Lincoln's career as a Congressman,1847-1849,was just what might have been expected--his career in the Illinois Legislature on a larger scale.It was a pleasant,companionable,unfruitful episode,with no political significance.The leaders of the party did not take him seriously as a possible initiate to their ranks.His course was that of a loyal member of the Whig mass.In the party strategy,during the debates over the Mexican War and the Wilmot Proviso,he did his full party duty,voting just as the others did.Only once did he attempt anything original--a bill to emancipate the slaves of the District,which was little more than a restatement of his protest of ten years before--and on this point Congress was as indifferent as the Legislature had been.The bill was denied a hearing and never came to a vote before the House.[1]
And yet Lincoln did not fail entirely to make an impression at Washington.And again it was the Springfield experience repeated.His companionableness was recognized,his modesty,his good nature;above all,his story-telling.Men liked him.
Plainly it was his humor,his droll ways,that won them;together with instant recognition of his sterling integrity.
"During the Christmas holidays,"says Ben Perley Poore,"Mr.
Lincoln found his way into the small room used as the Post Office of the House,where a few genial reconteurs used to meet almost every morning after the mail had been distributed into the members'boxes,to exchange such new stories as any of them might have acquired since they had last met.After modestly standing at the door for several days,Mr.Lincoln was reminded of a story,and by New Year's he was recognized as the champion story-teller of the Capital.His favorite seat was at the left of the open fireplace,tilted back in his chair with his long legs reaching over to the chimney jamb."[2]
In the words of another contemporary,"Congressman Lincoln was very fond of howling and would frequently...meet other members in a match game at the alley of James Casparus....He was an awkward bowler,but played the game with great zest and spirit solely for exercise and amusement,and greatly to the enjoyment and entertainment of the other players,and by reason of his criticisms and funny illustrations....
When it was known that he was in the alley,there would assemble numbers of people to witness the fun which was anticipated by those who knew of his fund of anecdotes and jokes.When in the alley,surrounded by a crowd of eager listeners,he indulged with great freedom in the sport of narrative,some of which were very broad."[3]
Once,at least,he entertained Congress with an exhibition of his humor,and this,oddly enough,is almost the only display of it that has come down to us,first hand.Lincoln's humor has become a tradition.Like everything else in his outward life,it changed gradually with his slow devious evolution from the story-teller of Pigeon Creek to the author of the Gettysburg Oration.It is known chiefly through translation.
The "Lincoln Stories"are stories someone else has told who may or may not have heard them told by Lincoln.They are like all translations,they express the translator not the original--final evidence that Lincoln's appeal as a humorist was in his manner,his method,not in his substance."His laugh was striking.Such awkward gestures belonged to no other man.
They attracted universal attention from the old sedate down to the schoolboy."[4]He was a famous mimic.
Lincoln is himself the authority that he did not invent his stories.He picked them up wherever he found them,and clothed them with the peculiar drollery of his telling.He was a wag rather than a wit.All that lives in the second-hand repetitions of his stories is the mere core,the original appropriated thing from which the inimitable decoration has fallen off.That is why the collections of his stories are such dreary reading,--like Carey's Dante,or Bryant's Homer.
And strange to say,there is no humor in his letters.This man who was famous as a wag writes to his friends almost always in perfect seriousness,often sadly.The bit of humor that has been preserved in his one comic speech in Congress,--a burlesque of the Democratic candidate of 1848,Lewis Cass,--shorn as it is of his manner,his tricks of speech and gesture,is hardly worth repeating.[5]