Lincoln’s Wit/Wisdom 295

'I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.'

- Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln’s Wit/Wisdom 294

'I never went to school more than six months in my life, but 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 can remember going to my little bedroom, after hearing the neighbors talk of an evening with my father, trying to make out what was the exact meaning of their, to me, dark sayings. I could not sleep, although I tried to, when I got on such a hunt for an idea until I had caught it; and when I thought I had got it, I was not satisfied until I had put it in language plain enough, as I thought, for any boy I knew to comprehend. This was a kind of passion with me, and it has stuck by me; for I am never easy now, when I am handling a thought, till I have bounded it north and bounded it south, and bounded it east and bounded it west.'

- Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln’s Wit/Wisdom 293

Not everybody was against Lincoln:

'...I only wish to thank you for being so good - and to say how sorry we all are that you must have four years more of this terrible toil. But remember what a triumph it is for the right, what a blessing to the country - and then your rest shall be glorious when it does come! You can't tell anything about it in Washington where they make a noise on the slightest provocation. But if you had been in this little speck of a village this morning and heard the soft, sweet music of unseen bells rippling through the morning silence from every quarter of the far-off horizon, you would have better known what your name is in this nation. May God help you in the future as he has helped you in the past and a people's love and gratitude will be but a small portion of your exceeding great reward.'

- Mary Abigail Dodge, from her village of Hamilton, Massachusetts, written on the day of Lincoln's second inauguration, March 4, 1865.

Lincoln’s Wit/Wisdom 292

What Lincoln was up against lasted far beyond the firing of the final shot of that sad, silly war as evidenced by the following:

'I rode with Robert E Lee / For three years thereabout.

Got wounded in three places / And I starved at Point Lookout.

I caught the rheumatism / A'campin in the snow.

But I killed a hundred Yankees / And I'd like to kill some more.

Three hundred thousand Yankees / Is stiff in Southern dust,

We got three hundred thousand / Before they conquered us.

They died of Southern fever, / Of Southern steel and shot.

But I wish it was three million / Instead of what we got.'

- 'I'm a good Old Rebel,' Post Civil War ballad

Lincoln’s Wit/Wisdom 291

'I say now, however, as I have all the while said that on the territorial question -- that is, the question of extending slavery under the national auspices -- I am inflexible. I am for no compromise which assists or permits the extension of the institution on soil owned by the nation.'

- Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln’s Wit/Wisdom 290

 ‘I shall go just as fast and only as fast as I think I’m right and the people are ready for the step.’

- Abraham Lincoln