from Davis the declarations that would stop the mouths of those who were claiming that the Confederates were willing to accept peace without disunion.

When that declaration was secured by this mission all that was hoped for by President Lincoln and Mr. Gilmore was accomplished. The admission in "History" that "on the whole this volunteer embassy was of service to the Union," by silencing the clamors of the advocates of a Confederatefavoring peace is unwittingly a confession that the mission was a success and is a testimonial to the wisdom and courage of the men who conducted it.

I regret the necessity of correcting as I have the unfortunate errors which from lack of full information were published in the inestimable Nicolay and Hay biography of Abraham Lincoln, but I have endeavored to do so in a spirit and manner consistent with the high esteem I cherish for that great work and for its able and worthy authors.

All the facts stated in this history of the Jaquess-Gilmore Mission are matters of authentic record and prove conclusively that under God the disclosures of that Mission respecting the purposes of the Confederate leaders accomplished the re-election of President Lincoln and the preservation of the Federal Union. And to the two God-fearing men-Colonel James F. Jaquess and James R. Gilmore-who with such manifest wisdom and skill conducted that mission to its successful issue, the nation owes a debt of gratitude which can only be fittingly paid by a true appreciation of their motives, efforts and achievements.

No event in our nation's history more clearly shows the special favor of God, and Abraham Lincoln's transcendent ability and religious faith than does this wonderful embassy of peace.

IV

LINCOLN AND TEMPERANCE

N Mr. Lincoln's thought slavery and intemperance were

closely associated. He frequently referred to these two

great evils, and his attitude to intemperance, like his attitude to slavery, is worthy of universal imitation. As the hand that wrote the Emancipation Proclamation never held title to a slave, so the lips that pleaded eloquently for total abstinence were never polluted by any alcoholic beverage. No feature of Mr. Lincoln's life is more wonderful than

HIS LIFELONG ABSTINENCE

from the use of strong drink. During the early years of his life habitual liquor-drinking was almost universal on the frontier where he lived. Conditions as they existed are thus described by him in his address at Springfield, Illinois, under the auspices of the Washingtonian Society, February 22nd, 1842: "When all such of us, as have now reached the years of maturity, first opened our eyes upon the stage of existence, we found intoxicating liquor, recognized by everybody, used by everybody, and repudiated by nobody. It commonly entered into the first draught of the infant, and the last draught of the dying man. From the sideboard of the parson, down to the ragged pocket of the houseless loafer, it was constantly found. Physicians prescribed it in this, that, and the other disease. Government provided it for its soldiers and sailors; and to have a rolling or raising, a husking or hoedown anywhere without it was positively insufferable.

"So, too, it was everywhere a respectable article of manufacture and of merchandise. The making of it was regarded

as an honorable livelihood; and he who could make most was the most enterprising and respectable. Large and small manufactories of it were everywhere created, in which all the earthly goods of their owners were invested. Wagons drew it from town to town-boats bore it from clime to clime, and the winds wafted it from nation to nation; and merchants bought and sold it, by wholesale and by retail, with precisely the same feelings, on the part of seller, buyer, and bystander, as are felt at the selling and buying of flour, beef, bacon, or any other of the real necessaries of life. Universal public opinion not only tolerated, but recognized and adopted its use.

"It is true, that even then, it was known and acknowledged that many were greatly injured by it; but none seemed to think that the injury arose from the use of a bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good thing. The victims to it were pitied, and compassionated, just as now are, heirs of consumption, and other hereditary diseases. Their failing was treated as a misfortune, and not as a crime, or even as a disgrace."

Not only was strict sobriety almost unknown among those early pioneers with whom Mr. Lincoln's lot was cast, but to abstain from the use of liquor was to attract attention and invite severe criticism, if not ridicule. Sometimes the abstainer was subjected to insults and violence; and such indignities were not confined to the frontier sections. Rev. A. Bristol, a man of exceptional worth and one of the most beloved ministers upon the Pacific Coast, in "The Pioneer Preacher," gives a graphic account of the violence with which he was treated by his fellow students in Oberlin College because of his total abstinence convictions and habits. And there was little effort to create a better state of public sentiment concerning the use of intoxicants. Many ministers and leading church people were habitual drinkers, and the attitude of the church towards intemperance was not such as to create a vigorous protest against the prevailing drinking customs.

Yet, even in childhood, Abraham Lincoln espoused the cause of total abstinence, and never deviated a hair's breadth

from its principles. He not only refused to drink when invited to do so, but, when only a small boy, he delivered temperance lectures to his playmates which gave promise of his later achievements as a public speaker. That he continued ever faithful to the cause of total abstinence is settled beyond all honest doubt by his declarations to Leonard Swett that he "never drank nor tasted a drop of alcoholic liquor of any kind."

And it is very significant that this declaration of Mr. Lincoln made to one of his personal friends during his Presidency and given to the world by Mr. Swett in a carefully written statement, has never been weakened by any counter testimony.

In 1847, while a member of Congress, he was remonstrated with by a fellow member for declining to partake of some rare wines which had been provided by their host, when he replied that he meant no disrespect, but he had made a solemn promise to his mother only a few days before her death that he would never use as a beverage anything intoxicating, and "I consider that pledge," said he, "as binding today as it was the day I gave it."

When the specious argument was used that conditions in his mature manhood and in a home of refinement were unlike those under which he made that promise in childhood, Mr. Lincoln stated: "But a promise is a promise forever and when made to a mother it is doubly binding." It required a great degree of courage, and an unyielding purpose, for an ambitious young member of Congress thus to disregard the requirements of fashionable society at Washington, and be true to his total abstinence convictions and covenants.

Mr. Murat Halstead, an able and distinguished journalist, states that when on September 17th, 1859, Mr. Lincoln spoke in Cincinnati, Ohio, a number of young republicans called upon him at his rooms in the Burnett House, and during the interview one of their number ordered cigars and liquor for 1 Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, p. 463.

the company, which, by oversight, were charged to Mr. Lincoln's account with the hotel. "This displeased him very much," and in letters which Mr. Halstead saw and characterizes as "well written and extremely to the point," Mr. Lincoln expressed to the young gentlemen his disapproval of what had been done. He knew nothing of the affair until he saw the item in his hotel bill and he felt he could not permit the matter to pass unnoticed, nor allow himself to be held responsible for something which he had not authorized and of which he strongly disapproved.

THE SUPREME TEST

of Mr. Lincoln's loyalty to his total abstinence principles occurred at the time he received the notification of nomination as a candidate for the Presidency in 1860. As it was an occasion of unusual importance, Mr. Lincoln's friends at Springfield kindly offered to provide liquors for what they regarded as fitting hospitality to the distinguished members of the notification committee. When Mr. Lincoln learned of their purpose, he expressed his appreciation of their wellmeant offer, and said: "I have never been in the habit of entertaining my friends in that way and I cannot permit my friends to do for me what I will not myself do. I shall provide cold water-nothing else." Mr. Lincoln's Springfield friends feared that his proposed strict adherence to total abstinence would make an unfavorable impression upon his distinguished visitors, yet no one attempted to dissuade him from his declared purpose; and when the notification ceremonies were concluded he extended the hospitalities of his home to all present by inviting them to partake of what he designated as "pure Adam's ale, the most healthy beverage God has given to men and the only beverage I have ever used or allowed my family to use." This charming little speech made a favorable impression upon his visitors, who seemed to enjoy the disclosure to them of their candidate's 2 Tributes from Lincoln's Associates, p. 58.