Laughing With Lincoln (Article 100)

Abraham Lincoln laughed. A lot! Out loud, often with his hands slapping his knees!

His stories were often self-depreciating or, if directed at another person, usually a gentle “ribbing” and not malicious. On the other hand, he seemed to reserve biting sarcasm for those who he thought deserved to be “brought down a notch” as too arrogant, untruthful, uncaring, or disrespectful. Most of his humor was contained in “yarns” but he could tell a stand-alone joke as well. A friend recalled, “When he tells a story in a fireside group, his face loses its melancholy mask, his eyes sparkle, and his whole countenance lights up, he is just joyful. Then he laughs at his story as much as anyone.”  Lincoln would often start laughing before he finished a story because, he said, “I already start thinking about the ending.”

He often used humorous anecdotes to make a point more clear, but sometimes his intended target enjoyed the humor but failed to understand that they were the intended target; as they were sure he was talking about someone else’s foibles. William Seward, his Secretary of State, who was also a great storyteller said: “Sometimes I would just enjoy the story because I had no idea what Lincoln was getting at.” The following Lincoln yarns, jokes, and pointed remarks are only a few of many examples of the humor of Abraham Lincoln.

Abe frequently told variations of this yarn. There was a Governor who was visiting a jail on Christmas Eve, as it was his custom to pardon one or more convicts who he determined had learned their lesson. One by one the men entered to press their case and they were all polite, their appearance fussed over, and every one said they had committed no offense against society and that they were good men, wrongly confined. But, when the last prisoner came before the Governor, the man had apparently made no effort to improve his appearance, stood with a scowl that would make the devil proud, and stared at the Governor. When asked about his crime, the man admitted that he had caused mayhem, deserved the punishment, and would likely do it again if given the opportunity. The governor was shocked. He called in the warden and proclaimed he had never seen such a righteous group of men as those who had first come before him. Then, said the Governor, to see the last man, a man so bad as to make the Governor tremble, his decision on pardons was easy. He could not let that obviously evil man influence the more virtuous men so, the Governor said that the only way to protect the ten ‘innocents’ was to pardon the vile confessed criminal and leave the others in the safe confines of the jail.

Exhibitions of hot air balloons were popular in the late 1850s and Lincoln loved to tell this story. There was a hot air balloon show, in the deep south, where many people came to witness the spectacle. The balloonist was dressed in beautiful silk robes, had flowing long hair and a great beard. He intended to rise into the sky, tethered to the ground by a long rope, for the amusement of the patrons. However, as he rose from the earth, waving to those below, a gust of wind snapped the tether and, to the horror of the crowd (and certainly the occupant as well), the balloon and its basket, with the poor aerialist trapped inside, floated away. Some-time later, the balloon began to float down over a large cotton field being worked by several slaves. Of course, none of the slaves had ever seen a balloon descending, or ascending for that matter, and were in awe of the sight. All of them ran from the field in fright except one elderly slave who just watched with sincere interest as the balloon slowly descended and finally landed. The elaborately costumed balloonist with his long hair and beard, and his robes flowing in the wind, stepped out. Reflecting on what he had just seen, the old slave walked up, took off his hat, bowed slightly and said, “Mornin, Massa Jesus. How’s your Pa?”

 He often joked about his own appearance. He said a woman accosted him on the street saying, “Mr. Lincoln, you are so ugly it spoils my walk”. Lincoln, said “I am sorry madam but there is nothing I can do.”  She said, “Yes, there is, you could stay indoors more.”

 Once Lincoln was making the point to Secretary of War Stanton that Union Generals needed to better use their strengths against a deadly enemy, and said: “Mr. Stanton, that reminds me of a story.” As usual, Stanton said he did not want to hear another story, but Lincoln kept on talking anyway, saying: “A farmer was attacked by his neighbor’s dog and he killed the dog with a pitchfork he was carrying. The neighbor demanded to know why the farmer didn’t just hit the dog with the other end of the pitchfork.  The farmer said, ‘Well, I would have, if I had been attacked by the other end of your dog”. 

