When Lincoln was a young lawyer in Illinois he "rode the circuit" and spent much time away from home following the circuit court judges who travelled from town to town, village to village, to convene court sessions so that trials could be held and justice rendered in numerous cases. Lincoln made much of his living from this "circuit practice." When the circuit judge came to town Lincoln and other lawyers would appear as well and offer their legal services to whichever plaintiffs and defendants would hire them.
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| Citizens asking Lincoln to represent them as he relaxes under a tree outside a courthouse. Often there was not a courthouse in small communities so court was held in a saloon or general store. |
Lincoln had a sense of humor for which he was well known. He loved to tell jokes and stories. Many of them were indecent or in poor taste by the Victorian standards of the day, but to us they seem rather innocent and tame. When young Lincoln was known to be in town people would travel miles in the evening to spend some time in a general store or other building, gathered around a fireplace or wood stove, listening to Lincoln talk, and tell tales, jokes and stories. His folksy humor and warm heart made for an irresistible combination. So the question is, why don't history textbooks relate some of these stories? Why is Lincoln's fascination with off-color humor completely ignored? In some texts it is mentioned but no examples are ever given. Why is this interesting information suppressed? Wouldn't hearing one of these stories make him a more accessible and recognizable human being for students and others? Or is it more convenient to keep the image of Abraham Lincoln sanitized and proper? I believe one of those stories would make for one very interesting "sidebar."
But he did not confine his storytelling to time he spent outside the courtroom. One day in a makeshift courtroom in a small town in Illinois the prosecutor in a case was droning on about his evidence against the client Lincoln was defending. The room was small and judge, jury, lawyers, plaintiff, defendant, spectators and court bailiff were sitting closely together. As the prosecutor presented his case Lincoln leaned over and started whispering into the ear of the bailiff sitting next to him. The bailiff broke out into laughter and the judge gave him a stern stare and a verbal warning not to disturb the proceedings. The prosecutor continued and, again, Lincoln leaned over and whispered into the bailiff's ear. The bailiff broke out into raucous laughter and fell off his chair. The judge had had enough. He realized that Lincoln was the cause of the disturbance but he had given his warning to the bailiff and he had to follow through with a consequence for these actions that had disturbed the proceedings of the court. In a firm, judicial voice he said to the bailiff, "That will be a $5.00 fine for disturbing the court!""But, Your Honor," the Bailiff exclaimed, "you didn't hear the story that Mr. Lincoln told me!" The judge turned his gaze upon Lincoln and said, "Lincoln, approach the bench." Lincoln approached the judge and the judge told him to whisper the story in his ear. Lincoln proceeded to do so, and at the end of the story the judge himself broke out into loud laughter.The judge excused Lincoln, grabbed his gavel, pounded it on the table, and said, "The $5.00 fine is dismissed. That story was worth $5.00." I do not know what that story was (no one does, it seems), but it revealed Lincoln as a humorous and mischievous personality in his professional life as well as his personal. This story may have been an indecent one. We may never know. But I use it as a preliminary example of Lincoln's humor.
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| Lincoln, on white horse, riding from town to town on the Illinois circuit with fellow lawyers. |
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| Lincoln as a young attorney. |
DIGRESSION:
The preceeding story reminds me of the classic Three Stooges short called "Disorder in the Court." Here, Curly takes the stand and hilarity ensues. Lincoln, the lawyer, may have appreciated this video clip. What do you think?
END OF DIGRESSION.
BACK TO THE STORY.
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| Riding "the circuit" meant court sessions were often held in rustic buildings such as this. Also, in the evenings, Lincoln would entertain people from miles around with his off-color humorous stories in taverns and general stores. |
NOTE:
The word "tavern"derives from the ancient Latin word "taberna" which means a small wooden shed. These small wooden sheds appeared along the major roads in ancient Rome and sold water, wine and alcoholic drinks to the travelers who passed by. Would they qualify as early versions of the ubiquitous gas station/rest stops we find along interstate highways?
But what of the indecent, "scatological" (defined as, "an interest or preoccupation with excrement or excretion.") stories Lincoln was famous for telling? That's what students of history want to know! Here is one of them, which reflects Lincoln's lifelong interest in the Revolutionary War period. During the Revolutionary War one of General Washington's most trusted generals was Nathaniel Greene. He was an able and talented member of Washington's staff. After the war ended in 1783 many families and friends who had been alienated from each other, when they took either the Royalist or Patriot side in the conflict, began to reunite, reconnect and heal the wounds of war. Nathaniel Greene was one of those who sought to reunite with friends he had not seen since the beginning of the Revolution. He travelled to England in the 1790s and reconnected with his English friends and with some American friends who had left the colonies and settled in Britain.
