Lincoln’s Manners

Writing a book about Abraham Lincoln has brought one thing home to me: You can’t learn about Lincoln without learning a lot from Lincoln. However you may disagree with his political philosophy, or disapprove of his actions as president, he had some admirable qualities, supported by deep human wisdom.

Lincoln was a genius of tact. So much so, in fact, that Dale Carnegie cited him as an exemplar of human relations in such self-help bestsellers as How to Win Friends and Influence People. Lincoln could tell hard truths gently; he could criticize without blaming or wounding.

Not that this came easily to him. His power with words, his humor, and his delight in scoring points off opponents caused him trouble as a young man. Once he nearly had to fight a duel with a public official he had satirized in a newspaper; he was so mortified by the incident that he hated to be reminded of it for the rest of his life. Another time he ridiculed an opponent in the Illinois legislature so mercilessly that he brought down the house, but the man himself was reduced to tears. When Lincoln realized how deeply he had hurt the man, he rushed to apologize to him. After these experiences he learned to control his sharp tongue.

In 1842, when he was 33, Lincoln addressed a temperance society in Springfield, Illinois, and delivered a beautiful explanation of his philosophy of tact. He knew very well the evils of drunkenness, but he stressed the necessity of converting the drunkard gently, “in the accents of entreaty and persuasion, diffidently addressed by erring man to an erring brother,” rather than “in the thundering tones of anathema and denunciation.” “Human nature,” he reminded his audience, “is God’s decree, and can never be reversed.” It had to be dealt with as it was, with patience and tolerance.

He went on: “When the conduct of men is ... to be influenced, persuasion — kind, unassuming persuasion — should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim, that ‘a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.’ So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great high road to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause....

“[But if] on the contrary, [you] assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised ... he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart; and though your cause be naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel, and sharper than steel can be made, and though you throw it with more than Herculean force and precision, you shall no more be able to pierce him, than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw.

“Such is man, and so must he be understood by those who would lead him, even to his own best interest.”

This was one of the great secrets of Lincoln’s leadership. Another, closely related to it, was his hatred of recrimination. He once praised President Zachary Taylor for his magnanimity in appointing a bitter personal enemy to office, simply because Taylor believed he was the best man for the job. Lincoln, as president, would follow this example, putting up with members of his own cabinet who he knew were backbiting and belittling him; he kept them on for the good of the country, as he saw it.

He once counseled a quarrelsome young army officer: “No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention.” He saw hard feelings not only as wrong, but as a needless complication of practical affairs. As the Civil War raged, he said: “I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.”

Lincoln never forgot the man he’d nearly fought a duel with. During the Civil War he appointed him a brigadier general.

Joseph Sobran