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an example was made." Exhausting his eloquence in vain, Mr. Kellogg said,-"Well, Mr. Secretary, the boy is not going to be shot,of that I give you fair warning!" Leaving the War Department, he went directly to the White House, although the hour was late. The sentinel on duty told him that special orders had been issued to admit no one whatever that night. After a long parley, by pledging himself to assume the responsibility of the act, the congressman passed in. The President had retired; but, indifferent to etiquette or ceremony, Judge Kellogg pressed his way through all obstacles to his sleeping apartment. In an excited manner he stated that the despatch announcing the hour of execution had but just reached him. "This man must not be shot, Mr. President," said he. "I can't help what he may have done. Why, he is an old neighbor of mine; I can't allow him to be shot!" Mr. Lincoln had remained in bed, quietly listening to the vehement protestations of his old friend (they were in Congress together). He at length said: "Well, I don't believe shooting him will do him any good. Give me that pen.' And, so saying, "red tape" was unceremoniously cut, and another poor fellow's lease of life was indefinitely extended.

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One night Speaker Colfax left all other business to ask the President to respite the son of a constituent, who was sentenced to be shot, at Davenport, for desertion. He heard the story with his usual patience, though he was wearied out with incessant calls, and anxious for rest, and then replied: "Some of our generals complain that I impair discipline and subordination in the army by my pardons and respites, but it makes

me rested, after a hard day's work, if I can find some good excuse for saving a man's life, and I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name will make him and his family and his friends."

Mr. Van Alen, of New York, in an account furnished the Evening Post, wrote: "I well remember the case of a poor woman who sought, with the persistent affection of a mother, for the pardon of her son condemned to death. She was successful in her petition. When she had left the room, Mr. Lincoln turned to me and said: 'Perhaps I have done wrong, but at all events I have made that poor woman happy.''

The Hon. Thaddeus Stevens told me that on one occasion he called at the White House with an elderly lady, in great trouble, whose son had been in the army, but for some offence had been court-martialled, and sentenced either to death, or imprisonment at hard labor for a long term. There were some extenuating circumstances; and after a full hearing, the President turned to the representative, and said: "Mr. Stevens, do you think this is a case which will warrant my interference?" "With my knowledge of the facts and the parties," was the reply, "I should have no hesitation in granting a pardon." "Then," returned Mr. Lincoln, "I will pardon him," and he proceeded forthwith to execute the paper. The gratitude of the mother was too deep for expression, and not a word was said between her and Mr. Stevens until they were halfway down the stairs on their passage out, when she suddenly broke forth in an excited manner with the words, "I knew it was a copperhead lie!" "What do you refer to, madam?"

asked Mr. Stevens. "Why, they told me he was an ugly looking man," she replied, with vehemence. "He is the handsomest man I ever saw in my life!" And surely for that mother, and for many another throughout the land, no carved statue of ancient or modern art, in all its symmetry, can have the charm which will for evermore encircle that careworn but gentle face, expressing as lineaments of ruler never expressed before, "Malice towards none-Charity for all.”

The Amnesty Proclamation.

One of the party took occasion shortly to endorse very decidedly the Amnesty Proclamation, which had been severely censured by many friends of the Administration. This approval appeared to touch Mr. Lincoln deeply. He said, with a great deal of emphasis, and with an expression of countenance I shall never forget, "When a man is sincerely penitent for his misdeeds, and gives satisfactory evidence of the same, he can safely be pardoned, and there is no exception to the rule."

"The Scoundrel Will Get Off."

A couple of well-known New York gentlemen called upon the President one day to solicit a pardon for a man who, while acting as mate of a sailing vessel, had struck one of his men a blow which resulted in his death. Convicted and sentenced for manslaughter, a powerful appeal was made in his behalf, as he had previously borne an excellent character. Giving the facts a hearing, Mr. Lincoln responded:

"Well, gentlemen, leave your papers, and I

will have the Attorney-General, Judge Bates, look them over, and we will see what can be done. Being both of us 'pigeon-hearted' fellows, the chances are that, if there is any ground whatever for interference, the scoundrel will get off!"

"Public Opinion Baths."

"Once-on what was called a 'public day,' when Mr. Lincoln received all applicants in their turn-the writer* was struck by observing, as he passed through the corridor, the heterogeneous crowd of men and women, representing all ranks and classes, who were gathered in the large waiting-room outside the Presidential suite of offices.

"This led to a somewhat general conversation, in which I expressed surprise that he did not adopt the plan in force at all military headquarters, under which every applicant to see the general commanding had to be filtered through a sieve of officers,-assistant adjutant-generals, and so forth,-who allowed none in to take up the general's time save such as they were satisfied had business of sufficient importance, and which could be transacted in no other manner than by a personal interview. .

"Ah, yes!' said Mr. Lincoln, gravely,-and his words on this matter are important as illustrating a rule of his action, and to some extent, perhaps, the essentially representative character of his mind and of his administration,-'ah, yes, such things do very well for you military people, with your arbitrary rule, and in your camps. But the office of President is essentially a civil * Colonel Charles G. Halpine, New York Citizen.

one, and the affair is very different. For myself, I feel though the tax on my time is heavythat no hours of my day are better employed than those which thus bring me again within the direct contact and atmosphere of the average of our whole people. Men moving only in an official circle are apt to become merely official— not to say arbitrary-in their ideas, and are apter and apter, with each passing day, to forget that they only hold power in a representative capacity. Now this is all wrong. I go into these promiscuous receptions of all who claim to have business with me twice each week, and every applicant for audience has to take his turn, as if waiting to be shaved in a barber's shop. Many of the matters brought to my notice are utterly frivolous, but others are of more or less importance, and all serve to renew in me a clearer and more vivid image of that great popular assemblage out of which I sprung, and to which at the end of two years I must return. I tell you, Major,' he said, appearing at this point to recollect I was in the room, for the former part of these remarks had been made with half-shut eyes, as if in soliloquy, 'I tell you that I call these receptions my "public-opinion baths"; for I have but little time to read the papers and gather public opinion that way; and though they may not be pleasant in all their particulars, the effect, as a whole, is renovating and invigorating to my perceptions of responsibility and duty.'

Lincoln's Magnanimity.

When the reports, in an authentic form, first reached Washington of the sufferings of the

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