Showing posts with label 16th president. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 16th president. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

February 12 - Happy Birthday President Abraham Lincoln, Healer, Patriot, Loved and Liberator.



February 12 is Honest Abe's 210th birthday, born in 1809, and he is as relevant today as he was during the Civil War.  So today we shall celebrate his humor, legendary as it was, with a fine report by Gordon Leidner of Great American Humor. 

Lincoln’s Humor

by Gordon Leidner of Great American History

Today we think of Abraham Lincoln as a great leader—perhaps our greatest. We recall his eloquent speeches, his dedication to the Union, and his superior leadership. We honor his devotion to duty, sacrifice, and honesty.


What we don’t think of today when we think of Abraham Lincoln is "a good joke." In Lincoln’s day, however, he was a well known humorist and story teller. The anecdote about two Quaker women discussing Lincoln and Confederate president Jefferson Davis at the beginning of the Civil War is illustrative: The first Quaker lady said, after some contemplation, that she believed the Confederacy would win the war because "Jefferson Davis is a praying man." “But Abraham Lincoln is a praying man too,” the second Quaker lady protested. "Yes," the first admitted, "but the Lord will think Abraham is joking."

Lincoln inherited his penchant for jokes and story telling from his father, Thomas Lincoln. When Abe was a child he loved to listen to his father and other men swap yarns around the woodstove. As he grew older he became increasingly adept at telling and re-telling humorous stories, frequently modifying them to accommodate each situation. When Lincoln became a lawyer, he used his jokes and stories to gain the good will of juries, and more than once his opposing counsel would complain to the judge that Lincoln’s stories were irrelevant and distracting to the jury. The trouble for them was that Eighth Circuit Judge David Davis loved Lincoln’s jokes more than anyone else in the court room.


Typical of a joke Judge Davis loved was one which Lincoln told to poke fun at himself: I feel like I once did when I met a woman riding horseback in the woods. As I stopped to let her pass, she also stopped, and, looking at me intently, said: "I do believe you are the ugliest man I ever saw." Said I, "Madam, you are probably right, but I can’t help it!" "No," said she, "you can’t help it, but you might stay at home!"

Another one of Lincoln’s 8th Circuit yarns was the one about a man in Cortlandt county who had raised a hog of such tremendous size that people came from miles around to see it. One of the people saw the hog’s owner and inquired about the animal. "W’all, yes," the old fellow said: "I’ve got such a critter, mighty big un, but I guess I’ll have to charge you about a dollar for lookin’ at him." The stranger glared at the old man for a minute or so, handed him the desired money, and started to walk away. "Hold on," said the old man, "don’t you want to see the hog?" "No," said the stranger. "Lookin at you, I’ve seen as big a hog as I ever want to see!"

He told another story of a time he was splitting rails when a man carrying a rifle walked up to him and demanded that Lincoln look him directly in the eye. Lincoln stopped his work and obliged the man, who continued to silently stare at him for some minutes. Finally the man told Lincoln that he "had promised himself years ago that if he ever met a man uglier than himself, he would shoot him." Lincoln looked at the man’s rifle mischeviously and said nothing. Finally Lincoln pulled open his shirt, threw out his chest, and exclaimed, "If I am uglier than you, go ahead and shoot—because I don’t want to live!"


As a politician, Lincoln made excellent use of his humorous stories. His long time political opponent Stephen A. Douglas complained that Lincoln’s jokes were "like a slap across my back. Nothing else—not any of his arguments or any of his replies to my questions—disturbs me. But when he begins to tell a story, I feel that I am to be overmatched." More than once Douglas and other political opponents of Lincoln’s saw their eloquently presented arguments forgotten by the audience after Lincoln followed up their speeches with a homely story or anecdote. At Alton, Illinois, during the last of the “great debates” with Douglas, Lincoln told a story that illustrated how he felt about a political feud that was currently raging between Democratic senator Douglas and the head of the Democratic Party. He said he felt like the old woman that, not knowing who was going to win a brawl between her husband and a bear, decided to cheer for both of them: "Go it husband, go it bear!"

In another instance Lincoln got a tremendous laugh from the audience when he said one of Senator Douglas'’ arguments was “as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death.”


When Lincoln became president, he used his jokes for a different purpose. He would frequently use them to get rid of visitors that had over-stayed their alotted visiting time. In these situations he would use a funny story to illustrate a point he was trying to make, and then—while the listeners were laughing—would ease them out the door.

This happened once when Lincoln was asked what he was going to do with a general that had failed several assignments. Anxious to get rid of his questioners, he told them that the question reminded him of a blacksmith he knew back in New Salem. One day, when the blacksmith didn’t have much to do, he started his fire and began heating up a piece of soft iron. When he got it hot he carried it to the anvil and began to hammer it, thinking he would weld it into an agricultural implement. He pounded away for some time until he got it fashioned into some shape, but discovered that the iron was not big enough for the implement he had in mind. He then put it back into the forge, heated it up again, and recommenced hammering, having decided to make a claw hammer. After a while he concluded that there was too much iron for a hammer. So again he heated it, this time thinking he would form an axe. After hammering and welding it into shape, he concluded there was not enough iron left to make an axe. He was now getting tired and disgusted at the result of his various failures. So finally he filled his forge full of coal, worked up a tremendous heat, and brought the remaining lump of iron to a white heat. With his tongs he lifted it from the bed of coals, and thrusting it into a tub of water near by, exclaimed with an oath, "Well, if I can’t make anything else of you, I will make you into a big fizzle, anyhow!" After he escorted his laughing visitors out the door, Lincoln decided to send the general out west to fight Indians.


