hide Matching Documents

The documents where this entity occurs most often are shown below. Click on a document to open it.

Document Max. Freq Min. Freq
William H. Herndon, Jesse William Weik, Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, Etiam in minimis major, The History and Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln by William H. Herndon, for twenty years his friend and Jesse William Weik 14 0 Browse Search
View all matching documents...

Your search returned 14 results in 5 document sections:

his colleagues on the stump, where he thought he had failed to meet the expectations of his friends. I remember a case. He was pitted by the Whigs in 1840 to debate with Mr. Douglas, the Democratic champion. Lincoln did not come up to the requirements of the occasion. He was conscious of his failure, and I never saw any man so much distressed. He begged to be permitted to try it again, and was reluctantly indulged; and in the next effort he transcended our highest expectations. Joseph Gillespie, Ms. letter, June 5, ‘66. I never heard and never expect to hear such a triumphant vindication as he then gave of Whig measures or policy. He never after, to my knowledge, fell below himself. The campaign ended in his election to the Legislature. He was again the caucus nominee of the Whigs for Speaker, receiving thirty-six votes; but his former antagonist, William L. D. Ewing, was elected by a majority of ten votes over him. The proceedings of, and laws enacted by, this Legislatu
not destined to lay buried deep or long. The world will have the truth as long as the name of Lincoln is remembered by mankind. There were two things Mr. Lincoln always seemed willing to forget. One was his unparliamentary escape with Joseph Gillespie from the Legislature by jumping through the church window, in 1839, and the other was the difficulty with James Shields, or, as he expressed it in a letter to Speed, the duel with Shields. Other incidents in his career he frequently called Burr, and many of the crowd in turn interested him with graphic descriptions of early life on the western frontier. But they all yielded at last to the piquancy and force of Lincoln's queer stories. Of these, relates one of the company, Jos. Gillespie, Ms. letter, September 6. 1866. there was a constant supply, one following another in rapid succession, each more irresistible than its predecessor. The fun continued until after midnight, and until the distinguished traveller insisted that
s is probably a law for the violation of which the jury can fix no punishment. Lincoln gave some of his own observations on the ruinous effects of whiskey in society, and demanded its early suppression. After he had concluded, the Court, without awaiting the return of the jury, dismissed the ladies, saying: Ladies, go home. I will require no bond of you, and if any fine is ever wanted of you, we will let you know. After Lincoln's death a fellow-lawyer paid this tribute to him: Joseph Gillespie, Ms., Letter, Oct. 8, 1886. He was wonderfully kind, careful, and just. He had an immense stock of commonsense, and he had faith enough in it to trust it in every emergency. Mr. Lincoln's love of justice and fair-play was his predominating trait. I have often listened to him when I thought he would certainly state his case out of court. It was not in his nature to assume or attempt to bolster up a false position. Early in 1858 at Danville, Ill., I met Lincoln, Swett, and others w
They are like two wild beasts in sight of each other, but chained and held apart. Some day these deadly antagonists will one or the other break their bonds, and then the question will be settled. In a conversation with a fellow-lawyer Joseph Gillespie, Ms. letter, June 9, ‘66. he said of slavery: It is the most glittering, ostentatious, and displaying property in the world, and now, if a young man goes courting, the only inquiry is how many negroes he or his lady-love owns. The love for one or two ballots more, but Mr. Lincoln urged us not to risk it longer. I never saw the latter more earnest and decided. He congratulated Trumbull warmly, although of course greatly disappointed and mortified at his own want of success. --Joseph Gillespie, letter, September 19, 1866. This frustration of Lincoln's ambition had a marked effect on his political views. It was plain to him now that the irrepressible conflict was not far ahead. With the strengthening of his faith in a just c
n, and hence his bias for mathematics and the physical sciences. He bestowed more attention on them than upon metaphysical speculations. I have heard him descant upon the problem whether a ball discharged from a gun in a horizontal position would be longer in reaching the ground than one dropped at the instant of discharge from the muzzle. He said it always appeared to him that they would both reach the ground at the same time, even before he had read the philosophical explanation. --Joseph Gillespie, letter, December 8, 1866, Ms. Investigation into first causes, abstruse mental phenomena, the science of being, he brushed aside as trash — mere scientific absurdities. He discovered through experience that his mind, like the minds of other men, had its limitations, and hence he economized his forces and his time by applying his powers in the field of the practical. Scientifically regarded he was a realist as opposed to an idealist, a sensationist as opposed to an intuitionist, a mat