of government
than any man that has ever lived, and the debt mankind
owes his memory can never be repaid.
He had but one fault. He was too sympathetic and
tender-hearted. I well recollect one night about two
o'clock A. M. in the early days of the war, that I was with
him in the telegraph office at General McClellan's head-
quarters. He arose from his chair to leave, straightened
himself up and remarked, " To-morrow night I shall have
a terrible headache." When asked the cause he replied,
" To-morrow is hangman's day and I shall have to act
upon death sentences," and I shall never forget the sad
and sorrowful expression that came over his face. It is
well known that Congress relieved him from the consid-
eration of death sentences for desertion and other capital
offenses, and conferred it upon army commanders.
SAN GABRIEL, 1881.
222 MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
MESSAGE TO CONGRESS
ASSEMBLED IN EXTRA SESSION, JULY 4, 1 86 1.
I AM most happy to believe that the plain people un-
derstand and appreciate this. It is worthy of note that
while in this, the Government's hour of trial, large num-
bers of those in the army and navy who have been
favored with the offices, have resigned and proved false
to the hand which pampered them, not one common
soldier or common sailor is known to have deserted his
flag. Great honor is due to those officers who have re-
mained true despite the example of their treacherous
associates, but the greatest honor and most important
fact of all, is the unanimous firmness of the common
soldiers and common sailors. To the last man, so far as
known, they have successfully resisted the traitorous
efforts of those whose commands but an hour before they
obeyed as absolute law. This is the patriotic instinct of
plain people. They understand without an argument
that the destroying the Government which was made
by Washington means no good to them. Our popular
Government has often been called an experiment. Two
points in it our people have settled : the successful estab-
lishing and the successful administering of it. One still
remains: its successful maintenance against a formidable
internal attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to
demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly
carry an election, can also suppress a rebellion ; that
MESSAGE TO CONGRESS. 223
ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors
of bullets, and that when ballots have fairly and
constitutionally decided, there can be no successful
appeal back to bullets ; that there can be no successful
appeal except to ballots themselves at succeeding elec-
tions. Such will be a great lesson of peace, teaching
men that what they cannot take by an election, neither
can they take by a war, teaching all the folly of being
the beginners of a war,
As a private citizen the Executive could not have
consented that these institutions shall perish, much less
could he, in betrayal of so vast and so sacred a trust as
these free people had confided to him. He felt that he
had no moral right to shrink, nor even to count the
chances of his own life in what might follow.
In full view of his great responsibility, he has so far
done what he has deemed his duty. You will now, ac-
cording to your own judgment, perform yours. He sin-
cerely hopes that your views and your actions may so
accord with his as to assure all faithful citizens who have
been disturbed in their rights, of a certain and speedy
restoration to them, under the Constitution and laws,
and having thus chosen our cause without guile, and with
pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go for-
ward without fear and with manly hearts.
224 PERSONAL CONFERENCE.
PERSONAL CONFERENCE
WITH THE REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE BORDER STATES,
JULY 12, l86l.
AFTER the adjournment of Congress, now near, I
shall have no opportunity of seeing you for several
months. Believing that you of the Border States hold
more power for good than any other equal number of
members, I feel it a duty which I cannot justifiably
waive to make this appeal to you. I intend no reproach
or complaint when I assure you that, in my opinion, if
you all had voted for the resolution in the gradual
emancipation message of last March, the war would now
be substantially ended. And the plan therein proposed
is yet one of the most potent and swift means of ending
it. Let the states which are in rebellion see definitely
and certainly that in no event will the states you repre-
sent ever join their proposed Confederacy, and they can-
not much longer maintain the contest. But you cannot
divest them of their hope to ultimately have you with
them so long as you show a determination to perpetuate
the institution within your own states.
If the war continues long, as it must if the object be
not sooner attained, the institution in your states will be
extinguished by mere friction and abrasion by the mere
incidents of the war. It will be gone, and you will have
nothing valuable in lieu of it. Much of its value is gone
already. How much better for you and for your people
i PERSONAL CONFERENCE. 225
to take the step which at once shortens the war, and
secures substantial compensation for that which is sure
to be wholly lost in any other event ! How much better
to thus save the money which else we sink forever in the
war ! How much better to do it while we can, lest the
war, ere long, render us pecuniarily unable to do it !
How much better for you as sellers, and the nation as
buyer, to sell out and buy out that without which the
war could never have been, than to sink both the thing to
be sold and the price of it, in cutting one another's
throats ? I do not speak of emancipation at once, but of
a decision at once to emancipate gradually.
Upon these considerations, I have again begged your
attention to the message of March last. Before leaving
the Capitol, consider and discuss it among yourselves.
You are patriots and statesmen, and as such, I pray you
to consider this proposition, and, at the least, commend
it to the consideration of your states and people. As
you would perpetuate popular government for the best
people in the world, I beseech you that you do in no
wise omit this. Our common country is in great peril,
demanding the loftiest views and boldest action to bring
a speedy relief. Once relieved, its form of government is
saved to the world ; its beloved history and cherished
memories are vindicated, and its happy future fully as-
sured and rendered inconceivably grand. To you, more
than to any others, the privilege is given to assure that
happiness, and swell that grandeur, and to link your own
names therewith forever.
