The Face Of Lincoln (1954)

[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] The life of Abraham Lincoln has inspired the world. You've heard the ministers talk of his Christlike deeds, the lawyers of his legal ability. I would like to speak to you as a sculptor knows Lincoln. We know what Lincoln looked like. We have this life mask taken by Leonard Bolt, the Chicago sculptor, about 30 days before Lincoln's nomination for the presidency. This gives us the exact proportion of Lincoln's features. It is difficult face for the artist because it is based on two curves. It not only curves from the crown of the head through the forehead and back into the chin, but it also curves off to the right hand side about 38ighs of an inch. That makes the two sides very different. On this left side, it's stretched, giving it that firm, shrewd look that we associate with Lincoln's legal ability. While this side, the relaxed muscle produced the protruding lower lip, the droop in the corner of the mouth. This is the gentler side of Lincoln, the humanitarian and the philosopher. While we study the face of Lincoln, we would like to begin with this egg-shaped mask because most human heads are eggshaped. And while this, you've watched this head develop, let us run over the events of Lincoln's life that changed this face. He'd come into Illinois with his family as a boy, 19. He had helped them get relocated. He had cut the rails for the fences. He had cleared the land. He was now 21 and ready to go out in the world on his own. This opportunity came when a man by the name of Or happened by and seeing the boys working in the wood lot asked them to go down the Mississippi on a flatbo taking a produce from that end of the country. The boys met Mr. Orett near Springfield as by appointment, but they found no flatbo. It was in the tree stage. Mr. Orett offered the boys $12 a month each to go out into the timber, cut the trees, bring them in, helping the construction of the boat. A month later, they were on their way down the Sangamong River towards the Mississippi. The trip down the Mississippi made a lasting impression on the young Lincoln. While there, the boy stayed in a boarding house directly across the street from the slave market. Now, Lincoln had heard slavery argued up and down all of his life, but he had never seen it in its worst form of men and women being sold like cattle. He is supposed to have said, "If I have a chance, I'll hit that thing hard." Little did this boy dream that he was a future emancipator. The boys worked their passage back by stoking the boiler of a steamboat. It was a wood burning craft. When they ran out of fuel, they tied the boat to the bank, went up into the woods, cut more timber, brought it down, and then chugged on for a few more miles. Getting off the boat at the port of St. Lewis. The boys walked the hundred miles back to the little village of New Salem where Lincoln had been promised a job as a clerk in the store which Mr. Orford intended to open there. Lincoln was disappointed on arriving in New Salem to find a store also in the tree stage. He helped cut the timber, construct the two room log cabin. The store was in the front room, Lincoln's living quarters, and the back room. Lincoln had hardly gotten started at his merchandising career until the Blackhawk War broke out. The governor called for all able-bodied men between the age of 18 and 45 to report duty. Lincoln was with that group of boys who gathered in a cut over field near Beardstown to organize and to elect temporary officers until they would be taken into federal service. You'd think that they were getting ready for a baseball game rather than a war. Lincoln and a much older man nominated for captain sent to the opposite ends of the field. At the drop of the hat, the rest of the company ran towards the man that they under whom they wished to serve. Threearters of the company gathered around Lincoln. This was his first election and it gave him more real satisfaction than any election he ever won. So he told friends later. Lincoln always referred to the Blackhawk War as a three months camping trip. He said he saw no bloodthirsty Indians, but he saw many bloodthirsty mosquitoes. He is credited with having saved the life of an old Indian who came into their camp by standing off the mob of militia boys who were all for lynching him. Returning to New Salem after the three months experience as a soldier, he became a store owner. He and Mr. Barry formed a partnership and bought not only one store, but the contents of two others which were folding up. There's no cash involved. It was only paid for in $1,100 of promisary notes. Lincoln as postmaster had access to all the periodicals that came in. He read the weekly gazette before he handed it over to the address seat. No one minded. He also developed a habit of carrying things in his hat. When he saw the party to whom they addressed, he doed his hat and handed them their letter. This habit followed him throughout his life, carrying things in his hat. The Lincolnberry Berry Store winked out as Lincoln called it. Lincoln was too interested in the books he was studying, law and the classics. They say Mr. Barry was too interested in the liquid stock. So pretty soon the Lincoln Berry store had closed. Mr. Barry obscounded, leaving Lincoln with the entire $1,100 in debt, which Lincoln called the national debt. 15 years later, he paid off for the last of the full indebtedness with interest. After the Black Hawk War, Lincoln had run for the office of representative state legislature. He lost that election, but he received all of the votes except three in the area in which he electioned. So now, two years later, he tried again and this time he won. In spite of the indebtedness for the store, Lincoln had no difficulty in borrowing $200 to get fitted out for the job in the state legislature in Vandelia. He always had good friends who had confidence in him. There was a distinguished group of men in that state legislature. Among them was Steven A. Douglas, the little giant as he was called by his admirers. This man was to be Lincoln's rival throughout his career, right up to the very door of the White House. Here, Lincoln learned his first lessons in practical politics. He was reelected and served a second term. We should stop here and talk of the women in Lincoln's life. We know that he fell in love with Anne Rutled, that she passed on very suddenly. It was a grievous bow to this boy of 23. He had what we would call a nervous breakdown. But his good friends, the Bowling Greens, took him out to their farm for the summer where he had time to make his emotional adjustment and was ready to take up his work in the fall and go back to the state legislature. Yes, he had ears. If any feature of Lincoln is too large, it's his ears. But we're seldom worried about the size of Lincoln's ears. He also had hair. It was coarse