Another example of Lincoln’s humor during the war was when he talked about Confederate General John B. Hood’s army after it had been annihilated in the battle of Nashville, Tennessee. Lincoln said "I think Hood’s army is about in the fix of Bill Sykes’s dog, down in Sangamon county. Bill Sykes had a long, yaller dog, that was forever getting into the neighbors’ meat houses and chicken coops. They had tried to kill it a hundred times, but the dog was always too smart for them. Finally, one of them got a bladder of a coon, and filled it up with powder, tying the neck around a piece of punk. When he saw the dog coming he fired the punk, split open a hot biscuit and put the bladder in, then buttered it all nicely and threw it out. The dog swallowed it at a gulp. Pretty soon there was an explosion. The head of the dog lit on the porch, the fore-legs caught astraddle the fence, the hind-legs fell in the ditch, and the rest of the dog lay around loose. Pretty soon Bill Sykes came along, and the neighbor said; "Bill I guess there ain’t much of that dog of your’n left." "Well, no," said Bill; "I see plenty of pieces, but I guess that dog, as a dog, ain’t of much more account." Lincoln concluded that although there were still pieces of Hood’s army left, the army, as an army, wasn’t of much more account.

As the responsibilities of the office of president became more unendurable, Lincoln used humor for self-therapy. He wanted to lessen the tensions in himself and those around him, and he frequently pointed fun at pompous generals when doing this. He said that he once saw a short, fat general that reminded him of a man he knew in Springfield whose name was Enoch. He said Enoch’s legs were so short that when he walked through the snow the seat of his trousers wiped out his footprints.


Lincoln told of the preacher that said, during his sermon, that although the Lord was the only perfect man, the Bible never mentioned a perfect woman. A woman in the rear of the congregation called out "I know a perfect woman, and I’ve heard of her every day for the last six years." "Who was she?" asked the surprised minister. "My husband’s first wife," came the reply.

Listening to two groups of men that came to argue as to whether or not a St. Louis church should be closed as a result of statements of disloyalty from its minister, Lincoln said that the situation reminded him of a story. He said that a man in Sangamon County had a melon patch that kept getting ruined by a wild hog. Finally he and his sons decided to take their guns and track the animal down. They followed the tracks to the neighboring creek, where they disappeared. They discovered them on the opposite bank, and waded through. They kept on the trail a couple of hundred yards, when the tracks again went into the creek, and promptly turned up on the other side. Out of breath and patience, the farmer said "John you cross over and go up on that side of the creek, and I’ll keep up on this side, because I believe that hog is on both sides of the creek!" "Gentlemen," concluded Lincoln, "that is just where I stand in regard to your controversies in St. Louis. I am on both sides. I can't allow my Generals to run the churches, and I can’t allow your ministers to preach rebellion."

One cannot truly appreciate Lincoln without understanding his humorous side. Lincoln certainly deserves the credit he’s received for what he accomplished in the way of preservation of the Union and freeing the slaves. But Lincoln had a lighter side, also, and he used his jokes and stories both for the purpose of winning over his audience and relieving the tremendous pressure he experienced as President during the terrible Civil War.

Now Abraham Lincoln belongs to the ages.
.

Wednesday, May 02, 2018

CPT Flashback - Ten Years ago CPT Predicts Obama will Win Presidency - A Day for the Ages - Lincoln's Dream Fulfilled by Obama



It has been ten years almost to the day that the bitterly fought Democratic primary in 2008 changed, and suddenly Hillary Clinton faced the prospect of defeat.  On Super Tuesday, March 4, the Clinton machine got their first inkling something was amiss when her march to the presidency failed to crush the young upstart Barack Obama.

By May 6 when the North Carolina and Indiana primaries took place, it was Hillary's last stand.  She needed significant wins to stop the Obama momentum.  Instead she barely won Indiana by 2 percent and was crushed in North Carolina by Obama.


On June 3rd Hillary officially withdrew from the race.  Obama was nominated at the 2008 Democratic Convention on August 28 and won the historic race for president on November 4, 2008.  Finally, on January 20, 2009 Barack Obama became the first African American president in American history.


May 8 of the primary year the Coltons Point Times declared Obama would win the presidency in seven months, before he was even nominated by the Democrats (August 28) and while Hillary was still fighting for the presidential nomination.   The following articles ran May 8, 2008 and November 6, 2008 in the Coltons Point Times with the prediction and the proof.







Thursday, May 08, 2008

AN OPEN LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA

As you stand on the threshold of history 148 years after a fellow Illinois favorite son named Abraham Lincoln did I would appreciate a moment of your time to remind you of the expectations we Americans have of our leader.



Image by Coltons Point Times
When the dust has settled from your very trying primary campaign, the confetti has been swept away from the boisterous national conventions and the final tally certified from the general election we have elected a president who instantly becomes the most powerful person in the world.

