When a delegation from the Republican National Convention arrived in Springfield, neighbors of Mr. Lincoln offered to provide liquor to serve the distinguished guests.
I have no liquors in my house, and have never been in the habit of entertaining my friends in that way. I cannot permit my friends to do for me what I will not myself do. I shall provide cold water β nothing else.
In Mr. Delivering an eulogy for Henry Clay, Mr. Washburne in December , Mr. Not just people but concepts were perceived as friends. In , Mr. Lincoln is reputed to have written George E. The fact is truth is your truest friend, no matter what the circumstances are. Jason Duncan, who knew Mr.
Scripps of the Chicago Tribune wrote in his campaign biography of Lincoln that Lincoln had read Plutarch, and then, on second thought, a little worried, suggested to the amiable Lincoln that he go get a copy and read it so that the report would become true.
Lincoln, it is said, much amused, did as he was told β and loved to tell the story. And these ideas were confined, almost of necessity, in the mature man, to a relatively narrow range that fit his purposes. Within that range he was a thinker indeed, but he was not one, like Thomas Jefferson, who wished or said he wished that he could get out of politics and get back to his books and his violin, and who ranged across the world of thought and set up shop as something of a philosopher himself.
