Lincoln's Power with Words

In the life of Lincoln there are many contrasts. Born in a frontier log cabin, death came to him as the occupant of the most eminent of American mansions. Penniless, a wandering laborer in his youth, he was to hear himself denounced in more than one political campaign as the representative of wealth and aristocracy.

Conservative in his political beliefs, circumstances forced upon him acts more radical and assumptions of power more nearly revolutionary than those committed by any other President. A lover of peace by nature, he became the head of a belligerent nation. Untrained in war, he was the commander-in-chief of gigantic armies, and for a time the actual director of their operations.Other paradoxical phases of his career might be mentioned, but no one of them would be found more striking than that of which I intend to speak—the fact that with less than a year of formal schooling, and that of a character which today would be laughed out of our schools, he became one of the great masters1 of the English language.No time need be spent in establishing the fact of that mastery.

One could cite, for example, the testimony of the presidents of two great universities, Eliot of Harvard and Lord Curzon of Oxford.2 More conclusive as evidence, however, are facts with which everyone is familiar. How many persons know anything of the battle of Gettysburg in comparison with the number of those who carry in their minds the words, 'Four score and seven years ago?' How many are familiar with the circumstances and significance of the Cooper Union Address in comparison with those who know and quote its concluding plea: 'Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it?'More interesting, I think, than mere eulogy of Lincoln as a literary artist, is some discussion of his development from a boy who went to country school 'by littles' to a President of the United States whose words are even more memorable than his acts. Like Lincoln himself, this development remains in large part inexplicable.

It can be described, yet under analysis the sources of his literary power remain as deeply hidden as the sources of his personal and political greatness. In his case, as with Shakespeare and Burns, genius followed its own hidden laws.Certainly Lincoln's mastery of the language is not explained by the education which he enjoyed. He himself has sketched that with sufficient detail to dispose definitely of this possibility.

Supplying data for a biographical notice in 1858, he dismissed it with one word: 'defective.'3 Later, in the autobiography which he wrote for Jesse K. Fell, he was more explicit. Writing of his youth in Indiana, he said: 'There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond 'readin', writin', and cipherin'' to the rule of three.

If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much.

Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three, but that was all.'4However, where most men in his circumstances would have been content with this meagre preparation, Lincoln was not. If, accepting his own words, he was not much more than literate at the age of twenty-one, he did not permit that condition to endure. Within two years he was hard at work, under the supervision of the village schoolmaster of New Salem, at the study of grammar.

A year later he was deep in trigonometry and surveying, and soon afterwards he added Blackstone, Chitty, Kent and other legal classics to the field to be covered. When he was admitted to the bar in 1837 he had traveled far from the youth of seven years before who knew little more than his a b c's.5A number of years were to elapse, however, before Lincoln undertook the one formal study which clearly contributed something to his effectiveness as a writer and speaker. In 1849, when he was forty years of age, he returned from his one term in Congress, humbled by defeat and convinced that for him a political future was impossible.

In disillusionment he resumed his law practice, traveling, six months of every year, from county seat to county seat with the judge and itinerant bar. Tucked in his saddle bags or carpet sack with Blackstone and the Revised Statutes of Illinois was a copy of Euclid's geometry. The lawyers who traveled the old Eighth Circuit have painted unforgettable pictures of Lincoln's struggles with the abstruse Greek mathematican.

More than once one of them would awake at one or two o'clock in the morning to find Lincoln, feet protruding over the footboard of an insufficient bed, pondering a difficult demonstration in the light of a single flickering candle, entirely oblivious to the snoring of the other occupants of the crowded tavern room. He persisted in the study until he could demonstrate every proposition in the six books. In the severe logic of his later addresses, and even in occasional phrases such as the 'dedicated to the proposition' of the Gettysburg address, one finds the result.If the bare facts of Lincoln's education are insufficient to explain his capacity for expression, so too are his reading habits.

He was certainly not what we know as 'a well-read man.' His law partner Herndon said of him that he read less and thought more than any man of his class in America, and doubted if he had ever read a single book from cover to cover.6 While this was probably an exaggeration, it erred only in overstatement. Lincoln was not especially interested in books, and when he read, it was to follow certain particular inclinations, rather than to cultivate anything like cultural breadth.He spent much of his time, for instance, in reading newspapers—not the comprehensive journals of today, but small sheets filled almost entirely with political matter highly colored by the partisan bias of each editor. He was inordinately fond of such humorists as Artemus Ward and Petroleum V.

Nasby, frequently reading passages from their writings to the members of his cabinet. In striking contrast was his passion for Shakespeare. Here again his propensity to dig deeply even if narrowly is illustrated.