At that point in time you assume the mantle as the leader of all Americans, Democrats, Republicans, Independents and non-voters alike. You will lead a nation that is the citadel of freedom, the defender of human rights, the provider of equal opportunity, and yes the melting pot of the world where diverse people, cultures, ethnic backgrounds, religions, philosophies and politics can flourish. No other place in the world can make such a claim.

When you take the Oath of Office as the President of the United States you will become the 44th person in history to accept the responsibility inherent in the office. All Americans will be watching you, and so will all of the people of the world. The path you choose to follow as president will determine how many of the 300 million Americans will stand firmly behind you.


It won’t be easy but it does not have to be hard if you realize as so few politicians do that you, as our chosen leader, represent the heart and soul of what is good about the United States.

As a people far removed from the egos and thirst for power so often seen in our nation’s capital we long for a leader who cares, who possesses genuine empathy and compassion, who will create an administration dedicated to helping people and solving problems rather than perpetuating a bureaucracy, and who will bring about long overdue meaningful change.

We want a leader willing to learn about our needs rather than tell us what is best for us. Someone who can accept responsibility and admit mistakes and then you will always receive our support and forgiveness.

We are a people whose Declaration of Independence and Constitution made clear that we are One Nation Under God while distinguishing the difference between God and religion and we hope and pray you will not shrink from the rights and responsibilities inherent in being One Nation Under God and the inalienable rights we enjoy.

Our nation was founded out of love of freedom, respect for God and justice for all. The path has been bumpy at times but our strength comes from the will of the people to never lose sight of our goals. If you lead the people down that path you will discover the secret of our nation, the power of the people.

We the people in defense of our country and other nations are willing to sacrifice our sons, our daughters and ourselves to preserve our precious freedom and way of life and we have proven it throughout our history. We are the most charitable and forgiving people on Earth who will never hesitate to help another in times of need. No nation on Earth comes close to the unselfishness of Americans to volunteer their time, donate their money and offer their prayers for the good of mankind.

We expect you Mr. Obama to be yourself and Americans will stand behind you. Be America’s First Family looking out for all families in America and you will earn our respect. Show your devotion to your wife and children so the world will know what is important in America and you will earn our trust. Let the First Lady be an advocate for the forgotten needs of our people and your children a model for the love so desperately needed everywhere and you will earn our support.


Be our heart and soul, the heart and soul of all Americans, and you will take your rightful place in history as one of our greatest presidents of all time, not just the first African American to be president. We expect a lot, but we are willing to give a lot in return. Together we can return America to its rightful position as the model and leader of the world. Together we can demonstrate the strength of our conviction, the power of our will, and the value of our freedom to a world in need of hope.

God Speed,

Your fellow Americans




     Wednesday, November 05, 2008

A Day For The Ages - Obama & Lincoln


Image by Coltons Point Times

THE DREAM FULFILLED

Abraham Lincoln - 16th President

Barack Obama - 44th President


Just 23 days after he takes office as the 44th President, on February 12, 2009, Barack Obama will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, a fellow president from Illinois whose dream that all people are free was fulfilled with the historic election of Obama. Lincoln sacrificed his life so that Obama could serve. Here they are both sitting before the Illinois Statehouse where both began historic political careers.  Image created by The Coltons Point Times.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Happy President’s Day February 19, Honoring Abe and George Birthdays – featuring Lincoln’s Birthday February 12



February 12 is Honest Abe's 209th birthday and he is as relevant today as he was during the Civil War.  So today we shall celebrate his humor, legendary as it was, with a fine report by Gordon Leidner of Great American Humor. 

Lincoln’s Humor

by Gordon Leidner of Great American History

Today we think of Abraham Lincoln as a great leader—perhaps our greatest. We recall his eloquent speeches, his dedication to the Union, and his superior leadership. We honor his devotion to duty, sacrifice, and honesty.


What we don’t think of today when we think of Abraham Lincoln is "a good joke." In Lincoln’s day, however, he was a well known humorist and story teller. The anecdote about two Quaker women discussing Lincoln and Confederate president Jefferson Davis at the beginning of the Civil War is illustrative: The first Quaker lady said, after some contemplation, that she believed the Confederacy would win the war because "Jefferson Davis is a praying man." “But Abraham Lincoln is a praying man too,” the second Quaker lady protested. "Yes," the first admitted, "but the Lord will think Abraham is joking."

Lincoln inherited his penchant for jokes and story telling from his father, Thomas Lincoln. When Abe was a child he loved to listen to his father and other men swap yarns around the woodstove. As he grew older he became increasingly adept at telling and re-telling humorous stories, frequently modifying them to accommodate each situation. When Lincoln became a lawyer, he used his jokes and stories to gain the good will of juries, and more than once his opposing counsel would complain to the judge that Lincoln’s stories were irrelevant and distracting to the jury. The trouble for them was that Eighth Circuit Judge David Davis loved Lincoln’s jokes more than anyone else in the court room.


Typical of a joke Judge Davis loved was one which Lincoln told to poke fun at himself: I feel like I once did when I met a woman riding horseback in the woods. As I stopped to let her pass, she also stopped, and, looking at me intently, said: "I do believe you are the ugliest man I ever saw." Said I, "Madam, you are probably right, but I can’t help it!" "No," said she, "you can’t help it, but you might stay at home!"

