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LINCOLNIANA

OR THE HUMORS OF UNCLE ABE

By ANDREW ADDERUP

1864

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Preface

Is Joe Miller "complete?" I doubt it, maugre the pretenses of
title-pages. An old joke is sometimes like a piece of painted glass in
a kaleidoscope--every turn gives it a new aspect, and the new view is
sometimes taken for the original phase. Perhaps this is true of some
herein, although I am unconscious of that being so. If the accusation be
made, try Uncle Abe first, for he is used to trials. As for me, I shall
plead my privilege of telling you "the tale as it was told to me." But
if these "little jokes" be not "sworn upon" for Miller, they shall stand
for Uncle Abe--the writer hereof claiming only a godfathership. And
others shall follow as fast as I glean them. To aid this purpose, let
everybody who has a "good thing" send it to the publisher of this, and
duly it will appear in the "complete" edition of Uncle Abe's jokes,
always excepting the last, for the act of dying over will remind him of
some little story with a _hic jacet_ moral.

ANDREW ADDERUP.

Springfield, Ill., April 1, 1864.




LINCOLNIANA; OR, THE HUMORS OF UNCLE ABE,



An Involuntary Black Republican.

Sometime after Mr. Lincoln's well remembered passage of the rebel
Rubicon at Baltimore, some radical Republicans, who thought they saw
some signs of the President's backwardness in vindicating the Chicago
platform, went in committee to the White House to beg him to carry out
his principles--or rather to stretch them in Queen Dido's style.

"I don't know about it, gentlemen," replied Uncle Abe; "with a pretty
strong opposition at home and a rebellion at the South, we'd best push
republicanism rather slow. Fact is, I'm worse off than old blind Jack
Loudermill was when he got married on a short courtship. Some one asked
him a few days after, how he liked his new position. 'Dunno,' said he;
'I went it blind to start with, and ain't had a chance to feel my way to
a conclusion yet.' So it is with me. Perhaps you can see further than I
can, to me the future is dark and lowering; and we have now got to feel
every step of our way forward. Making Republicans used to be hard work,
and I don't see as I could do much at it now, unless I proselyte by
giving fat offices to weak-kneed opponents; but that," continued
Uncle Abe, with a sly look toward several of his old Illinois friends,
"would'nt be quite fair to those who believe that 'to the victors belong
the spoils.' Your idea about pushing things reminds me of the first
_black_ Republican I ever made."

And the President threw his left leg over his right and subsided into
that air of _abandon_ which denotes his pregnancy of a good story.

"You see, gentlemen," he began, "in my boyhood days, I had a slim chance
for schooling, and did'nt improve what I did have. Occasionally a Yankee
would wander into Kentuck, and open a school in the log building that
was a church and school house as well, and keep it till he got starved
out or heard of a better location. One Fall a bald headed, sour-visaged
old man came along and opened the school, and my people concluded I must
go; as usual the big boys soon began to test the master, who, though he
was a patient Jeffersonian Republican, seemed very tyrannical to us. My
good nature singled me out soon, as the scapegoat of the school, and I
got more than my share of the birch: at least, my back was as good as an
almanac, for every day of the week was recorded there. But, though this
record of past time was no pastime to me, I could stand it better than I
could the taunts and jibes of the boys out of school.

"One morning when a half dozen of us were warming before the broad
logwood fire, I noted a big fellow (who had got me flogged the day
before) standing on the side opposite, his back to the blaze: both hands
were partially open, one laid in the other; some would lay it to the
devil, but it was only the spirit of revenge which prompted me to pick
up a live coal, covered with ashes, and drop it into his hands. For a
moment he did'nt mind it, but it burned all the deeper; when it did burn
he jumped and bellowed like a stuck calf.

"'Who made that noise?' Demanded old Whitey? the master.

"'I made it,' replied the big fellow, rubbing his hands.

"'Why?'