black hair and a lot of it was usually in a disheveled condition because he had a habit of running his fingers through it before he made one of his famous jokes. Now there came to Springfield a young lady by the name of Mary Todd. She was a southern bell. She came to visit her social elite relatives the Edwards. She was much sought after by all the swain of the countryside including Lincoln. They were engaged and some of the friends kided her about Abe Lincoln. She said that she was going to marry a future president. It was womanly intuition that told her that this man who still had something to the smell of the soil about him was a future president. They were engaged and 18 months later were married. They went to the Old Globe Tavern to begin their married life where they paid $4 a week for room and board. Now we assume that must have been very good room and board because Mrs. Lincoln was used to the best and she was a very fast hideous person. About this time we have Lincoln elected to the National Congress as representative on the wig ticket. He serves his two years. He learns his first lesson in national politics, then returns to Springfield to begin the longest period of law practice uninterrupted by politics in his entire career. He not only practices in his office in Springfield, but he rides the circuit, as they call it, throughout the center part of the state. He is retained by local lawyers because of his ability to handle juries. is considered the finest trial lawyer in the state. He is also becoming an important corporation lawyer and he's argued more cases before the Illinois Supreme Court than any other man of his period. Lincoln is drawn back into politics. For the second time, he is pitted against his old rival Stephen A. Douglas for a seat in the United States Senate. They arranged the Lincoln Douglas debates because Douglas is advocating the extension of slavery into the territories of Kansas, Nebraska. Lincoln won the popular majority, but Douglas won the seat because the election really took place in the state legislature. The Lincoln Douglas debates brought Lincoln national reputation. Who was this backwoods lawyer who had argued so brilliantly against the extension of slavery? He was invited east to lecture and he was invited to the west. The following June he is nominated for the presidency and the following fall he is elected. Eight states went out of the union when they heard that Abe Lincoln of Illinois was president. He usually wore neck ties. They were never straight. They were always crooked. During the four months as president-elect, we see a marked change in Lincoln's face. He begins to grow the Lincoln beard. We do not know why he adopted this style, but there is interesting correspondence on the subject. In the pile of mail coming into the president-elect, he saw one morning one envelope in childish handwriting. It was from a little girl by the name of Grace Bedell. She said she had seen his picture on the campaign posters and thought he'd be a great deal better looking if he wore some whiskers. He asked if he would have his little daughter answer it if he was too busy. He was so delighted with this childish frankness that he said he would answer it himself. He wrote to Grace saying that he was sorry that he didn't have a little daughter to answer her kind letter, but he had three fine boys. and conclusion. As for the whiskers, do you not think that my friends might consider them a silly affectation if I began wearing them now since I've never worn them before? When that presidential special went through the little town of Westfield, New York, after making usual remarks from the rear platform of the train, Lincoln said, "I have a little correspondent in this town. I wonder if she's present." Grace Bedell was handed up to him. He took her in his big arms and kissed her. said, "See, Grace, and let the whiskers grow for you." Grace, wriggled out of his arms as quickly as she could, ran home to tell her mother what had happened. She looked down at her hand, and there were the stems of flower that she had expected to give to the president. It was a very bewhered gentleman that arrived in Washington early in February. The Confederacy had been formed. The country was disintegrated. In his inaugural address, Lincoln had appealed for brotherly consideration of their mutual problems. It was answered six weeks later when the guns fired on Fort Sumpter. [Music] Now, what would this gorilla from Illinois do? That's what his own cabinet minister called him. He called for the 75,000 volunteers. The war was on. And now we see the history of the Civil War etched deeply into this face. Many blamed him for keeping the war going. Others blamed him for not making it go fast enough. Criticism of him was electronic. How can that man stand in the White House and crack jokes while the country is bleeding to death? They cared. Lincoln said, "What a strange fate it is for me. A man who never had the nerve to even kill a chicken, standing here, figuratively, surrounded with blood." The lines grow deeper. Three long years, one general follows another. as one disaster follows another disaster for the northern armies. Then finally out of the west came that dogged scrapper Ulisses Srant. He brought pressure all along the line. Lee, the brilliant Lee, could no longer shift his dwindling reserves from one front to meet the Yankees on the next front. Deeper grow the lines in this face, more hollow the cheeks. And then about this time, we have a marked change in his appearance. He changes his part to the right side. I don't suppose he did it just this way. But we have three profile pictures by Brady that show it parted from his right side over to the left. His hair is receding on his head. He has lost 20 pounds in his last six months of his spare 167. His beard is growing thinner, too. Grant fought on month after month till Appamatics. The good news finally came. Lee had surrendered. The North was delirious with joy. Crowds trooped onto the White House grounds and demanded a speech. Lincoln came out reluctantly. He said he was not prepared to give them a speech. He thought all honor was due those brave officers and men who had had the harder part. Then turning to the band master, he said, "We have a new tune. One might say by the right of capture. One of the best tunes ever heard. Will a band please play Dixie? During the week of celebration, Mrs. Lincoln arranged a theater party. It was a tired old man that sat in the box that night at Ford Theater. His friends were worried about him. You know the rest of the story. You know how the assassin's bullet forever turned this face from us. But the spirit of Abraham Lincoln lives on. Wherever there's a struggle for human freedom, his deeds are remembered. His words are quoted. Let us be as determined as he was that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth. [Music]