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    Abraham Lincoln's Wit and Wisdom
    Abraham Lincoln's Wit and Wisdom
    Abraham Lincoln's Wit and Wisdom
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    Abraham Lincoln's Wit and Wisdom

    By Abraham Lincoln

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    "My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance." The most eloquent of American presidents, Lincoln had a sagacious or humorous comment on everything that mattered. This attractively designed and illustrated gift book features the Great Emancipator's thoughts and opinions on subjects from politics to human nature to the burdens and privileges of the presidency.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateJul 17, 2013
    ISBN9780486316482
    Abraham Lincoln's Wit and Wisdom
    Author

    Abraham Lincoln

    Abraham Lincoln was a store owner, postmaster, county surveyor, and lawyer, before sitting in both the House of Representatives and Senate. He was our 16th President, being elected twice, and serving until his assassination in 1865. He is best known for leading the United States through the Civil War, and his anti-slavery stance.

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      Book preview

      Abraham Lincoln's Wit and Wisdom - Abraham Lincoln

      ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S

      Wit & Wisdom

      Abraham Lincoln, 16th president

      ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S

      Wit & Wisdom

      SELECTED AND EDITED BY

      BOB BLAISDELL

      DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

      Mineola, New York

      To my son, Max

      Copyright

      Copyright © 2013 by Dover Publications, Inc.

      All rights reserved.

      Bibliographical Note

      Abraham Lincoln’s Wit and Wisdom is a new work, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 2013.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Lincoln, Abraham, 1809–1865.

      Abraham Lincoln’s wit and wisdom / selected and edited by Bob Blaisdell.

      pages cm

      Includes bibliographical references.

      eISBN-13: 978-0-486-31648-2

      1. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809–1865—Quotations. 2. Presidents—United States—Quotations. 3. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809–1865—Philosophy. 4. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809–1865—Political and social views. 5. United States—Politics and government—1815–1861—Quotations, maxims, etc. 6. United States—Politics and government—1861–1865—Quotations, maxims, etc. I. Blaisdell, Robert. II. Title.

      E457.99.B629 2013

      973.7092—dc23

      2013001431

      Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

      49997901 2013

      www.doverpublications.com

      CONTENTS

      Note

      America

      Education and Advice for the Young

      Faith, Morality, and God’s Will

      Fathers and Sons

      His Own Life and Character

      Law and the Constitution

      Politics

      Politicians: Henry Clay, Stephen Douglas, and Zachary Taylor

      The Presidency

      Reading and Writing

      Secession

      Slavery, Equality, and the Emancipation Proclamation

      Speech-Making

      Storytelling

      The War and His Generals

      Women and Marriage

      Appendix: Remarks on Abraham Lincoln by His Contemporaries

      Abraham Lincoln in 1865

      NOTE

      It is the strangest and yet the fittest thing in the jumble of human vicissitudes, that he, out of so many millions, unlooked for, unselected by any intelligible process that could be based upon his genuine qualities, unknown to those who chose him, and unsuspected of what endowments may adapt him for his tremendous responsibility, should have found the way open for him to fling his lank personality into the chair of state,—where, I presume, it was his first impulse to throw his legs on the council-table, and tell the Cabinet Ministers a story.

      —Nathaniel Hawthorne, July 1862

      America’s most famous and most mythologized man is, even with the myth stripped away, probably one of our greatest presidents and certainly one of our most remarkable and representative men. It is very strange that I, he reflected near the end of the Civil War, a boy brought up in the woods, and seeing, as it were, but little of the world, should be drifted into the very apex of this great event. How strange (and fortunate), indeed, it was that he, born in 1809 in the backwoods of Kentucky, raised on the frontier of Indiana, a self-educated lawyer in Illinois, found his way to state and then national politics and became, to his own amazement, the president of the United States at its moment of deepest crisis: the secession of rebel states over the issue of the extension of America’s most vile institution, slavery. He steered America, a house divided, as he famously described it, through its war upon itself, its war of brothers and families, and he was assassinated at its end in 1865. Only hours before he was fatally shot, he envisioned the peaceful and healing aftermath of the national and personal catastrophe, saying to his wife Mary, We must both be more cheerful in the future. Between the war and the loss of our darling Willie, we have both been very miserable. (One of their young sons had died of disease during the war.)