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| General Nathaniel Greene |
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| Was a copy of this 1780 oil painting of General Washington the one Nathaniel Greene saw as he looked up from his sitting position on the "commode"? |
This was intended to be the greatest of insults to Nathaniel Greene (he and Washington had been very close, and Washington was the symbol of the new American nation) and they expected that it would anger him greatly and that he would cause a scene at the party. The evening arrived. All was in place. They would have their revenge. Music, food, wine, dancing. The conspirators kept watching for the moment Greene would excuse himself in order to use the "commode." Finally, the moment came. Greene politely excused himself from a group of men and women he had been conversing with and went to "relieve himself" in the room provided for this purpose. He went in, closed the door, unbuttoned his lower garments (Note: the "zipper" was not invented until the early 1900s), pulled them down, exposing his buttocks, and settled himself down onto the wooden "commode."
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| The commode chair Greene sat upon may have looked something like this. |
As he was proceeding with his business, he looked up and at first was surprised, and then angered, at what he saw. Seeing a portrait of his beloved Washington placed in front of the place where he was taking a shit was an unforgivable insult. But Nathaniel Greene had not been a leader of armies for nothing. He quickly realized what was being done to him. So, like any good military man, he devised a counter-strategy while concluding shitting and pissing while sitting on the commode. He arose from the chair, buttoned his clothes, put himself back together, composed himself,...and returned to the party. The plotters expected an irate Greene to make a loud and unmannerly appearance when he returned, but were surprised when a smiling and relaxed man resumed conversing, drinking, eating and dancing in a most pleasant display of good manners.
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| A candle-lit ballroom similar to this may have been the setting for this story. |
The conspirators kept watching for any sign of anger but saw no indication of it whatsoever. What was going on, they thought. After Greene showed no response and made no comment on their trick, they could no longer stand it and one of them approached Nathaniel Greene and asked him sarcastically if he had appreciated the portrait of General Washington on the wall in front of the commode he had just come from. General Greene turned to this individual, looked him straight in the eye and cheerfully said, "As a matter of fact, I think that was an excellent place to display the portrait because there is nothing more guaranteed to make an Englishman shit than the sight of General Washington." And he turned away, resumed his activities, and had a very satisfying evening.
NOTE/DIGRESSION:
If this is a "scatological" story, where does that word come from? It derives from the ancient Greek word "scatology" that means "dung knowledge." So, the word "scat" is Greek for "dung." And that is why animal feces found by hunters and/or scientists in the wild is called "scat." The words "shit" and "piss" deserve mention here as well, since they are the basis for any good scatological story. Up through the middle of the 11th century in Britain they were perfectly respectable Anglo-Saxon words which were acceptable in everyday speech. No negative or taboo values were attached to them. Then that all changed beginning in the year 1066 A.D. when William the Conqueror of Normandy (northern France) invaded Britain and defeated King Harold of Britain at the Battle of Hastings. King Harold was killed during the battle when a Norman archer sent an arrow through the slit in the visor of his helmet. The arrow through Harold's eye killed him instantly and was the turning point of the battle.
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| Notice King Harold receiving an arrow through his eye while leading his troops at the Battle of Hastings, 1066 A.D. |
After the Norman French established their rule over the Anglo-Saxons, values changed abruptly. All things Anglo-Saxon were lower class and bad, and all things French were upper/high class and good. Use of the Anglo-Saxon words "shit" and "piss" became lower class and obscene for everyday speech. They were replaced in common usage by the Norman French words "feces" and "urine." To this day these last two words are acceptable ways in which to express the words that we more crudely verbalize when we say "shit" and "piss." So history has a lot to do with the language we use and our attitude toward it. If William the Conqueror had not invaded Britain in 1066 and beaten the Anglo-Saxons at Hastings we would possibly still be using "shit" and "piss" in our everyday speech without a second thought. And the "F" word? The word "fuck" was also a respectable Anglo-Saxon usage but was transformed into a dirty, unacceptable term by the Norman French who replaced it with the more acceptable "fornicate." Who says history isn't interesting?
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| William the Conqueror of Normandy, and King of Britain. Thanks to him, the words "shit,""piss" and "fuck" are unacceptable in today's everyday speech (or, at least, frowned upon). He helped set the linguistic scene that made Lincoln's scatological, off-color stories possible. |
END OF NOTE/DIGRESSION.
BACK TO OUR STORY.
One more story I found, which Lincoln often told, concerned a man who had an obsessive love of all things having to do with the Revolutionary War. He collected relics from the War, travelled to battle sites, but was unable to find someone who had actually lived through the Revolutionary War. He lived in the 1840s and there were very few veterans of the War still alive. His consuming desire was to actually speak with someone who had experienced the Revolutionary period. Then he heard that in a town quite far away there was an extremely elderly woman who had been a teen-age young lady during most of the conflict.