 Before the Civil war, a contingent of Senators with close ties to the South, urged President Lincoln to simply abandon federal installations located in the southern states. If he did, they believed the Confederate government might be willing to keep some form of alliance with the United States. Lincoln argued that the Southern leaders would not be satisfied, that the Union would be in a weaker position after the forfeitures, and Lincoln said that he could not permit that outcome. He told them, “I am reminded of a story about a farmer whose daughter was receiving the attention a young man. The younger man was always accompanied by a large mean dog, which frightened everyone they encountered. When the young man approached the father to express his romantic interest in the daughter, the farmer told the young man that he would consider the matter but that the dog would scare his daughter and suggested that most of the dog’s sharp teeth be removed and his claws be pulled to lessen the threats. Now the young man was hopelessly enamored and desperate to begin what he hoped would be a brief courtship and early marriage, so he extracted most of the dog’s teeth and filed down others and pulled the nails from the dog’s paw. The young man went back to the farmer and showed the farmer the impaired dog, with few teeth and only soft paws, and said he now expected the father to accept the young man as his new son-in-law. Instead, the farmer, now with no fear of the man’s dog, rose up and told him get off his land and that he would never be a part of his family.” Lincoln then said; “Would it not be so for the Union, if, like the young man, I give in to all that is asked by the South, and can no longer press our case with vigor.” (Lincoln’s case was, by the way, was to preserve the Union and not allow secession to break up the United States.)

 When another delegation suggested that he should just turn away from the Southern states and let them depart, Lincoln replied that, “If you turn your backside to the fire, when it flares up because you are not watching, you will have to sit on the blister.”

 Lincoln also found that humor could diffuse a tense situation. Once, he and his Secretary of State, William Seward, were riding in a carriage when the horse bolted and the wheels of the carriage were pulled over rough ground, violently throwing about the driver and his passengers. The driver eventually regained control but not before screaming an extensive (maybe historic) string of curse words; and Secretary Seward also contributed a few choice epithets during the ordeal. As the men gathered their breath, Lincoln said: “Driver are you an Episcopalian?” The driver, at first startled, replied, “No sir, more of a Methodist, if anything.” Lincoln then said, “Interesting, you swear just like Secretary Seward and he is an Episcopalian.”

 While Lincoln was very cautious about using humor to embarrass someone, he was willing to use both humiliation and sarcasm whenever he found himself dealing with arrogance, disrespect, or callousness toward others; and often his targets were lawyers, Generals, and politicians.

 Rather than say an opposing lawyer was lying, Lincoln said, “My opponent has such a great regard for the truth that he has spent much of his time embellishing it.”

 He once said of a political opponent, “He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I have ever heard.”

 The Postmaster of Washington DC suddenly died and a Congressman ran to Lincoln to inform him. Lincoln knew the Postmaster and was shocked and saddened by the news. Before Lincoln could even reply, the Congressman said, “Mr. Lincoln, I would like to take his place.” A disgusted Lincoln said, “Well, that will be fine with me, if it is alright with the undertaker.”

 Lincoln would also use sarcasm to point out the absurd egos of certain Generals. Of one he said, “The General is the only man I know who can strut sitting down.” As he often did, Lincoln may have “borrowed” that phrase from Secretary of State William Seward, himself a great wit. One of Lincoln’s regular foils was General George McClellan, whose arrogance was legendary, who was notorious for military delays, and who was repeatedly disrespectful to his Commander-in-Chief. Lincoln once commented that if McClellan was not going to use his army, perhaps Lincoln could borrow it for a while. McClellan obviously grew tired of Lincoln’s constant press for details of his “progress” and sent this telegram; “Mr. President, today my army captured two cows. What would you have us do with them?” Lincoln, not willing to waste any more time, immediately responded, “General, milk them!” Lincoln removed McClellan shortly thereafter.

 This was a favorite Lincoln stab at lawyers. “A Congressman who was also a lawyer, and not very good at either, came to me and asked to be given a federal judgeship. Fortunately, I knew of no vacancy at the time so I was able to truthfully tell him that I could not help him, for that reason.  Several days later the Congressman happened upon a scene where a body was pulled from the Washington canal, and saw that it was one of the sitting Federal Judges.  He must have ran directly to me because, while panting heavily, he blurted out his request to fill the new vacancy. I told him he was too late because I had already appointed another lawyer,….the one who first saw the poor judge fall in and immediately ran over here.”

 Lincoln was also keenly aware that successful governance in a Republic required a dialogue between those with opposing views, and usually some compromise was necessary to effect positive change and/or to prevent irreversible breeches. He found humor to be an effective way to advance the conversations, or sometimes even more importantly to keep a dialogue from collapsing, and he was often able to sway the opposition closer to his position. He seemed to have always wanted to leave room for a settlement of any disagreement and tried to not let vicious sarcasm, even when directed at him by others, stand in the way; and he knew that insults and ridicule hurled during political debate would be impediments to future cooperation.

 As an example of his more “gentle” satire, he had this exchange with Stephen A. Douglas during a political debate. Douglas, who was very wealthy, was attempting to illustrate his common roots and said that his father had been a fine woodcraftsman and barrel maker (a prized skill in those days). Lincoln countered that, “I concede that my friend Douglas’s father was indeed a fine barrel maker.” And then, looking over at his opponent’s short and rotund figure, continued, “And here stands one of the finest barrels his father ever made!”  Douglas laughed too.