      It is not a myth that Lincoln was wise and witty; his powerful and conversational phrasings continually demonstrate the workings of a lively, quick, and sensitive mind. It is very common in this country to find great facility of expression and less common to find great lucidity of thought, he told a British journalist. The combination of the two in one person is very uncommon; but whenever you do find it, you have a great man. Lincoln himself developed that combination, and he rose to become our great man. As a public man, he seems to have been generally consistent in his views on slavery, the law, and morality. Though I have distributed his statements into various broad categories, few of the quotations could not have found an appropriate home in another category or two. I have tried to limit the selection to quotations that were characteristic rather than odd or exceptional, and to rely on those statements that are more or less self-explanatory. I have arranged the quotations chronologically within their categories, with the undatable remarks placed thematically.

      Most of the designated remarks (his statements recorded not in writing but in conversation) should be taken as secondhand. To help determine the reliability of such remarks, I have depended on the scholarship of Lincoln experts. During his presidency, Lincoln became famous as the purported author of many anecdotes he had never even told, much less created. I do generally remember a good story when I hear it, he told a friend during the Civil War, but I never did invent anything original; I am only a retail dealer. He became America’s model of the folksy joke-teller in spite of this, so I have included a few of the jokes he seems to have actually recounted.

      While a fine writer, Lincoln was never a good speller, nor did he ever get around to memorizing rules of punctuation. With educated people, I suppose, punctuation is a matter of rule; with me it is a matter of feeling, he told a friend. But I must say that I have a great respect for the semicolon; it’s a very useful little chap. For the sake of clarity, I have corrected his punctuation and spelling. For this project (and its earlier, shorter incarnation in 2005), I thank my father, Dr. F. William Blaisdell, for the loan of his Civil War books and his suggestions of examples of Lincoln’s humor, and my son, Max, for his help in tagging the hundreds of quotations from The Collected Works. Max’s recent interest in collecting quotations about Lincoln by his contemporaries led to the Appendix, in this new edition, of observations and opinions on Lincoln’s character by his friends and foes.

      —Bob Blaisdell

      New York City

      September 2012

      Bibliography

      Roy P. Basler, editor. Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings. Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Company, 1946.

      Roy P. Basler, editor. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volumes 1–8. The Abraham Lincoln Association. Springfield, Illinois, and New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1953–1955.

      Bob Blaisdell, editor. The Civil War: A Book of Quotations. Mineola, New York: Dover, 2004.

      David Herbert Donald. Lincoln. Simon and Schuster, 1995.

      Don E. Fehrenbacher, editor. Abraham Lincoln: A Documentary Portrait Through His Speeches and Writings. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1964.

      Don E. Fehrenbacher and Virginia Fehrenbacher, editors. Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1996.

      John Grafton, editor. Great Speeches: Abraham Lincoln. Mineola, New York: Dover, 1991.

      Francis V. Greene. Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief. Scribner’s Magazine. Volume 46, 1909.

      Harold Holzer. Emancipating Lincoln. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2012.

      Harold Holzer, editor. Lincoln as I Knew Him: Gossip, Tributes and Revelations from His Best Friends and Worst Enemies. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1999.

      Harold Holzer, editor. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. New York: Fordham University Press, 2004.

      Louis P. Masur. Lincoln’s Hundred Days: The Emancipation Proclamation and the War for the Union. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012.

      Alexander K. McClure, editor. Abe Lincoln’s Yarns and Stories: A Complete Collection of the Funny and Witty Anecdotes That Made Lincoln Famous as America’s Greatest Story Teller. Philadelphia: Henry Neil, 1901.

      James M. McPherson. The Struggle for Equality. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995.

      James M. McPherson. Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief. New York: The Penguin Press, 2008.