Another one of Lincoln’s 8th Circuit yarns was the one about a man in Cortlandt county who had raised a hog of such tremendous size that people came from miles around to see it. One of the people saw the hog’s owner and inquired about the animal. "W’all, yes," the old fellow said: "I’ve got such a critter, mighty big un, but I guess I’ll have to charge you about a dollar for lookin’ at him." The stranger glared at the old man for a minute or so, handed him the desired money, and started to walk away. "Hold on," said the old man, "don’t you want to see the hog?" "No," said the stranger. "Lookin at you, I’ve seen as big a hog as I ever want to see!"

He told another story of a time he was splitting rails when a man carrying a rifle walked up to him and demanded that Lincoln look him directly in the eye. Lincoln stopped his work and obliged the man, who continued to silently stare at him for some minutes. Finally the man told Lincoln that he "had promised himself years ago that if he ever met a man uglier than himself, he would shoot him." Lincoln looked at the man’s rifle mischeviously and said nothing. Finally Lincoln pulled open his shirt, threw out his chest, and exclaimed, "If I am uglier than you, go ahead and shoot—because I don’t want to live!"


As a politician, Lincoln made excellent use of his humorous stories. His long time political opponent Stephen A. Douglas complained that Lincoln’s jokes were "like a slap across my back. Nothing else—not any of his arguments or any of his replies to my questions—disturbs me. But when he begins to tell a story, I feel that I am to be overmatched." More than once Douglas and other political opponents of Lincoln’s saw their eloquently presented arguments forgotten by the audience after Lincoln followed up their speeches with a homely story or anecdote. At Alton, Illinois, during the last of the “great debates” with Douglas, Lincoln told a story that illustrated how he felt about a political feud that was currently raging between Democratic senator Douglas and the head of the Democratic Party. He said he felt like the old woman that, not knowing who was going to win a brawl between her husband and a bear, decided to cheer for both of them: "Go it husband, go it bear!"

In another instance Lincoln got a tremendous laugh from the audience when he said one of Senator Douglas'’ arguments was “as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death.”


When Lincoln became president, he used his jokes for a different purpose. He would frequently use them to get rid of visitors that had over-stayed their alotted visiting time. In these situations he would use a funny story to illustrate a point he was trying to make, and then—while the listeners were laughing—would ease them out the door.

This happened once when Lincoln was asked what he was going to do with a general that had failed several assignments. Anxious to get rid of his questioners, he told them that the question reminded him of a blacksmith he knew back in New Salem. One day, when the blacksmith didn’t have much to do, he started his fire and began heating up a piece of soft iron. When he got it hot he carried it to the anvil and began to hammer it, thinking he would weld it into an agricultural implement. He pounded away for some time until he got it fashioned into some shape, but discovered that the iron was not big enough for the implement he had in mind. He then put it back into the forge, heated it up again, and recommenced hammering, having decided to make a claw hammer. After a while he concluded that there was too much iron for a hammer. So again he heated it, this time thinking he would form an axe. After hammering and welding it into shape, he concluded there was not enough iron left to make an axe. He was now getting tired and disgusted at the result of his various failures. So finally he filled his forge full of coal, worked up a tremendous heat, and brought the remaining lump of iron to a white heat. With his tongs he lifted it from the bed of coals, and thrusting it into a tub of water near by, exclaimed with an oath, "Well, if I can’t make anything else of you, I will make you into a big fizzle, anyhow!" After he escorted his laughing visitors out the door, Lincoln decided to send the general out west to fight Indians.


Another example of Lincoln’s humor during the war was when he talked about Confederate General John B. Hood’s army after it had been annihilated in the battle of Nashville, Tennessee. Lincoln said "I think Hood’s army is about in the fix of Bill Sykes’s dog, down in Sangamon county. Bill Sykes had a long, yaller dog, that was forever getting into the neighbors’ meat houses and chicken coops. They had tried to kill it a hundred times, but the dog was always too smart for them. Finally, one of them got a bladder of a coon, and filled it up with powder, tying the neck around a piece of punk. When he saw the dog coming he fired the punk, split open a hot biscuit and put the bladder in, then buttered it all nicely and threw it out. The dog swallowed it at a gulp. Pretty soon there was an explosion. The head of the dog lit on the porch, the fore-legs caught astraddle the fence, the hind-legs fell in the ditch, and the rest of the dog lay around loose. Pretty soon Bill Sykes came along, and the neighbor said; "Bill I guess there ain’t much of that dog of your’n left." "Well, no," said Bill; "I see plenty of pieces, but I guess that dog, as a dog, ain’t of much more account." Lincoln concluded that although there were still pieces of Hood’s army left, the army, as an army, wasn’t of much more account.

As the responsibilities of the office of president became more unendurable, Lincoln used humor for self-therapy. He wanted to lessen the tensions in himself and those around him, and he frequently pointed fun at pompous generals when doing this. He said that he once saw a short, fat general that reminded him of a man he knew in Springfield whose name was Enoch. He said Enoch’s legs were so short that when he walked through the snow the seat of his trousers wiped out his footprints.


Lincoln told of the preacher that said, during his sermon, that although the Lord was the only perfect man, the Bible never mentioned a perfect woman. A woman in the rear of the congregation called out "I know a perfect woman, and I’ve heard of her every day for the last six years." "Who was she?" asked the surprised minister. "My husband’s first wife," came the reply.