Though he was familiar enough with Hamlet and Macbeth and a few other plays to challenge the interpretations of the foremost Shakesperian actor of the time, he casually confessed that several of the plays he had not even read.7Poetry, in fact, had a stronger attraction for Lincoln than prose. Melancholy, musical pieces like Gray's 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard' and Holmes' 'Last Leaf' were favorites. One mournful production—'Mortality,' by an obscure Scotch poet, James Knox—he repeated so frequently that for some years he was believed to have written it.

Of the works of Robert Burns and Thomas Hood he was very fond. John Hay has left an inimitable picture in his diary of Lincoln's keen enjoyment of this type of literature and the pleasure he took in sharing it with others. On the fourth of April, 1864, he wrote: 'A little after midnight, as I was writing those last lines, the President came into the office laughing with a volume of Hood's Works in his hand, to show Nicolay and me the little caricature, 'An unfortunate Bee-ing,' seemingly utterly unconscious that he, with his short shirt hanging about his long legs, and setting out behind like the tail feathers of an enormous ostrich, was infinitely funnier than anything in the book he was laughing at.

What a man it is! Occupied all day with matters of vast moment, deeply anxious about the fate of the greatest army in the world, with his own fame and future hanging on the events of the passing hour, he yet has such a wealth of simple bonhommie and good fellowship, that he gets out of bed and perambulates the house in his shirt to find us that we may share with him the fun of poor Hood's queer little conceits.'8With the exception of an occasional quotation, however, reading of this sort seems to have had no influence on Lincoln's speeches or writings, although it may have given depth to the natural poetic quality so noticeable in his presidential state papers. There was one book, however, which left its mark on much of what he wrote.

That was the Bible. Upon a familiarity which extended back to his youth he could always depend. He frequently took a text from it—as when he opened one of his greatest speeches with the paraphrase, 'A house divided against itself cannot stand'—and his finest piece of prose, the Second Inaugural, is so heavily freighted with its phrases that it reads like a magnificent passage from the King James version.In mentioning the effect of Euclid on Lincoln's literary style I have referred to his 'later writings.' Allusion to the poetic quality of his prose was made in connection with his state papers, while the illustration of Biblical influence which has been cited was from a speech delivered in 1858.

It is no mere coincidence that all these examples were taken from speeches or writings of the last ten years of Lincoln's life. His effectiveness with words came gradually. To trace the development, even briefly, the story of his life must be followed.When he was twenty-three years old Lincoln announced that he was a candidate for election to the Illinois Legislature.

He was defeated, but he ran again, this time successfully, two years later. He was re-elected three times, serving four terms in all, from 1834 to 1842. Naturally, he made many speeches, both as a campaigner and as a member of the Legislature.