The man immediately embarked upon the long walk to the town where the old woman resided. After an exhausting journey, he arrived at her door and knocked upon it. An ancient woman answered and asked what he wanted. He eagerly asked her if she had lived during the Revolution. She answered that she had. He then asked if he could come in to speak with her and explained his extreme interest in the history of those war years. They seated themselves in her parlor and proceeded to talk. The conversation was normal enough until he asked her if she had any objects, keepsakes or anything else from that period of her life. She said that she had only one thing and that was a dress she had stored away in a chest in her bedroom. She had worn it when she was 16 years old in the midst of the Revolutionary War.
He asked if he could see it. The old lady thought the request a bit odd but went to get the dress anyway. Upon returning with it she gave it to him...and the man went into a trance of sorts. He started stroking the material with his hands. The old lady was a down-to-earth old woman and was surprised at her visitor's behavior. She gave him a disapproving look but the man proceeded to rub the fabric of the old dress against his cheeks. She became impatient at this silliness and said quite sternly to him, "Stop that, young man!" But her visitor was in a swoon and didn't hear a word she had said, and he began raising the old dress fabric to his lips and kissing it. Well, this was just too much for the old woman to bear any longer. She stood up, snatched the dress out of the hands of her deranged guest and shouted, "Stop it you fool! If you want to kiss something old you can kiss my ass because it's sixteen years older than that dress!"
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| Both the man in this story and Lincoln himself had an avid interest in the Revolutionary War |
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| Teen-age girl (16?) in a Revolutionary War era dress. |
He asked if he could see it. The old lady thought the request a bit odd but went to get the dress anyway. Upon returning with it she gave it to him...and the man went into a trance of sorts. He started stroking the material with his hands. The old lady was a down-to-earth old woman and was surprised at her visitor's behavior. She gave him a disapproving look but the man proceeded to rub the fabric of the old dress against his cheeks. She became impatient at this silliness and said quite sternly to him, "Stop that, young man!" But her visitor was in a swoon and didn't hear a word she had said, and he began raising the old dress fabric to his lips and kissing it. Well, this was just too much for the old woman to bear any longer. She stood up, snatched the dress out of the hands of her deranged guest and shouted, "Stop it you fool! If you want to kiss something old you can kiss my ass because it's sixteen years older than that dress!"
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| Even as President, Lincoln was known for telling off color, scatological stories. His sense of humor was irrepressible, and it helped him endure the intense pressures of the Civil War. |
Abraham Lincoln is the most beloved President in our nation's history. In survey after survey he ranks, consistently, at or near the top of the list. My telling of these stories is not an attempt to belittle the man, his accomplishments or his deserved place in our nation's past. But as with so many important historical figures, textbooks have turned him into a two-dimensional cardboard cut-out figure that lacks the humanity and personality that would allow us to engage with him, and understand him, as a human being. I hope these stories have presented Lincoln as a more accessible, authentic and genuine individual. He was fallible and imperfect, but also a great man, and a great President. Booth's bullet should not have also killed our ability to see him as he was.
Historians have called him our nation's only "poet President" because of the beautiful sentiments and ideas he put forth in his speeches (see video clips below). His political and human stature are part of our heritage. Nothing can change that. As Secretary of War Edwin Stanton said at the moment of Lincoln's death, "Now he belongs to the ages." But so do the stories he told that entertained so many people during his lifetime. Here is a book that may be a good starting point for anyone interested in further investigating Lincoln's sense of humor:
To finish this story I offer to you a number of video clips of the portrayal of Lincoln in Hollywood films. The first is the 1939 film "Young Mr. Lincoln" starring Henry Fonda as Lincoln. The incident as portrayed is fictional but highlight Lincoln's shrewdness, and ability to relate to the common man, even when they congregate as a mob. His self-effacing manner disarms the mob of its anger.
The second video clip is from the 1940 film "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" starring Raymond Massey. Massey has an eerie resemblance to Lincoln and portrayed him in a number of films. This clip displays Lincoln's speaking style and clever arguments during the Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858. It also makes evident the love and respect Lincoln had for the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. His impassioned words, "A house divided against itself cannot stand" and "This government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free" have become poetic expression of the American ideal.
In this last clip from the 1935 film "The Littlest Rebel" starring Shirley Temple, her character goes to Washington, D.C. to ask President Lincoln for a pardon for her Confederate father who is to be executed for being a spy. Compare this portrayal of Lincoln with the previous two.
AND A HUMOROUS FINALE:
A COMMENT ON OUR PRESENT DAY POLITICAL CULTURE
As a P.S. to this post (entered on December 6th, 2012) I refer you to the following article (link given below) which discusses whether the cussing and profanity Lincoln uses in the Steven Spielberg film "Lincoln" is accurate. What do you think?
Here's the link: http://movies.yahoo.com/news/lincoln-cussing-f-050000268.html
NOTE:
For more information about U.S. Presidents that is not included in textbooks, but which is the stuff you really want to know about, please see my posts about Andrew Jackson (January 22, and February 23 and 29, 2012), George Washington (December 27 and 30, 2011, and January 1, 2012) and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (February 18, 2012). As I always say and believe, "Everything you always wanted to know was not in your textbook."
FINIS.