Listening to two groups of men that came to argue as to whether or not a St. Louis church should be closed as a result of statements of disloyalty from its minister, Lincoln said that the situation reminded him of a story. He said that a man in Sangamon County had a melon patch that kept getting ruined by a wild hog. Finally he and his sons decided to take their guns and track the animal down. They followed the tracks to the neighboring creek, where they disappeared. They discovered them on the opposite bank, and waded through. They kept on the trail a couple of hundred yards, when the tracks again went into the creek, and promptly turned up on the other side. Out of breath and patience, the farmer said "John you cross over and go up on that side of the creek, and I’ll keep up on this side, because I believe that hog is on both sides of the creek!" "Gentlemen," concluded Lincoln, "that is just where I stand in regard to your controversies in St. Louis. I am on both sides. I can't allow my Generals to run the churches, and I can’t allow your ministers to preach rebellion."

One cannot truly appreciate Lincoln without understanding his humorous side. Lincoln certainly deserves the credit he’s received for what he accomplished in the way of preservation of the Union and freeing the slaves. But Lincoln had a lighter side, also, and he used his jokes and stories both for the purpose of winning over his audience and relieving the tremendous pressure he experienced as President during the terrible Civil War.

Now Abraham Lincoln belongs to the ages.
.

Monday, February 13, 2017

February 12 - Happy Birthday Mr. Lincoln



February 12 is Honest Abe's 208th birthday and he is as relevant today as he was during the Civil War.  So today we shall celebrate his humor, legendary as it was, with a fine report by Gordon Leidner of Great American Humor. 

Lincoln’s Humor

by Gordon Leidner of Great American History

Today we think of Abraham Lincoln as a great leader—perhaps our greatest. We recall his eloquent speeches, his dedication to the Union, and his superior leadership. We honor his devotion to duty, sacrifice, and honesty.


What we don’t think of today when we think of Abraham Lincoln is "a good joke." In Lincoln’s day, however, he was a well known humorist and story teller. The anecdote about two Quaker women discussing Lincoln and Confederate president Jefferson Davis at the beginning of the Civil War is illustrative: The first Quaker lady said, after some contemplation, that she believed the Confederacy would win the war because "Jefferson Davis is a praying man." “But Abraham Lincoln is a praying man too,” the second Quaker lady protested. "Yes," the first admitted, "but the Lord will think Abraham is joking."

Lincoln inherited his penchant for jokes and story telling from his father, Thomas Lincoln. When Abe was a child he loved to listen to his father and other men swap yarns around the woodstove. As he grew older he became increasingly adept at telling and re-telling humorous stories, frequently modifying them to accommodate each situation. When Lincoln became a lawyer, he used his jokes and stories to gain the good will of juries, and more than once his opposing counsel would complain to the judge that Lincoln’s stories were irrelevant and distracting to the jury. The trouble for them was that Eighth Circuit Judge David Davis loved Lincoln’s jokes more than anyone else in the court room.


Typical of a joke Judge Davis loved was one which Lincoln told to poke fun at himself: I feel like I once did when I met a woman riding horseback in the woods. As I stopped to let her pass, she also stopped, and, looking at me intently, said: "I do believe you are the ugliest man I ever saw." Said I, "Madam, you are probably right, but I can’t help it!" "No," said she, "you can’t help it, but you might stay at home!"

Another one of Lincoln’s 8th Circuit yarns was the one about a man in Cortlandt county who had raised a hog of such tremendous size that people came from miles around to see it. One of the people saw the hog’s owner and inquired about the animal. "W’all, yes," the old fellow said: "I’ve got such a critter, mighty big un, but I guess I’ll have to charge you about a dollar for lookin’ at him." The stranger glared at the old man for a minute or so, handed him the desired money, and started to walk away. "Hold on," said the old man, "don’t you want to see the hog?" "No," said the stranger. "Lookin at you, I’ve seen as big a hog as I ever want to see!"

He told another story of a time he was splitting rails when a man carrying a rifle walked up to him and demanded that Lincoln look him directly in the eye. Lincoln stopped his work and obliged the man, who continued to silently stare at him for some minutes. Finally the man told Lincoln that he "had promised himself years ago that if he ever met a man uglier than himself, he would shoot him." Lincoln looked at the man’s rifle mischeviously and said nothing. Finally Lincoln pulled open his shirt, threw out his chest, and exclaimed, "If I am uglier than you, go ahead and shoot—because I don’t want to live!"


As a politician, Lincoln made excellent use of his humorous stories. His long time political opponent Stephen A. Douglas complained that Lincoln’s jokes were "like a slap across my back. Nothing else—not any of his arguments or any of his replies to my questions—disturbs me. But when he begins to tell a story, I feel that I am to be overmatched." More than once Douglas and other political opponents of Lincoln’s saw their eloquently presented arguments forgotten by the audience after Lincoln followed up their speeches with a homely story or anecdote. At Alton, Illinois, during the last of the “great debates” with Douglas, Lincoln told a story that illustrated how he felt about a political feud that was currently raging between Democratic senator Douglas and the head of the Democratic Party. He said he felt like the old woman that, not knowing who was going to win a brawl between her husband and a bear, decided to cheer for both of them: "Go it husband, go it bear!"

In another instance Lincoln got a tremendous laugh from the audience when he said one of Senator Douglas'’ arguments was “as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death.”


