Books: Bits & Classics

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: His SPEECHES AND WRITINGS (843 pp.)—Edifed by Roy P. Basler—World ($3.75).

Few U.S. Presidents have left much of a legacy to literature. The literary remains of Millard Fillmore or Benjamin Harrison, for instance, are scholar-carrion. Abraham Lincoln’s writings, in bright contrast, remain fresh and readable.

Perhaps the reason is, as Carl Sandburg suggests in a preface to this book, that Lincoln had a wide variety of styles—a greater range than any other U.S. statesman or orator. He wrote gravely and inspiringly at times, colloquially and waggishly at others. Now & then, he even broke out into doggerel. Sample (from something called The Bear Hunt):

When first my father settled here,

‘Twas then the frontier line:

The panther’s scream, filled night with fear

And bears preyed on the swine.

Conscious Craftsman. The editor of this collection—which the publishers say is the first “comprehensive” Lincoln volume of its kind since 1905—is the University of Arkansas’ Roy P. Easier (The Lincoln Legend, etc.). All told, Editor Easier has transcribed, wherever possible from the original sources, some 250 speeches, letters and literary odds & ends. Many of the selections are obvious and familiar (the classic Gettysburg and Second Inaugural addresses, etc.); many are curious, little-known bits—such as Lincoln’s grateful testimonial to a corncutter: “Dr. Zachariehas operated on my feet with great success, and considerable addition to my comfort.”

Taking issue with those who consider Lincoln’s writing as an innocent or plain homespun talent, Editor Easier argues that it is the work of a conscious literary craftsman. Although he had little formal education, Lincoln studied rhetoric in his spare time, pored over Aesop’s Fables and the King James Bible, wrote practice exercises in prose and verse. By the time he had reached 28, Easier declares, he had already acquired the skill “which marks all his later work . . . [although his] taste improves much thereafter, as his literary stature increases. . . .”

Steady Glow. Sometimes careless with grammar and punctuation, Lincoln was also unsure in his spelling.* Basler’s transcripts show him writing verry, immagine, inteligent, and even during his White House years inaugeral and colatterals. But, clearly enough, these failings did not affect the majestic music of the “House Divided” speech or the measured cadences of the 1862 Annual Message.

Somewhere deep inside Lincoln there was a kind of literary genius, as surely as there was in Edgar Allan Poe or Walt Whitman. It shines strong in his great state papers; it glows steadily in his lesser efforts. It is as unmistakable as the man himself, in the letter the President wrote Jan. 26, 1863, to the Union Army’s Major General Joseph Hooker:

“I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. . . . And yet I think it best for you to know that … I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, which, of course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right.

“You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable, if not an indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm. But I think that during Gen. Burnside’s command of the Army, you have taken counsel of your ambition, and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country, and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer.

“I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a Dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes, can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. . . .

“And now, beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy, and sleepless vigilance, go forward, and give us victories.

“Yours very truly “A. Lincoln”

* Spelling has troubled other Presidents. Latest case: Harry Truman wrote Marshall for Marshal when inscribing a photograph for Russia’s Zhukov.