15
226 REPLY TC HORACE GREELY.
REPLY TO HORACE GREELEY.
My paramount object is to save the Union, and neither
to save or destroy slavery.
If there be those who would not save the Union un-
less they could at the same time save slavery, I do not
agree with them. If there be those who would not save
the Union unless they could at the same time destroy
slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object
is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy
slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any
slave, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing all the
slaves I would do it ; and if I could do it by freeing some
and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I
do about slavery and the colored race I do because I be-
lieve it helps to save the Union, and what I forbear, I
forbear because I do not believe it helps to save the
Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe that
what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more
whenever I believe doing more will help the cause.
/. OGLESBY. 227
I ^HERE is but one opinion of the character of
JL Abraham Lincoln, throughout the world. No
living man can add anything to his fame. It will be
polished by the wear of time, to a luster which will
eclipse the glory of all men, not born as he was, to the
boon of immortality.
DECATUR, 1880.
228 R&PLY TO A RELIGIOUS DELEGATION.
REPLY TO A RELIGIOUS DELEGATION
WHO PRESENTED A MEMORIAL REQUESTING MR. LINCOLN
TO ISSUE A PROCLAMATION OF UNIVERSAL
EMANCIPATION.
I AM approached with the most opposite opinions
and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally
certain that they represent the divine will. I am sure
that either the one or the other class is mistaken in that
belief, and perhaps in some respects, both. I hope it will
not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that
God would reveal his will to others, on a point so con-
nected with my duty, it might be supposed he would re-
veal it directly to me ; for, unless I am more deceived in
myself than I often am, it is my earnest desire to know
the will of Providence in this matter, and if I can
learn what it is I will do it ! These are not, however,
the days of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted
that I am not to expect a direct revelation. I must
study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what
is possible and learn what appears to be wise and right.
, The subject is difficult, and good men do not agree.
For instance, the other day four gentlemen of standing
and intelligence from New York, called as a delegation on
business connected with the war ; but before leaving two
of them earnestly besought me to proclaim general
emancipation, upon which the other two at once attacked
them. I can assure you that the subject is on my mind,
by day and night, more than any other. Whatever shall
appear to be God's will I will do.
CYRUS NORTHROP. 229
HIS wisdom, his accurate perceptions, his vigor of
intellect, his humor and his unselfish patriotism
are known to all. But what impressed me even more
than these was the sweetness of his whole nature his
great loving heart. It was this, glorifying his other great
qualities, that so endeared him to the people and caused
his death to be mourned with such an unequaled depth
of sorrow and abundance of tears. No man can take his
place in the hearts of the American people.
YALE COLLEGE, 1882.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS,
DELIVERED ON THE FOURTH DAY OF MARCH, 1 86 1.
APPREHENSION seems to exist among the people of the
Southern States that by the accession of a Republican
administration their property and their peace and per-
sonal security are to be endangered. There has never
been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed,
the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while
existed and been open to their inspection. It is found
in nearly all the published speeches of him who now
addresses you. I do but quote from one of those
speeches when I declare, that " I have no purpose,
directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of
slavery in the States 'where it exists. I believe I have no
lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
Those who nominated and elected me did so with
full knowledge that I had made this and many similar
declarations, and had never recanted them.
Before entering upon so grave a matter as the
destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its
memories and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain
precisely why we do it ? Will you hazard so desperate a
step while there is any possibility that any portion of the
ills you fly from have no real existence ? Will you, while
the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones
you fly from will you risk the commission of so fearful
a mistake ?
IN A UG URAL ADDRESS. 231
Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot
remove our respective sections from each other, nor build
an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife
may be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond
the reach of each other, but the different parts of our
country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to
face ; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must
continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make
that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory
after separation than before ? Can aliens make treaties
easier than friends can make laws ? Can treaties be more
faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among
friends ? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always ;
and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on
either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as
to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.
The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from
the people, and they have conferred none upon him to
fix terms for the separation of the States. The people
themselves can do this also if they choose ; but the Exec-
utive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is
to administer the present government as it came to his
hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his suc-
cessor.
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the
ultimate justice of the people ? Is there any better or
equal hope in the world ? In our present differences, is
either party without faith of being in the right ? If the
Almighty Ruler of nations, with his eternal truth and
justice, be on your side of the North, or yours of the
232 IN A UG URAL ADDRESS.
South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail, by the
judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.
By the frame of the government under which we live,
|the same people have wisely given their public servants
but little power for mischief ; and have, with equal wisdom,
provided for the return of that little to their own hands
at very short intervals. While the people retain their
virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme
of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the gov-
ernment in the short space of four years.
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well
upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by
taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in
hot haste to a step which you would never take deliber-
ately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but