"The duty was discharged only too gladly by the energetic and far-sighted Secretary; with what effect and renown the country knows full well."[1]
Governor Yates, of Illinois, in a speech at Springfield, quoted one of Mr. Lincoln's early friends—W. T. Greene—as having said that the first time he ever saw Mr. Lincoln, he was in the Sangamon River with his trousers rolled up five feet, more or less, trying to pilot a flat-boat over a mill-dam. The boat was so full of water that it was hard to manage. Lincoln got the prow over, and then, instead of waiting to bail the water out, bored a hole through the projecting part and let it run out; affording a forcible illustration of the ready ingenuity of the future President in the quick invention of moral expedients.
"Some two years ago," said Colonel Forney, in a speech at Weldon, Pennsylvania, before the "Soldiers' Aid Society," in 1865, "a deputation of colored people came from Louisiana, for the purpose of laying before the President a petition asking certain rights, not including the right of universal suffrage. The interview took place in the presence of a number of distinguished gentlemen. After reading their memorial, he turned to them and said: 'I regret, gentlemen, that you are not able to secure all your rights, and that circumstances will not permit the government to confer them upon you. I wish you would amend your petition, so as to
- ↑ Boston Commonwealth.
