Francis B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House

[334] Lincoln was weak-minded, and they look at him only from the stand-point of his judgments. Another class maintain that he was a great, deep, profound man in his judgments. Do these two classes understand themselves? Both views cannot be correct. Mr. Lincoln's mind was slow, angular, and ponderous, rather than quick and finely discriminating, and in time his great powers of reason on cause and effect, on creation and relation, on substance and on truth, would form a proposition, an opinion wisely and well,--that no human being can deny. When his mind could not grasp premises from which to argue he was weaker than a child, because he had none of the child's intuitions,--the souls quick, bright flash over scattered and unarranged facts.

Mr. Lincoln was a peculiar man, having a peculiar mind; he was gifted with a peculiarity, namely, a new lookout on nature. Everything had to be newly created for him,--facts newly gathered, newly arranged, and newly classed. He had no faith, as already expressed. In order to believe he must see and feel, and thrust his hand into the place. He must taste, smell, and handle before he had faith, i.e., belief. Such a mind as this must act slowly,--must have its time. His forte and power lay in his love of digging out for himself and hunting up for his own mind its own food, to be assimilated unto itself; and then in time he could and would form opinions and conclusions that no