But there was another inspiration.His open doors enabled him to study the American people,every phase of it,good and bad.
"Men moving only in an official circle,"said he,"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....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 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."[4]
He did not allow his patience to be abused with evil intent.
He read his suppliants swiftly.The profiteer,the shirk,the fraud of any sort,was instantly unmasked."I'll have nothing to do with this business,"he burst out after listening to a gentlemanly profiteer;"nor with any man who comes to me with such degrading propositions.What!Do you take the President of the United States to be a commission broker?You have come to the wrong place,and for you and for every one who comes for the same purpose,there is the door."[5]
Lincoln enjoyed this indiscriminate mixing with people.It was his chief escape from care.He saw no reason why his friends should Commiserate him because of the endless handshaking.
That was a small matter compared with the interest he took in the ever various stream of human types.Sometimes,indeed,he would lapse into a brown study in the midst of a reception.
Then he "would shake hands with thousands of people,seemingly unconscious of what he was doing,murmuring monotonous salutations as they went by,his eye dim,his thoughts far withdrawn...Suddenly,he would see some familiar face--his memory for faces was very good-and his eye would brighten and his whole form grow attentive;he would greet the visitor with a hearty grasp and a ringing word and dismiss him with a cheery laugh that filled the Blue Room with infectious good nature."[6]
Carpenter,the portrait painter,who for a time saw him daily,says that "his laugh stood by itself.The neigh of a wild horse on his native prairie is not more undisguised and hearty."An intimate friend called it his "life preserver."[7]
Lincoln's sense of humor delighted in any detail of an event which suggested comedy.His genial awkwardness amused himself quite as much as it amused the world.At his third public reception he wore a pair of white kid gloves that were too small.An old friend approached.The President shook hands so heartily that his glove burst with a popping sound.Holding up his hand,Lincoln gazed at the ruined glove with a droll air while the arrested procession came to a standstill."Well,my old friend,"said he,"this is a general bustification;you and I were never intended to wear these things.If they were stronger they might do to keep out the cold,but they are a failure to shake hands with between old friends like us.Stand aside,Captain,and I'll see you shortly."[8]
His complete freedom from pose,and from the sense of place,was glimpsed by innumerable visitors.He would never allow a friend to address him by a title.'Call me Lincoln,"he would say;"Mr.President is entirely too formal for us."[9]
In a mere politician,all this might have been questioned.But Hawthorne was right as to the people's intuition of Lincoln's honesty.He hated the parade of eminence.Jefferson was his patron saint,and "simplicity"was part of his creed.Nothing could induce him to surround himself with pomp,or even--as his friends thought--with mere security.Rumors of plots against his life were heard almost from the beginning.His friends begged long and hard before he consented to permit a cavalry guard at the gates of the White House.Very soon he countermanded his consent."It would never do,"said he,"for a president to have guards with drawn sabers at his door,as if he fancied he were,or were trying to be,or were assuming to be,an emperor."[10]
A military officer,alarmed for his safety,begged him to consider "the fact that any assassin or maniac seeking his life,could enter his presence without the interference of a single armed man to hold him back.The entrance doors,and all doors on the official side of the building,were open at all hours of the day and very late into the evening;and I have many times entered the mansion and walked up to the rooms of the two private secretaries as late as nine or ten o'clock at night,without Seeing,or being challenged by a single soul."But the officer pleaded in vain.Lincoln laughingly paraphrased Charles II,"Now as to political assassination,do you think the Richmond people would like to have Hannibal Hamlin here any more than myself?...As to the crazy folks,Major,why I must only take my chances-the most crazy people at present,I fear,being some of my own too zealous adherents."[11]With Carpenter,to whom he seems to have taken a liking,he would ramble the streets of Washington,late at night,"without escort or even the company of a servant."[12]
