Year: 1871

n.
the first year of his administration Gwncn aii
of Lincoln's friends who were worth Killing
were at home) returned to the land OF the iiec
only TO find the President glrded ABOUT py
men who poured into his innocent ears day
and night the most frightful falsehoods ABOUT
the state of the country, which the gooemouc"e
President swallowed and digested with unsus-
Meeting candor.' This wise and upright patriot
revealed 70 the astonished Illinosan the dense
and opaoue ignorance in which his keep
era were holding him, and in re-
ply TO his piteous inquiry, What shall
IL do to be saved7" suggested simple and
sufficient remedy. The candid friend who had
rescued the President from his moral prison.
house had other matters of more importance
than the salvation of the country occupying
his mind, and so could not continue his en-
tightening work. But he had another candid
| friend. TO whom he offered the thOrny position
of Truth-teller in Ordinary to His Excellency.
The Honest Magistrate, still in sweat or
mortal terror over the awful peril that had
been revealed to him, abjectly accepted the
mnistrations of this rugged confessor, anu
| "tbe bargain was faithfully carried out, greatly
"to Mr. Lincoln's credit and benefit" Ii the
unknown geniuses who write the Dime Novels
neglect this plot, there is no use trying 10 heip
such people.


The story lacks but one thing: we pine to
| know the obscure patriot to whom we owe the
rescue of Lincoln from the sinister conspiracy
which came so near destroying him in his green
and salad ldays of government The Editor
certainly got the story from the Candid Patriot
himself, and should not have withheld his
name from the admiration of a waiting world.
He is too wise and useful, too large and juice
| full (as the New-England poet said OF the
Rhode Island Greenings), to remain in private
life or to shed his corruscations around the
backstairs of newspaper Offices lie should DC
in Washington to-day, performing for Gen.
| Grant the inestmable services he rendered to
his great and good predecessor.


There is a wonderful family likeness about
all this class of Lincoln anecdotes. The man
who tells them usually steadfastly believes
them. He first begins by thinking what ne
would have said if he had seen the President.
He repeats this to the partner OF his bosom,
and, encouraged by her loyal approval, he
cautiously recOunts an imaginary interview
to the loungers around his country post
Office. He becomes local lion by virtue OF
his story, and at the tenth repetition of it he
is ready to swear to all the material state
ments, and then he cannot rest until he has
seen his invention in print. With perseyer-
ance and worry he always accomplishes this
and if his story is sufficiently brief and i'm
probable Ito be tempting to editorial shears,
it gets copied and passes uDchallenged
into history. This story, for instance, which
has imposed upon the very elect is 80 stupid
that to believe it you require absolute ignor-
ance of the whole range of American history.
1t represents the Executive Mansion as an
Oriental Palace, lguarded by lords of the bed
chamber and secluded from the outside world
The President is an idiot of glimmering good
intentions, who cannot read or write, who sees
nobody but his jailOrs, and gets no hint of the
outside world until this adventurous friend
bursts through his encompassing entertainments
and lets in the day on his blinking eyes. Then
he is all candor and goodness-all goodwill
and teachableness-and the war goes brayely
on, and the country is saved


Now the goOd-natured zany described in
these romances for the above is only one of
hundred which are cugrenD was man over
fifty years of age, who had practiced law
successfully all his life, who had been in
Congress and his State Legislature, who had
been the leader of his party in Illinois for
twenty years, who was the most cOnsummate
and far-seeing political manager in the Mis-
sissippi Valley. He knew by education and
instinct the general drift and tendency of
American politics better than any man in
Congress. He kept the mere politicians dancing
about him like puppets to his piping. He was
honest as statesmen 60, but he never despised
human weaknesses and fOllies as means of
government. He said one day, in an hour of
bitterness after closing protracted local
squabble with brilliant compromise, All
"there is of honest craftsmanship consists in
combining individual meannesses for the pub
"lic good" Yet it is this shrewd and sagaciOus
schemer, this Machavel of the back timber,
who is generally represented by TecOllectors
and paragraphists as a sniyelling sentimental


list, full of credulity and enthusiasm, blown to
red heat by every blast of rustic patriotism
which visited Washington.


Those inpatient gentlemen who went to the
Capitol to tell him what he should do remem-
Der well enough the reception they met with.
One of them, q prominent New-York lawyer,
| began his remarks with the swelling phrase
Mr.. President, the North, having generously
offered you its last dollar and its last man.
was interrupted with the chilling retOrt,
That is poetical and not true The North
gives not a dollar except on good security,
and every State in the North has protested
against its quota in the draftn The speech
was entirely spoiled, and the inpatient patriot
went home to construct his report of the in
| terview.


We do not wish to destroy any ideal of
moral worth. Our honest men are not so very
| tbot tbo
signal instances of integrity in office. But it