Part 59

When General Cass was a candidate for the Presidency his friends sought to endow him with a military reputation.

Lincoln, at that time a representative in Congress, delivered a speech before the House, which, in its allusion to Mr. Cass, was exquisitely sarcastic and irresistibly humorous:

“By the way, Mr. Speaker,” said Lincoln, “do you know I am a military hero?

“Yes, sir, in the days of the Black Hawk War, I fought, bled, and came away.

“Speaking of General Cass’s career reminds me of my own.

“I was not at Stillman’s defeat, but I was about as near it as Cass to Hull’s surrender; and like him I saw the place very soon afterwards.

“It is quite certain I did not break my sword, for I had none to break, but I bent my musket pretty badly on one occasion.

“If General Cass went in advance of me picking whortleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charging upon the wild onion.

“If he saw any live, fighting Indians, it was more than I did, but I had a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes, and although I never fainted from loss of blood, I can truly say that I was often very hungry.”

Lincoln concluded by saying that if he ever turned Democrat and should run for the Presidency, he hoped they would not make fun of him by attempting to make him a military hero.

“SURRENDER NO SLAVE.”

About March, 1862, General Benjamin F. Butler, in command at Fortress Monroe, advised President Lincoln that he had determined to regard all slaves coming into his camps as contraband of war, and to employ their labor under fair compensation, and Secretary of War Stanton replied to him, in behalf of the President, approving his course, and saying, “You are not to interfere between master and slave on the one hand, nor surrender slaves who may come within your lines.”

This was a significant milestone of progress to the great end that was thereafter to be reached.

CONSCRIPTING DEAD MEN.

Mr. Lincoln being found fault with for making another “call,” said that if the country required it, he would continue to do so until the matter stood as described by a Western provost marshal, who says:

“I listened a short time since to a butternut-clad individual, who succeeded in making good his escape, expatiate most eloquently on the rigidness with which the conscription was enforced south of the Tennessee River. His response to a question propounded by a citizen ran somewhat in this wise:

“‘Do they conscript close over the river?’

“‘Stranger, I should think they did! They take every man who hasn’t been dead more than two days!’

“If this is correct, the Confederacy has at least a ghost of a chance left.”

And of another, a Methodist minister in Kansas, living on a small salary, who was greatly troubled to get his quarterly instalment. He at last told the non-paying trustees that he must have his money, as he was suffering for the necessaries of life.

“Money!” replied the trustees; “you preach for money? We thought you preached for the good of souls!”

“Souls!” responded the reverend; “I can’t eat souls; and if I could it would take a thousand such as yours to make a meal!”

“That soul is the point, sir,” said the President.

LINCOLN’S REJECTED MANUSCRIPT.

On February 5th, 1865, President Lincoln formulated a message to Congress, proposing the payment of $400,000,000 to the South as compensation for slaves lost by emancipation, and submitted it to his Cabinet, only to be unanimously rejected.

Lincoln sadly accepted the decision, and filed away the manuscript message, together with this indorsement thereon, to which his signature was added: “February 5, 1865. To-day these papers, which explain themselves, were drawn up and submitted to the Cabinet unanimously disapproved by them.”

When the proposed message was disapproved, Lincoln soberly asked: “How long will the war last?”

To this none could make answer, and he added: “We are spending now, in carrying on the war, $3,000,000 a day, which will amount to all this money, besides all the lives.”