[267]
The duty was discharged only too gladly by the energetic and far-sighted Secretary; with what effect and renown the country knows full well.1
Governor Yates, of
Illinois, in a speech at
Springfield, quoted one of
Mr. Lincoln's early friends —
W. T. Greene — as having said that the first time he ever saw
Mr. Lincoln, he was in the
Sangamon River with his trousers rolled up five feet, more or less, trying to pilot a flat-boat over a mill-dam.
The boat was so full of water that it was hard to manage.
Lincoln got the prow over, and then, instead of waiting to bail the water out, bored a hole through the projecting part and let it run out; affording a forcible illustration of the ready ingenuity of the future
President in the quick invention of moral expedients.
“Some two years ago,” said
Colonel Forney, in a speech at
Weldon, Pennsylvania, before the “Soldiers' aid Society,” in 1865,
a deputation of colored people came from Louisiana, for the purpose of laying before the President a petition asking certain rights, not including the right of universal suffrage.
The interview took place in the presence of a number of distinguished gentlemen.
After reading their memorial, he turned to them and said: “I regret, gentlemen, that you are not able to secure all your rights, and that circumstances will not permit the government to confer them upon you. I wish you would amend your petition, so as to ”