When Lincoln became president, he used his jokes for a different purpose. He would frequently use them to get rid of visitors that had over-stayed their alotted visiting time. In these situations he would use a funny story to illustrate a point he was trying to make, and then—while the listeners were laughing—would ease them out the door.

This happened once when Lincoln was asked what he was going to do with a general that had failed several assignments. Anxious to get rid of his questioners, he told them that the question reminded him of a blacksmith he knew back in New Salem. One day, when the blacksmith didn’t have much to do, he started his fire and began heating up a piece of soft iron. When he got it hot he carried it to the anvil and began to hammer it, thinking he would weld it into an agricultural implement. He pounded away for some time until he got it fashioned into some shape, but discovered that the iron was not big enough for the implement he had in mind. He then put it back into the forge, heated it up again, and recommenced hammering, having decided to make a claw hammer. After a while he concluded that there was too much iron for a hammer. So again he heated it, this time thinking he would form an axe. After hammering and welding it into shape, he concluded there was not enough iron left to make an axe. He was now getting tired and disgusted at the result of his various failures. So finally he filled his forge full of coal, worked up a tremendous heat, and brought the remaining lump of iron to a white heat. With his tongs he lifted it from the bed of coals, and thrusting it into a tub of water near by, exclaimed with an oath, "Well, if I can’t make anything else of you, I will make you into a big fizzle, anyhow!" After he escorted his laughing visitors out the door, Lincoln decided to send the general out west to fight Indians.


Another example of Lincoln’s humor during the war was when he talked about Confederate General John B. Hood’s army after it had been annihilated in the battle of Nashville, Tennessee. Lincoln said "I think Hood’s army is about in the fix of Bill Sykes’s dog, down in Sangamon county. Bill Sykes had a long, yaller dog, that was forever getting into the neighbors’ meat houses and chicken coops. They had tried to kill it a hundred times, but the dog was always too smart for them. Finally, one of them got a bladder of a coon, and filled it up with powder, tying the neck around a piece of punk. When he saw the dog coming he fired the punk, split open a hot biscuit and put the bladder in, then buttered it all nicely and threw it out. The dog swallowed it at a gulp. Pretty soon there was an explosion. The head of the dog lit on the porch, the fore-legs caught astraddle the fence, the hind-legs fell in the ditch, and the rest of the dog lay around loose. Pretty soon Bill Sykes came along, and the neighbor said; "Bill I guess there ain’t much of that dog of your’n left." "Well, no," said Bill; "I see plenty of pieces, but I guess that dog, as a dog, ain’t of much more account." Lincoln concluded that although there were still pieces of Hood’s army left, the army, as an army, wasn’t of much more account.

As the responsibilities of the office of president became more unendurable, Lincoln used humor for self-therapy. He wanted to lessen the tensions in himself and those around him, and he frequently pointed fun at pompous generals when doing this. He said that he once saw a short, fat general that reminded him of a man he knew in Springfield whose name was Enoch. He said Enoch’s legs were so short that when he walked through the snow the seat of his trousers wiped out his footprints.


Lincoln told of the preacher that said, during his sermon, that although the Lord was the only perfect man, the Bible never mentioned a perfect woman. A woman in the rear of the congregation called out "I know a perfect woman, and I’ve heard of her every day for the last six years." "Who was she?" asked the surprised minister. "My husband’s first wife," came the reply.

Listening to two groups of men that came to argue as to whether or not a St. Louis church should be closed as a result of statements of disloyalty from its minister, Lincoln said that the situation reminded him of a story. He said that a man in Sangamon County had a melon patch that kept getting ruined by a wild hog. Finally he and his sons decided to take their guns and track the animal down. They followed the tracks to the neighboring creek, where they disappeared. They discovered them on the opposite bank, and waded through. They kept on the trail a couple of hundred yards, when the tracks again went into the creek, and promptly turned up on the other side. Out of breath and patience, the farmer said "John you cross over and go up on that side of the creek, and I’ll keep up on this side, because I believe that hog is on both sides of the creek!" "Gentlemen," concluded Lincoln, "that is just where I stand in regard to your controversies in St. Louis. I am on both sides. I can't allow my Generals to run the churches, and I can’t allow your ministers to preach rebellion."

One cannot truly appreciate Lincoln without understanding his humorous side. Lincoln certainly deserves the credit he’s received for what he accomplished in the way of preservation of the Union and freeing the slaves. But Lincoln had a lighter side, also, and he used his jokes and stories both for the purpose of winning over his audience and relieving the tremendous pressure he experienced as President during the terrible Civil War.

Now Abraham Lincoln belongs to the ages.
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Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Abraham Lincoln died 150 years ago today, April 15 - A Man for the Ages.

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The most beloved and popular president in the history of America, Abraham Lincoln, died 150 years ago today after being gunned down in Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C.



His legacy will live forever as the President who reunited the union after the only Civil War in our history, against all odds, and in a nation nearly bankrupt from the Revolutionary war.



In the process he became the greatest emancipator in the world when he freed the slaves.



If only all presidents could live by the code of ethics, sense of justice, and fierce loyalty of our 16th president.
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Sunday, February 12, 2012

Happy Birthday Mr. Lincoln

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Today is Honest Abe's 203rd birthday and he is as revelant today as he was during the Civil War.  So today we shall celebrate his humor, legendary as it was, with a fine report by Gordon Leidner of Great American Humor. 

