Voices from the Past Part 143

The blacks. The list can go on and on.

Freedom and death... I see they have an ugly affinity.

Nov 1st 63

The Library

As far back as I can remember I have always watched over my dollars. In Springfield I knew what each month's expenses amounted to. During my sixteen-year partners.h.i.+p with Billy Herndon, our agreement was fifty-fifty. There never were any problems. Though it is miles to Springfield, I can summon figures. Our last year together, Billy and I earned $2,300 each. We had 63 cases at $10.00 each; we had 20 at $15.00 each, etc. Twenty or twenty-five brought in $5.00. Apart from these combined earnings I added about $1,200 on my prairie circuits.

This is a singular improvement over 31 a day at farm labor. As farm hand I earned about $100.00 a year, eliminating thunder and lightning, hail, sore muscles, broken ax handles, corns, a chronic failure on the part of farmers to pay their promised payments. City lamplighters do better.

Few in this capitol have ever enjoyed the intimacy old Jenny and I shared, buggy-sharing, spelled out with faithful grunts, special ear signals and soft nuzzlings.

No, it wasn't always money-concern for me. Another a.s.set was Billy's library-his Kant, Locke, Spencer, Volney, and Emerson.

Another virtue, one that is very difficult to spell out, Billy kept my inkwell full.

November 12, 1863

Evening

Today has been a day of war problems. Telegrams contradict telegrams. In my bedroom I opened my Shakespeare to Julius Caesar:

There is a tide in the affairs of men

Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat,

And we must take the current when it serves,

Or lose our ventures.

Where is there finer counsel for me?

Foremost in my mind is the termination of this war, the abolis.h.i.+ng of black servitude, the welding of our statehood. A triple goal!

Sat.u.r.day

I used to wash in an iron keeler, scrubbing hard after plowing or splitting rails. Sat.u.r.day was scrub night.

Here, at the Executive Mansion, the pretentious bathrooms trouble me. There are thousands of neglected, hungry folk. It is a president's obligation to a.s.sist those in need.

For all concerned there have been more favored times; as a people we are trapped between violence and the mending of that violence; in spite of our bewilderment we reach out.

I can not say grace any longer. I have tried. I stumble. I can not express my thanks for food when men are hungry. When whole communities are hungry, when death stalks our nation. If I am fortunate I may be fortunate at another's expense, another's disadvantage.

Tomorrow, I will saddle Old Abe. I will shove my new Wordsworth book into my saddlebag and ride into the country, along the Potomac. I will eat dry corn bread. I will lie in deep gra.s.s and read, all day.

Nov 20, '63

Early

I prefer art that pictures a Niagara or a lofty mountain range at sunset or a tall vase full of flowers.

I don't go for the painting of faces-portraits. The painting done by Francis Carpenter troubles me; for one thing I wish he would remove it from the dining room where he has excellent chandelier light. Of course I can not find time to sit for him during the day. And all those faces on his canvas are so dull, such solemn faces; seven dull men surround me as I sign the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. People, looking at those men, will think ill of us. At dinner, if the painting is still in the dining room, I face away from it. Carpenter says he will take the picture on a national tour. I believe that is an error.

Monday evening

Fireplace fire

Where are s.e.xual malpractices focused?

Let me indicate:

In 1850 there were 405,523 mulattoes. Very few of these are the offspring of white and free blacks; nearly all have sprung from black slaves and white masters. In the same year, there were 56,649 mulattoes in the free states; but for the most part they were not born there- they came from the slave states. During this year, the slave states had 348,847 mulattoes, all of home production.

The White House

Since no man is born president of his country, he must cross a difficult bridge between home and capitol.

Crossing it, he is involved in national issues and problems he could not antic.i.p.ate. About him is a sea of new faces; he must remember each; he must remember names; he must define personalities as quickly and as intelligently as possible.

Following my inauguration, Fort Sumter, at Charleston, was bombarded; within six weeks state secession had begun. "Secession is revolution," I reminded my dissatisfied fellow countrymen. Grim cabinet meetings took place; telegram followed telegram; I soon realized that months of decision and indecision lay ahead. I saw it would be months before I could control my own house.

Needing friends, I reached out and found a few; needing wisdom, I made mistakes. My office window showed me an alien river; there were more than thirty rooms in the White House, rooms and sounds. And the sounds were more often drum beats, slow beats, suggesting caution, intimating death.

FORT SUMTER FALLEN. Commander Anderson Surrenders. April 14, 1861, Fort Sumter, located in the harbor of Charleston, S. C., surrendered yesterday, after 34 hours of Confederate bombardment. The 100 survivors, without food and ammunition... 75,000 Union men called up...