Lincolns Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters | Page 4

Even in his boyhood he found
pleasure in discovering the exact meaning of a new word and in later
life he was constantly adding to his verbal stores. Shortly before his
inauguration Lincoln remarked to a clergyman, who had asked him
how he had acquired his remarkable power of "putting things": "I can
say this, that among my earliest recollections I remember how, when a
mere child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I
could not understand. I don't think I ever got angry at anything else in
my life. But that always disturbed my temper, and has ever since. I can
remember going to my little bedroom, after hearing the neighbors talk
of an evening with my father, and spending no small part of the night
walking up and down, trying to make out what was the exact meaning
of their, to me, dark sayings."
In this first address we find no loose use of words. The character of the
address does not of course admit of ornament or figurative language,
but any subject, however simple, admits of digressions and mental
excursions by the illogical and careless writer. Of these there is not a
trace. Even in the most informal letters and telegrams, written at post
haste and at times under the most extreme pressure of business and
anxiety, Lincoln shows a natural feeling for the appropriate expression
that is found only in the masters of language.
Five years later, in 1837, the interval being represented by only a few
unimportant letters, Lincoln entered upon a period distinguished by
qualities that are not usually associated with his name, a tendency to
fine writing that we should look for earlier than at the age of
twenty-eight. The subject of the address is "The Perpetuation of our
Political Institutions," and the complete text is given in this volume.
Here for once Lincoln speaks of an Alexander, a Buonoparte, a
Washington. The influence of Webster is apparent, in this first purely
oratorical attempt of Lincoln's. It could hardly have been otherwise at a
time when the great Whig orator was making the whole country ring
with his wonderful speeches. It is almost certain, too, that Henry Clay,
to whom Lincoln later referred as beau ideal of an orator, had a part in
moulding this early manner, though this is probably less apparent here

than in the later soberer addresses.
But it must not be supposed that this speech consists merely of what
Hamlet would call "words, words, words." Neither are all the figures
inferior and commonplace. Although it is more ornate than anything in
the later period, the following description of the passing away of the
heroes of the Revolution is a fine example of the Websterian style:
"They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-resistless hurricane has
swept over them, and left only here and there a lonely trunk, despoiled
of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur
in a few more ruder storms, then to sink and be no more." The closing
sentence of the address is almost wholly, in the later style and might
have served for the close of the First Inaugural, which, in its original
form, did actually contain a Biblical quotation.
That the rhetorical manner had not gained entire possession of Lincoln
at that time, but was simply used by him on what seemed to be
appropriate occasions, is sufficiently shown by a speech delivered in
the legislature early in 1839, in which we find the strictly logical
discussion of the first address. This speech is especially interesting
because of the fact that it is the earliest encounter of Lincoln and
Douglas that has been preserved. In a way, therefore, it may be
regarded as the first Lincoln-Douglas debate.
One other rhetorical effort was made, in 1842, and then we find no
more specimens of this class of speaking until the so-called Lost
Speech of 1856. This address of 1842 was delivered before the
Springfield Washingtonian Temperance Society, on Washington's
Birthday, and it is even more inflated than the first specimen.
Combined with the rhetoric, however, there is a mass of sober
argument that again suggests the later Lincoln. The arguments, too, are
characterized by a sound common sense that is no less characteristic of
the speaker. The peroration deserves quotation as being one of the
finest and at the same time one of the least familiar passages in
Lincoln's writings: "This is the one hundredth and tenth anniversary of
the birthday of Washington. We are met to celebrate this day.
Washington is the mightiest name of earth: long since mightiest in the

cause of civil liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name
a eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To add brightness