Lincoln’s Humor

by Gordon Leidner of Great American History

Today we think of Abraham Lincoln as a great leader—perhaps our greatest. We recall his eloquent speeches, his dedication to the Union, and his superior leadership. We honor his devotion to duty, sacrifice, and honesty.


What we don’t think of today when we think of Abraham Lincoln is "a good joke." In Lincoln’s day, however, he was a well known humorist and story teller. The anecdote about two Quaker women discussing Lincoln and Confederate president Jefferson Davis at the beginning of the Civil War is illustrative: The first Quaker lady said, after some contemplation, that she believed the Confederacy would win the war because "Jefferson Davis is a praying man." “But Abraham Lincoln is a praying man too,” the second Quaker lady protested. "Yes," the first admitted, "but the Lord will think Abraham is joking."

Lincoln inherited his penchant for jokes and story telling from his father, Thomas Lincoln. When Abe was a child he loved to listen to his father and other men swap yarns around the woodstove. As he grew older he became increasingly adept at telling and re-telling humorous stories, frequently modifying them to accommodate each situation. When Lincoln became a lawyer, he used his jokes and stories to gain the good will of juries, and more than once his opposing counsel would complain to the judge that Lincoln’s stories were irrelevant and distracting to the jury. The trouble for them was that Eighth Circuit Judge David Davis loved Lincoln’s jokes more than anyone else in the court room.


Typical of a joke Judge Davis loved was one which Lincoln told to poke fun at himself: I feel like I once did when I met a woman riding horseback in the woods. As I stopped to let her pass, she also stopped, and, looking at me intently, said: "I do believe you are the ugliest man I ever saw." Said I, "Madam, you are probably right, but I can’t help it!" "No," said she, "you can’t help it, but you might stay at home!"

Another one of Lincoln’s 8th Circuit yarns was the one about a man in Cortlandt county who had raised a hog of such tremendous size that people came from miles around to see it. One of the people saw the hog’s owner and inquired about the animal. "W’all, yes," the old fellow said: "I’ve got such a critter, mighty big un, but I guess I’ll have to charge you about a dollar for lookin’ at him." The stranger glared at the old man for a minute or so, handed him the desired money, and started to walk away. "Hold on," said the old man, "don’t you want to see the hog?" "No," said the stranger. "Lookin at you, I’ve seen as big a hog as I ever want to see!"

He told another story of a time he was splitting rails when a man carrying a rifle walked up to him and demanded that Lincoln look him directly in the eye. Lincoln stopped his work and obliged the man, who continued to silently stare at him for some minutes. Finally the man told Lincoln that he "had promised himself years ago that if he ever met a man uglier than himself, he would shoot him." Lincoln looked at the man’s rifle mischeviously and said nothing. Finally Lincoln pulled open his shirt, threw out his chest, and exclaimed, "If I am uglier than you, go ahead and shoot—because I don’t want to live!"


As a politician, Lincoln made excellent use of his humorous stories. His long time political opponent Stephen A. Douglas complained that Lincoln’s jokes were "like a slap across my back. Nothing else—not any of his arguments or any of his replies to my questions—disturbs me. But when he begins to tell a story, I feel that I am to be overmatched." More than once Douglas and other political opponents of Lincoln’s saw their eloquently presented arguments forgotten by the audience after Lincoln followed up their speeches with a homely story or anecdote. At Alton, Illinois, during the last of the “great debates” with Douglas, Lincoln told a story that illustrated how he felt about a political feud that was currently raging between Democratic senator Douglas and the head of the Democratic Party. He said he felt like the old woman that, not knowing who was going to win a brawl between her husband and a bear, decided to cheer for both of them: "Go it husband, go it bear!"

In another instance Lincoln got a tremendous laugh from the audience when he said one of Senator Douglas'’ arguments was “as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death.”


When Lincoln became president, he used his jokes for a different purpose. He would frequently use them to get rid of visitors that had over-stayed their alotted visiting time. In these situations he would use a funny story to illustrate a point he was trying to make, and then—while the listeners were laughing—would ease them out the door.

This happened once when Lincoln was asked what he was going to do with a general that had failed several assignments. Anxious to get rid of his questioners, he told them that the question reminded him of a blacksmith he knew back in New Salem. One day, when the blacksmith didn’t have much to do, he started his fire and began heating up a piece of soft iron. When he got it hot he carried it to the anvil and began to hammer it, thinking he would weld it into an agricultural implement. He pounded away for some time until he got it fashioned into some shape, but discovered that the iron was not big enough for the implement he had in mind. He then put it back into the forge, heated it up again, and recommenced hammering, having decided to make a claw hammer. After a while he concluded that there was too much iron for a hammer. So again he heated it, this time thinking he would form an axe. After hammering and welding it into shape, he concluded there was not enough iron left to make an axe. He was now getting tired and disgusted at the result of his various failures. So finally he filled his forge full of coal, worked up a tremendous heat, and brought the remaining lump of iron to a white heat. With his tongs he lifted it from the bed of coals, and thrusting it into a tub of water near by, exclaimed with an oath, "Well, if I can’t make anything else of you, I will make you into a big fizzle, anyhow!" After he escorted his laughing visitors out the door, Lincoln decided to send the general out west to fight Indians.