Those which have survived in printed form enable us to form an accurate estimate of the in which Lincoln his in words at the of his political the of these speeches be their is not is the of it was an age of the of setting a which were to Lincoln was no we some to the and us at a he in one of his he the of and with all the of the own in their with a for a could not by a from the or a on the in a of a the is a passage from speech of a year or two later. have their and may he if be it not that I was the last to but that I I know that the great at and by the that is the of political in a and which is with over the and of the to no or while on its are like on the of the of that and all those who dare its with the of their I cannot that all may be by it may to it I the time Lincoln was in a that made him the of Illinois an I not to a but to an in which he the the state James that he which to a In the of this Lincoln, in the of an as him when I was in last had a sort of a there one the a the about was and all the and about to like as in the and out at both like of that been but let no for the or the little or the I looked in at the and there was this about on the or like a of where had been He was his to this and that and and great it of and the he to be very in the of his and it is but I cannot I know much but do it is not that I so and so upon the of is an but one Lincoln would ever have the sort of if had not into his life. He had been and writing for yet in that time no is on the became a believed to have been could be extended to thought to be for Lincoln was not an content to in the in the that it would a natural but he was to its with all his his own of the him as he had been Lincoln, to the was a man from the whose were a in do what he Lincoln into His an member of the of was and Lincoln the on his He at and but his came when in the at on the of in their the two men had been but by had He was the member of the United States a and the and of the Lincoln, on the other hand, was a political on he in a speech so that it him at the head of the which in two years was to as the was Lincoln's great later he repeated it at and it is as he delivered it The of his was by had given to words, each its in a development as and as the its had these were which future were to as which him to his that for the of the with the the which him to that even all power were he not know what to do with as an the six years the which Lincoln's great speech from those which had it became When he the it was with a which He to his with In his to what he had to the of every and in his he to from the of his to he his and the understand If too over the of the and only those who need no six years Lincoln followed his own and over the state of Illinois he In the campaign of when he was a he nearly one years in his own campaign against for the he even more He the but he a The year he not only in but in Indiana, and in he on the at Cooper Union in New an in which many of the political and of the were and delivered an which his as a of American political man ever before made such an on his to a New wrote in the the in fact, to mastery of His of the language had him an he had a and for this of his power of speech was In the years his from and his for the he had no although he had for had him His was the of his to the of so that men had to and his election to the Lincoln was to as before upon his of The in which he took office in the of was as a one as a President could ever in at the election of a seven in What Lincoln would when he on the of the on that day in was On the one hand, the would on the there was the that might be and peace was but In it he announced his and the and to the and to the and but upon the of the he the of not he can have no the have no in to the while I have the most one to and for the time, Lincoln made an to the as as the of his to he are not but must not be Though passion may have it must not our of The of from every and to every and all over his yet the of the Union when again as by the of our six it as if these words might have the effect he one from the behind the of a single in the of years of had have ever the that was men have at war, but not under the circumstances in which he was only was the of for upon but he was given the of into a behind the at the a in which large were out of with the war, and out of with the in which it was He had to have the of the and he it the with which he was at once most familiar and most of was on The day it On the Lincoln his were were for more and for to the army and The of the of was in certain On the from the took When in on an actual state of the two of the most was to the in terms that would the of His to him the finest for a the of he the he one to he was to again in the Gettysburg Address two years later. this more than the fate of these United he to the of man the a or of the by the or cannot its against its own It the too few in to to law in any case, can upon the made in this case, or on any other or any their and an end to upon the It us to in all this and a of be too for the of its own or too to its own of is not nearly so as it to several of Lincoln's as a and a literary One of these was the development of an It was that the of the passage I have be repeated in the Gettysburg for Lincoln an in his until it in the right to the of his It was with the Cooper Union the of which was in and to again and again until it its development nearly six years later. as such an was the by which it was were and and until became the of a was the of no matter which his in this to those who had given the of to he said that had the of their The to the on the that it the to a state Lincoln that he would it if he could be convinced that the time would ever when the would not know the of he would let it other examples could be but one or two in the of he it not as as the that was made by the of a that had to the where it he a would it in future with with that the of he said in his last only what it as the to the we have the by the than by the of the war, and to a its course, Lincoln for which the legal was at He had no in law for the of the army or for the of and there were many who believed that he his right when he the of the death in which the was of his acts was frequently and several Lincoln to his It is not that he a certain of for it him to to the for a to in each of Lincoln's of this and two of them are by an to Lincoln in which he him of The of was in the New on the later Lincoln in phrases too too to be by who could to the I to be as he have not to any one in would the I would it the under the The the can be the the Union be Union as it If there be those who would not the Union could at the time I do not with If there be those who would not the Union could at the time I do not with in this is to the and is not to or to If I could the Union any I would do and if I could it by all the I would do and if I could it by some and I would do What I do about and the colored I do I it to the and what I I I do not it would to the I do less I what I the and I do more I more the I to when to be and I so as to be have to of and I intend no of personal that all men could be less was the which Lincoln in of the speech he had to in to a Union in his on for a of his he the to of the and of the of more can be found in all of Lincoln's writings than the words with which it not so as it he it and to and so as to be the in all future It have been that men there can be no from the to the and that who such are to their and the there be some men who can that with and and and have on to this great while I there be some to that with and speech to Lincoln his words an almost for minds and their It was an however, which he When he took of his of upon his for he a few simple words of which to the of those who have in his a few he to the in a which to the and the the and the which had into the of the old In to the of and to he wrote from the depth of all other to however, the Gettysburg Address and the Second until after for the at Gettysburg had been upon was Lincoln to a few words of after the of the day had The in of had been to him to so far as most of them had he anything of the that would be on a field where had and where on of the would be no for a political One can for could not have Lincoln would the of the and he would it to what he to be the of the in his to Congress, was of or by its very nature, to the of today we can that after the defeat at Gettysburg the was To men it was not so and as a of were in almost two more years of while were in the and the men who the of Lincoln is so filled with as that which was taken four before his the there heavily with and the of four years of is was the Lincoln on the of with the end of the in to the of office a was but a matter of It would have been but to have at the of while to have for on the would at have been in Lincoln in thought to a day years when he had before an Illinois that the of no less heavily on the than on the we he said in one of the passages in the American is one of those in the of must need but his time, he to and that he to both and this war, as the to those by the we any from those which the in a always to do we do we this of may if that it until all the wealth by the two and years of be and until every of by the be by with the as was said three years so it must be of the Lord are and with for with in the as us to the let us on to the we are to the to for him who have the and for his and his do all which may and a and peace and with all by many Lincoln was a of In his writings and a of style almost and these in to explain the attraction of his It is his own great his his his in what he wrote that his words as long as the English