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“Why,” said Mr. Defrees, “you have used an undignified expression in the message;” and then, reading the paragraph aloud, he added, “I would alter the structure of that, if I were you.”
“Defrees,” replied Mr. Lincoln, “that word expresses precisely my idea, and I am not going to change it. The time will never come in this country when the people won't know exactly what sugar-coated means!”
On a subsequent occasion, Mr. Defrees told me, a certain sentence of another message was very awkwardly constructed.
Calling the President's attention to it in the proof-copy, the latter acknowledged the force of the objection raised, and said, “Go home, Defrees, and see if you can better it.”
The next day Mr. Defrees took in to him his amendment.
Mr. Lincoln met him by saying: “Seward found the same fault that you did, and he has been rewriting the paragraph also.”
Then, reading Mr. Defrees's version, he said, “I believe you have beaten Seward; but, ‘I jings,’ I think I can beat you both.”
Then, taking up his pen, he wrote the sentence as it was finally printed.
My friend, George E. Baker, Mr. Seward's private secretary, informed me that he was much amused and interested in a phase of Mr. Lincoln's character which came under his own observation.
It was Mr. Baker's province to take to the President all public documents from the State Department requiring his signature.
During the first few
Scanned printed text.
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