Another example of Lincoln’s humor during the war was when he talked about Confederate General John B. Hood’s army after it had been annihilated in the battle of Nashville, Tennessee. Lincoln said "I think Hood’s army is about in the fix of Bill Sykes’s dog, down in Sangamon county. Bill Sykes had a long, yaller dog, that was forever getting into the neighbors’ meat houses and chicken coops. They had tried to kill it a hundred times, but the dog was always too smart for them. Finally, one of them got a bladder of a coon, and filled it up with powder, tying the neck around a piece of punk. When he saw the dog coming he fired the punk, split open a hot biscuit and put the bladder in, then buttered it all nicely and threw it out. The dog swallowed it at a gulp. Pretty soon there was an explosion. The head of the dog lit on the porch, the fore-legs caught astraddle the fence, the hind-legs fell in the ditch, and the rest of the dog lay around loose. Pretty soon Bill Sykes came along, and the neighbor said; "Bill I guess there ain’t much of that dog of your’n left." "Well, no," said Bill; "I see plenty of pieces, but I guess that dog, as a dog, ain’t of much more account." Lincoln concluded that although there were still pieces of Hood’s army left, the army, as an army, wasn’t of much more account.

As the responsibilities of the office of president became more unendurable, Lincoln used humor for self-therapy. He wanted to lessen the tensions in himself and those around him, and he frequently pointed fun at pompous generals when doing this. He said that he once saw a short, fat general that reminded him of a man he knew in Springfield whose name was Enoch. He said Enoch’s legs were so short that when he walked through the snow the seat of his trousers wiped out his footprints.


Lincoln told of the preacher that said, during his sermon, that although the Lord was the only perfect man, the Bible never mentioned a perfect woman. A woman in the rear of the congregation called out "I know a perfect woman, and I’ve heard of her every day for the last six years." "Who was she?" asked the surprised minister. "My husband’s first wife," came the reply.

Listening to two groups of men that came to argue as to whether or not a St. Louis church should be closed as a result of statements of disloyalty from its minister, Lincoln said that the situation reminded him of a story. He said that a man in Sangamon County had a melon patch that kept getting ruined by a wild hog. Finally he and his sons decided to take their guns and track the animal down. They followed the tracks to the neighboring creek, where they disappeared. They discovered them on the opposite bank, and waded through. They kept on the trail a couple of hundred yards, when the tracks again went into the creek, and promptly turned up on the other side. Out of breath and patience, the farmer said "John you cross over and go up on that side of the creek, and I’ll keep up on this side, because I believe that hog is on both sides of the creek!" "Gentlemen," concluded Lincoln, "that is just where I stand in regard to your controversies in St. Louis. I am on both sides. I can't allow my Generals to run the churches, and I can’t allow your ministers to preach rebellion."

One cannot truly appreciate Lincoln without understanding his humorous side. Lincoln certainly deserves the credit he’s received for what he accomplished in the way of preservation of the Union and freeing the slaves. But Lincoln had a lighter side, also, and he used his jokes and stories both for the purpose of winning over his audience and relieving the tremendous pressure he experienced as President during the terrible Civil War.

Now Abraham Lincoln belongs to the ages.
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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Today in History - Abraham Lincoln Shot in Ford's Theater!

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"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts."

It was 145 years ago today, just five days after Generals Grant and Lee signed the documents at the old Appomattox Court House ending the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theater by John Wilkes Booth.

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world."

The most beloved president in our history, Lincoln's was a difficult and painful presidency that began in 1861 when several states had already withdrawn from the Union. For the next 4 years he led the nation through some of the most trying times ever as he fought to preserve the Republic while freeing the slaves and ending the European influence on America's domestic affairs.



"I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end."

There were times the nation was on the brink of self-destruction like just before the Battle of Gettysburg when the Southern Armies were routing the Union pushing them farther and farther north. At Gettysburg July 1-3, 1863, the Union generals did what Lincoln wanted and in one of the bloodiest conflicts in the history of American wars, when there were over 50,000 causalities and nearly 5000 killed, the Union army prevailed.

"Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties."

Lincoln also secretly secured the help of Tsar Alexander II of Russia, who sailed Russian fleets into the harbors of New York and San Francisco when the Union was at it's weakest, and send messages to England and France that if they sent troops into the American Civil War to help the Confederates that the Russian Empire would consider it an act of war on Russia and attack.



"If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it."

At the time England had troops posted in Canada while France had troops posted in Mexico ready to come to the aid of the Southern states in a last desperate attempt to preserve the European trade with the South. The action by the Tsar stopped England and France from attacking.



"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew."

While Lincoln was considered the great Liberator in America for freeing the slaves Alexander was considered the great Liberator in Russia for ending the feudal system. The Tsar, like his friend Lincoln, was assassinated in 1881 by those opposed to his efforts in human rights making Lincoln and Alexander both human rights martyrs.



"Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed."

Lincoln had premonitions of his death. His speeches and correspondence rank among the greatest writing of all time and his love of God and country were such as to help him finish what he started, saving the Union, before his untimely death.

Everyone should study the works and words of Lincoln as masterpieces in politics and human relations and a model of what a president should be in America.



On March 4, 1865, Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address, his favorite of all his speeches. At this time, a victory over the rebels was at hand, slavery was dead, and Lincoln was looking to the future.

"Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."
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