      Wendell Phillips. Speeches, Lectures, and Letters. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1884.

      Allen Thorndike Rice, editor. Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguished Men of His Time. New York: North American Publishing Company, 1886.

      Carl Schurz. The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, Volume 2: 1852–1863. London: John Murray, 1909.

      Walter Stahr. Seward: Lincoln’s Indispensable Man. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012.

      Harriet Beecher Stowe. Abraham Lincoln. The Living Age. Volume 80, February 1864.

      Walt Whitman. Selected Letters of Walt Whitman. Edited by Edwin Haviland Miller. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1990.

      Douglas L. Wilson. Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

      Paul Zall, editor. Abe Lincoln Laughing: Humorous Anecdotes from Original Sources by and about Abraham Lincoln. Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press, 1995.

      ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S

      Wit & Wisdom

      Pioneer Home of Abraham Lincoln, c. 1890

      AMERICA: We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion of earth

      We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion of earth as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement of establishment of them—they are a legacy bequeathed us by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic but now lamented and departed race of ancestors. Theirs was a task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; ’tis ours only, to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader; the latter, undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation, to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know.

      —The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions: Address before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838

      At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?—Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never!—All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.

      At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by suicide.

      —The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions: Address before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838

      We are a great empire. We are eighty years old. We stand at once the wonder and admiration of the whole world, and we must enquire what it is that has given us so much prosperity, and we shall understand that to give up that one thing would be to give up all future prosperity. This cause is that every man can make himself. It has been said that such a race of prosperity has been run nowhere else. . . . we see a people who, while they boast of being free, keep their fellow beings in bondage.

      —Speech, Kalamazoo, Michigan, August 27, 1856

      If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end, and the question which now distracts the country will be settled just as surely as all other difficulties of like character which have originated in this government have been adjusted. Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away in the time, so will this, and this great nation shall continue to prosper as heretofore.

      —Speech, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, February 15, 1861

      A nation may be said to consist of its territory, its people, and its laws. The territory is the only part which is of certain durability. One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever. It is of the first importance to duly consider and estimate this ever-enduring part. That portion of the earth’s surface which is owned and inhabited by the people of the United States is well adapted to be the home of one national family, and it is not well adapted for two or more. Its vast extent and its variety of climate and productions are of advantage in this age for one people, whatever they might have been in former ages. Steam, telegraphs, and intelligence have brought these to be an advantageous combination for one united people.

      —Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862

      Our national strife springs not from our permanent part; not from the land we inhabit; not from our national homestead. There is no possible severing of this, but would multiply, and not mitigate, evils among us. In all its adaptations and aptitudes, it demands union, and abhors separation. In fact, it would, ere long, force reunion, however much of blood and treasure the separation might have cost. Our strife pertains to ourselves—to the passing generations of men; and it can, without convulsion, be hushed forever from the passing of one generation.

      —Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862

      Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

      —Gettysburg Address, at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863

      Nowhere in the world is presented a government of so much liberty and equality. To the humblest and poorest amongst us are held out the highest privileges and positions. The present moment finds me at the White House, yet there is as good a chance for your children as there was for my father’s.

      —Speech to 148th Ohio Regiment, August 31, 1864

      Lincoln and His Son Tad

      EDUCATION AND ADVICE FOR THE YOUNG:

      Stick to your purpose

      Upon the system of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in. That every man may receive at least a moderate education, and thereby be enabled to read the histories of his own and other countries, by which he may duly appreciate the value of our free institutions, appears to be an object of vital importance, even on this account alone, to say nothing of the advantages and satisfaction to be derived from all being able to read the scriptures and other works, both of a religious and moral nature, for themselves.

      —Letter to the people of Sangamo County, March 9, 1832

      I am slow to learn and slow to forget that which I have learned. My mind is like a piece of steel, very hard to scratch anything on it and almost impossible after you get it there to rub it out.

      —Remark to his friend Joshua Speed (n.d.¹)

      A fool could learn about as well

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