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For most of the authorities cited herein I am beholden to the Claude Meeker Collection of Ohioana in the Library of the Society. It contains the most comprehensive collection of Civil War literature pertaining to Ohio in this country; it has been to me a fountain of knowledge, from which I have drawn freely.

Columbus, Ohio,

DANIEL J. RYAN.

January 18, 1923.

SOCIETY

REVIEWS, NOTES AND COMMENTS

BY THE EDITOR

REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

DR. GEORGE T. HARDING

Dr. George T. Harding, who is a Civil War veteran, recently recalled a pleasant visit to Abraham Lincoln. At the conclusion of his war service he and a few of his comrades called at the White House. A colored attendant told them that the President was very busy but that if they would wait awhile they would have an opportunity to see him. In about an hour they were ushered into his presence. They made known that they had simply come to pay their respects and to be able to say when they returned home that they had seen President Lincoln.

"We are boys from the Buckeye State," said Doctor Harding to the President.

"Well," said Lincoln, "I am very glad to meet you. The Buckeye State has been loyal to me and I certainly appreciate it."

He thereupon heartily shook hands with each of the soldiers. Doctor Harding recalls most distinctly the large hands of Abraham Lincoln and his hearty greeting. The President took the right hand of each of them

in turn between his two hands in greeting them. He said that it was one of his busy days and cordially asked them to come again. As they were leaving he said with a smile:

"And now you can tell your people at home that you have seen the handsomest man in the United States." Little did Private George T. Harding dream that in the distant future he would see his own son in the White House, an honored successor of President Abraham Lincoln.

EDWARD C. MCMULLAN

Mr. Edward C. McMullan, a veteran of the Civil War and former resident of Springfield, Illinois, remembers Lincoln and the Lincoln family as he saw them frequently in his earlier years. The Columbus Citizen publishes an interesting interview with Mr. McMullan from which the following extracts are taken:

In the heart of Edward C. McMullan, 49 Hubbard Ave., Civil War veteran, an attendant at the Ohio State Archæological Museum, Ohio State University, there is cemented a feeling of love and intimate affection for Lincoln, whom he knew when he (McMullan) was but a youngster at Springfield, Illinois, and boyhood chum of Robert Lincoln, son of the "Emancipator."

"I remember him quite well," mused the old soldier, Monday, when he was asked about those early days back in Springfield. "The President was always very kind to us boys and to everybody, for that matter. I used to see him two or three times every day. While playing with 'Bob' we used to romp in and out of Lincoln's office, and though he was often very busy and faced with many tribulations, he never spoke harshly to us, nor did I ever hear him utter a complaint."

McMullan, who is seventy-eight years of age and for the past few months has been confined at his home by illness, straightened his shoulders and his face beamed as he described the shabby, poorly furnished office of Lincoln in which he was officially notified of his nomination to the presidency.

"I can see that office as plainly as though I were standing in it right now," said McMullan, smiling. "It was very poorly fur

nished, containing only a rickety table, a broken chair and a dusty bookcase. There was of course no carpet. Then there was an old red plush lounge which would now hardly be considered good enough for kindling wood. That law office was certainly a contrast to the mahogany furnished law offices of the present day."

When Lincoln was elected president, that companionship between Robert Lincoln and McMullan and the latter's intimacy with the Lincoln family naturally ended, because the Lincolns "moved away over east to Washington," said McMullan with a smile.

When 17 years of age, McMullan joined Company B, 32nd Ohio Regiment, and participated in 29 battles, including the famous siege of Vicksburg. He was captured and confined in Andersonville Prison for 11 months. He was finally paroled and before his parole period expired the war ended.

"I do not have to be told that Lincoln was one of the best friends this Nation and its citizens ever had," said McMullan. "I know it and so do my two brothers who were members of the Confederate Army. I often heard them say that Lincoln. was the best friend the South ever had and we, of the North, know quite well that he was one of the best we ever had."

LINCOLN ON LABOR

IN SPEECH AT CINCINNATI, 1859

By reference to page 95, it will be seen that a part of Abraham Lincoln's speech at Cincinnati in 1859 was omitted from the report. His speech is generally, almost invariably, published with this omission. In the Life of Abraham Lincoln by W. D. Howells, published in Columbus in 1860, the Cincinnati speech is included with this prefatory note:

The following speech is here reproduced, with the insertion of Mr. Lincoln's view upon labor and the ability of the laborer to become an employer. These were omitted in the first report, and the passages are supplied by the reporter for the present work.

The supplied portion relating to labor is as follows:

Upon what principle shall it be said the planting of a new territory by the first thousand people that migrate to it, is a matter concerning them exclusively? What kind of logic is it that argues that it in no wise concerns, if you please, the black men who are to be enslaved? Or if you are afraid to say anything about that; if you have been bedeviled for your sympathy for the negro; if noses have been turned up at you; and if you have been accused of having wanted the negro as your social equal, for a juror, to be a witness against your white brethren, or even to marry with him; if you have been accused of all this, until you are afraid to speak of the colored race; then, I ask you, what right is there to say that the planting of free soil with slavery has no effect upon the white men that are to go there afterward as emigrants from the older states? By what right do a few of the first settlers fix that first condition beyond the power of succeeding millions to eradicate it? Why shall a few men be allowed, as it were, to sow that virgin soil with Canada thistles, or any other pest of the soil, which the farmer, in subsequent ages, cannot eradicate without endless toil? Is it a matter that exclusively concerns those few people that settle there first?

Douglas argues that it is a matter of exclusive local jurisdiction. What enables him to say that? It is because he looks upon slavery as so insignificant that the people may decide that question for themselves, albeit they are not fit to decide who shall be their governor, judge, or secretary, or who have been any of their officers. These are vast national matters, in his estimation; but the little matter, in his estimation, is the planting of slavery there. That is of purely local interest, which nobody should be allowed to say a word about. It is a great national question that Sam. Medary shall be appointed by the President as Governor of Kansas, that he may go there for a year or two, and come away without there being left behind him a sign for good or evil of his having been there; but the question of planting slavery on that soil is a little, local, unimportant matter, that nobody ought to be allowed to speak of. Such an expression is absolutely shameful.

Labor is the great source from which nearly all, if not all, human comforts and necessaries are drawn. There is a difference of opinion about the elements of labor in a society. Some men assume that there is a necessary connection between capital and labor, and that connection draws within it all of the labor of the community. They assume that nobody works unless capital excites him to work. They begin next to consider what is the best way for capital to be used to induce people to work.

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