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FEBRUARY 11, 1910
The Commoner.
13
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Lincoln's Purple Patches
(From the Literary Digest)
The conviction that the man who
made the Gettysburg speech must
have done other things almost equal
ly worthy of memory and celebra
tion has moved Mr. Montgomery
Schuyler to make a search through
all the published writings and
speeches of Lincoln in the hope of
finding other things of the samo
rhetorical quality. The search re
veals other eloquent passages, re
corded in the "Messages of the Presi
dents," but these passages the writer
finds to be "purple patches" not
merely "more elaborately embroid
ered pieces of the surrounding tis
sue," but bits truly "sewed on." Mr.
Schuyler omits, however, to mention
the famous letter to Mrs. Bixby
which President Roosevelt quotes in
the February Review of Reviews.
Reference is made to the "first in
augural" as containing a supposed
specimen of Lincoln's eloquence that
he declares belongs, at least in its
inspiration, to Secretary Seward. It
happens to have come from the sec
retary because the speech was sub
mitted to his judgment be'fore its
delivery. Mr. Schuyler, writing in
the Forum (February), gives this ac
count of the peroration of that
speech:
"Those who recall it at all will
be apt to cite it to you as an ex
ample of Lincoln's eloquence. Sew
ard himself was perhaps the fore
most dialectician and even more
clearly the foremost rhetorician of
his party, a far better exemplar of
the use of the English language than,
for example, Charles Sumner, with
his tropical and Corinthian rhetorical
exuberance. Here is Seward's draft
for that peroration:
" 'I close. We are not, we must
not he, aliens or enemies, but fellow
countrymen and brethren. Although
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passion has strained our bonds of
affection too hardly, they must not,
I am sure they will not, be broken.
The mystic chords which, proceed
ing from so many battle-fields and
so many patriot graves, pass through
all the hearts and all the hearths
in this broad continent of ours will
yet again harmonize in their ancient
music when breathed upon by tho
guardian angel of tho nation.'
"And hero is Seward's contribu
tion, as retouched and adopted by
Lincoln, as it stands in the text of
tho first inaugural:
" 'I am loath to close. We are not
enemies but friends. Though pas
sion may have strained, it must not
break our bonds of affection. Tho
mystic chords of memory, stretching
from every battle-field and patriot
grave to every living heart and
hearthstone all over this broad land,
will yet swell the ' tThorus of the
union, when again touched, as surely
they will be, by the better angels
of our nature.'
"Lincoln's version will be admit
ted to be an improvement. That 'I
am loath to close,' as who might say
'let me plead with you yet awhile
longer,' Is a masterly rhetorical
touch. At the same time his docility
as to the volunteered contribution to
a performance with which he had
taken so much trouble, and about
which he might have be"en expected
to cherish a paternal pride and sen
sitiveness, shows him to have been
without literary vanity.
"Possibly it was Lincoln's do
cility in this question of mere form
which encouraged Seward's appoint
ment of himself to the position of
mentor to the uncouth western Tele-
machus, and helped to bring about
in him the delusion that the pupil
who had been so amenable in a" mat
ter of style would be equally amen
able in things of substance. His un
deception was rapid and complete."
The emancipation proclamation,
we read, preserved a "pedestrian
gait" and is "as dry a recital as the
most technical of courts could have
required or the most technical of
conveyancers have produced." There
is, however, one "purple patch," and
this seems to have been furnished
by Salmon P. Chase. Says Mr.
Schuyler:
"Here is the passage. To save
space, the three words added by Lin
coln to Chase's draft are enclosed in
the first parenthesis, and the ten
words deleted from it by Lincoln In
the second:
"''And upon this act, sincerely be
lieved to be an act of justice war
ranted by the constitution (upon
military necessity), (and of duty de
manded by the circumstances of the
country) I invoke the considerate
Judgment of mankind and the gra
cious favor of Almighty God.'
"Without doubt the deletion is an
Improvement in all senses. Without
doubt the interjected reservation
was politically and legally demanded.
But, rhetorically, how awkward it
Is, how careless of form, how care
less of the popular impression the
proclamation was meant to produce.
Indeed, how destructive the awkward
interjection might have been, had
public opinion been more evenly
balanced and not, by that time, been
exerting an irresistible pressure up
on the president. As to Lincoln's
magnanimity, this acceptance of
Chases's emendation to the emanci
pation proclamation speaks even
more emphatically than his accept
ance of SewaTd's emendation to the
first Inaugural. For from the day
when Chase entered the Cabinet to
the day when he left it to take the
chief justiceship, he was a thorn in
the side of his chief. Nor was his
chief's magnanimity repaid In his
case, as it was in the case of Sew
ard, by a corresponding magnanimity
on his side. At any rate, tho ab
sence of 'literary vanity' on tho part
of Lincoln had hero its most crucial
exhibition."
Tho peroration of tho second an
nual messago is cited as perhaps
"very nearly its author's best," not
withstanding tho fact that "instead
of being the culmination and sum
mary of tho reasoning of tho argu
ment, heightened, into rhetorical
loftiness by the reasoner's own emo
tion," tho peroration "is extraneous,
almost irrelevant, to tho preceding
argumentation." Ho quotes and
comments:
"I omit the frequent italicization
of tho original, which really adds
nothing:
" 'Fellow citizens, we can not es
cape history. Wo of this congress
and the administration will bo re
membered in spite of ourselves. No
personal significance or insignifi
cance can spare one or another of
us. Tho fiery trial through which
we pass will light us down, In honor
or dishonor, to tho latest generation.
Wo say that we are for the union.
The world will not forget that wo
say this. We know how to save tho
union. The world knows that wo do
know how to save it. We even wo
here hold tho power and beaT tho
responsibility. In giving freedom to
;ht slave, wo assure freedom to the
free honorable alike in what we
give and what we preserve. We shall
nobly save, or meanly lose, the last,
best hope of earth. Other means
may succeed, this could not fall. Tho
way is plain, peaceful, generous, just
a way which if followed, the world
will forever applaud and God must
forever bless.'
"The fairly well-read TSnglish
reader will, of course, be reminded
by those first three sentences of tho
expression of the like thought in the
conclusion of Burke's summing-up
against Warren Hastings, a composi
tion which it is highly unlikely that
Lincoln had ever seen:
" 'A business which has so long
occupied the councils and the tribu
nals of Great Britain can not pos
sibly bo huddled over in tho courso
of vulgar, trite, and transitory
events. My Lords, wo aro all
elevated to a degreo of Importanco
by it; tho meanest of us will, by
means of it, more or less become tho
concern of posterity.'
"How satisfactory to ono's patri
otic prido to find that tho uttoranco
of tho unschooled American comes
out so well In comparison with what
ono may plausibly call tho master
piece of tho most consummate
rhetorician who has ever as an ora
tor handlod the English language.
While In tho fourth sentence tho
American forges in his heat tho
brand-new metphor of the illuminat
ing torch lighted by tho 'fiery "trial.'
It Is worthy of Burke, worthy of
anybody, and quite at tho highest
level of Lincoln."
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