Lincoln was asked once how he made up so many stories and replied that he didn't, saying; “I'm in retail, I just deliver someone else's work.”  Another asked how he could remember so many tales and he said, “It’s my hard head, it takes some do'in to get a thing in there, but once it's in, it stays in.”  Lincoln was not a prude and some of his stories were ribald, but he would tone down the wording if he needed to assure he did not offend the audience. 

  Lincoln told this story often about keeping a grudge.  Two neighbors had quarreled for years over so many things that probably neither could have remembered the original grudge.  One of the spiteful men, the older one, became very ill and friends and neighbors were told to expect him to not survive the night.  His neighbor rushed over and, with tears in his eyes, said that the two must heal their wounds before the old man passes. The old man, choked up by the forgiving sentiment, reached out his hand and, for the first time in many years they shook hands.  As the younger man turned to leave, the old man rallied a bit and said: “But, if I recover, the old grudge stands!”

 A boy was called to the front by the school master after a terribly wrong answer to a question.  The school master told him to hold out a hand to be struck with a switch.  The boy held out the dirtiest, most foul hand the school master had ever seen.  Holding back on the switch, the school master said: “That is so offensive to sight that I will let you off if you can find me another hand more foul than this one!” The boy grinned and stuck out his other hand.

 Lincoln loved the story of the young man whose parents were wealthy but not ready to share that wealth with the young man so he killed them to gain his inheritance sooner.  Of course, he was only greedy, not clever, so he was soon arrested, tried, and convicted.  Before sentencing, the Judge asked him if he had anything to say.  The man said: “I hope that the court will be lenient with me, for sir, you see I am an orphan.”

 Anthony Bleeker was meeting with Lincoln to request a position for which he was well qualified but he kept going on and on about his experience. Finally, Lincoln interrupted and said: “Stop please, you are like the man who killed his vicious and untrainable dog by hitting it with a club, and after the poor animal was clearly dead, continued to strike and strike again. When asked why, the man said he believed in punishment after death.”  Bleeker caught Lincoln's meaning and said they both laughed.  Bleeker said he would stop if he could tell Lincoln a story of his own.  He said that a priest was working to convert an Indian to Christianity but the message about “love your enemies” was hard to grasp. Finally, the priest said that if the Indian's enemy was hungry you should feed him, if he is thirsty you should give him drink and if you do so, then you will gain his trust.  The Indian thought for a minute and replied: “I will praise your God's plan, for when my enemy is full, he will trust that he is safe, and then I will kill him.”  Bleeker said Lincoln laughed and gave him the appointment.

 One Senator complained to Secretary of State Seward that Lincoln, as always, had immediately interrupted with a story when the Senator wanted to lecture him.  So, the Senator left in a huff without delivering his opinion and went straight to Seward.  The Senator said: “Seward you always say Lincoln's stories have a purpose, but what purpose do his silly stories serve with me?”  Seward replied, “He gets rid of you, doesn't he?”

 Lincoln told about a tough sailor who was caught in a terrific storm and thought he might die, so he fell on his knees and said: “Oh Lord, it's seldom that I bother thee, but I would like to not die today and, if I live, you and me both know I won't be bothering you again for some time.”

 Lincoln was travelling the court circuit on a cold winter evening, staying in the same hotel with other lawyers. He entered the drawing room where several lawyers were gathered around a fireplace. “Colder than hell.” said Lincoln. Expecting a good story one of the men said, “Abe, you ever been to hell.?” Abe replied, “Sure have, it’s a lot like here, all the lawyers are closest to the fire.”

 Steven A. Douglas was once travelling with Lincoln and other lawyers on the circuit and a group was having dinner together. Abe took out a watch and said, “Fellows, look at this grand watch I just purchased, it cost $20.00.” Steven Douglas laughed and said, “Nice watch Abe, but look at this fine timepiece which cost me $40.00.” The lawyers all laughed, including Abe at Douglas’s one-upmanship. That evening a thief broke into Abe’s room and stole, among other things, his new $20.00 watch. The next morning Abe placed the following add in the local paper: “To the thief who stole my $20.00 watch last night. If you will return it to me, I will tell you where you can steal one worth twice as much.”

 And finally, and most appropriate: Two ladies, who knew both Jefferson Davis and Lincoln, were discussing religion’s influence on the two men and the outcome of the war.  One said, “Mr. Davis will prevail because he is a praying man.” The other said, “But you know Mr. Lincoln is a praying man too.” Then the first replied, “Yes, dear, but the Lord will think Abe is joking.”