Welcome to From Insults to Respect.

About nine years ago I began this blog, and one of the first sets of words that I wrote were:

We have all experienced name calling, insults and teasing, even the greatest presidents, the most talented athletes, and every member of your favorite band.  If someone insults you, calls you names, or teases you, it does NOT mean that you are a bad person.

Although being treated disrespectfully does not mean that you are a bad person, skillful handling of these types of situations can have an enormous influence on how much you are liked and respected by others, and how you regard yourself as a person. 

Since then, I have published quite a few posts that offered suggestions for handling this sometimes difficult type of situation (for example see HERE, HERE, and HERE). Now, as I was wondering what to write about for this week’s post, I noticed C-SPAN had just announced the results of its latest survey that had historians and other professional observers of the presidency rate U.S. presidents. Abraham Lincoln, consistent with many previous surveys over the years, came out on top. And it just so happens that I have been reading of late, Carl Sandburg’s biography of Lincoln. In its many pages, we find regularly Lincoln dealing with people throwing insults at him. So, I thought I would take this opportunity to share with you how this highly respected person dealt with them.

Examples of Lincoln Dealing with Insults

Stanton’s Insults

Edwin M. Stanton served as Secretary of War during the Civil War, and in the early part of his tenure in that position he regularly threw insults at President Lincoln. At one point, for example, according to Sandburg’s Lincoln biography, Stanton angrily called his boss behind his back the original gorilla. When told about this by someone who was furious that Lincoln would let one of his subordinates insult him, Lincoln replied, “Now, now, Stanton is entitled to his opinion.” Then, with a twinkle in his eyes, Lincoln went on to say, “What concerns me is that I have found that when Stanton says something, he is usually right,” and with that, Lincoln brought forth a delightful smile.

A similar occasion occurred at another point, according to The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History records,

A committee of Western men, headed by [Congressman Owen] Lovejoy, procured from the President an important order looking to the exchange of Eastern and Western soldiers with a view to more effective work. Repairing to the office of Secretary Stanton, Mr. Lovejoy explained the scheme, as he had done before to the President, but was met by a flat refusal.

“But we have the President’s order sir,” said Lovejoy.

“Did Lincoln give you an order of that kind?” said Stanton.

“He did, sir.”

“Then he is a d—d fool,” said the irate Secretary.

“Do you mean to say the President is a d—d fool?” asked Lovejoy, in amazement.

“Yes, sir, if he gave you such an order as that.”

The bewildered Congressman from Illinois betook himself at once to the President, and related the result of his conference.

“Did Stanton say I was a d–d fool?” asked Lincoln at the close of the recital.

“He did, sir; and repeated it.”

After a moment’s pause, and looking up, the President said: “If Stanton said I was a d–d fool, then I must be one, for he is nearly always right, and generally says what he means. I will step over and see him.”

Now, you may be starting to get the impression that Lincoln would let Stanton bully him, but that appears to not be the case, as we can see from the following example, also from The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History:

General James Fry, a War Department official who had frequent opportunity to observe the relations between the two men, noted such anecdotes were “interpreted as meaning that Lincoln could not control Stanton. The inference is erroneous. Lincoln, so far as I could discover, was in every respect the actual head of the administration, and whenever he chose to do so, he controlled Stanton as well as all the other Cabinet ministers.” Fry related a conflict between President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton which concluded with the following dialogue in Stanton’s office. Stanton said: “Now Mr. President, those are the facts, and you must see that your order cannot be executed.” The President cordially replied: “Mr. Secretary, I reckon you’ll have to execute the order.” Stanton objected: “Mr. President, I cannot do it. The order is an improper one, and I cannot execute it.” The President stared down the shorter Stanton and firmly issued an order: “Mr. Secretary, it will have to be done.” And indeed it was.

We get a little glimpse of Lincoln’s perspective of how he thought it best to handle Stanton when he got angry and began to throw out insults, from the following:

Henry Dawes dropped in on the President after the appointment was announced to congratulate him on getting such a man as Stanton for his Cabinet, in the next breath making some remark that led Lincoln to say, yes, there were those who had warned him that the new Secretary of War would run away with the whole concern. “We may have to treat him as they are sometimes obliged to treat a Methodist minister I know of out West. He gets wrought to so high a pitch of excitement in his prayers and exhortations that they are obliged to put bricks in his pockets to keep him down. We may be obliged to serve Stanton in the same way, but I guess we’ll let him jump a while first.”

As Lincoln got more and more familiar with Secretary Stanton’s intense, irritable nature, he made allowances for it because he knew how the excitement of the time tried men’s tempers and shattered their nerves. And yet, there were times Lincoln could not just ignore how Stanton was reacting to someone. On one occasion, Stanton was particularly angry with one of the generals.

“I would like to tell him what I think of him!” he stormed.

“Why don’t you?” Mr. Lincoln agreed. “Write it all down – do.”

Mr. Stanton wrote his letter. When it was finished he took it to the President. The President listened to it all.

“All right. Capital!’ Lincoln nodded. “And now, Stanton, what are you going to do with it?”

“Do with it? Why, send it, of course!”

“I wouldn’t,” said the President. “Throw it in the waste-paper basket.”

“But it took me two days to write —”

“Yes, yes, and it did you ever so much good. You feel better now. That is all that is necessary. Just throw it in the basket.”

After a little more expostulation, into the basket it went.

Perhaps Lincoln, when he himself got worked up either because someone threw some insult at him, or for any other reason, also wrote letters of this sort to help him work out his feelings.

Insults By Others

Stanton was, by no means, the only one to insult Lincoln. At one point, the president was confronted by a hail of insults for supporting U.S. Grant. The chief objection to the general was that he was thought to be intemperate with whiskey. Lincoln replied, “If I knew what brand of whiskey he drinks I would send a barrel or so to some of the other generals,” and then he leaned back in his chair and had a laugh.

In an excellent article in the journal, The Atlantic, titled “‘Idiot,’ ‘Yahoo,’ ‘Original Gorilla’: How Lincoln Was Dissed in His Day, we learn that Lincoln’s writing, so admired today, led to many an insult directed at him. Thus, the article reports:

No American president has uttered more immortal words than he did. We are moved by the power and lyricism of his speeches a century and a half later—not just by their hard, clear reasoning, but by their beauty. It is hard to imagine anyone hearing without admiration, for instance, this sublime passage from the first inaugural address:

I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Yet this speech was characterized by an editorial writer in the Jersey City American Standard as “involved, coarse, colloquial, devoid of ease and grace, and bristling with obscurities and outrages against the simplest rules of syntax.”

Later in this section of The Atlantic article we learn:

As for the Gettysburg Address—one of the most powerful speeches in human history, one that many American schoolchildren can recite by heart (Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth …) and a statement of national purpose that for some rivals the Declaration of Independence—a Pennsylvania newspaper reported, “We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them, and they shall be no more repeated or thought of.” A London Times correspondent wrote, “Anything more dull and commonplace it wouldn’t be easy to produce.”

These insulting remarks were, at times, met with a humorist quip. For example, Stephen Douglas called him two faced during a debate and Lincoln responded “If I had another face, do you think I would wear this one?” At other times, he would respond to the flood of nay-saying with a weary wave of his hand and say, “Let us speak no more of these things.”

Conclusion

I think Alexander Hamilton Stephens, who had served as the Vice President of the Confederacy, well expressed what many who had an opportunity to get to know Lincoln came to feel about him. Thus, in a speech several years after the war, Stephens recalled getting to know Lincoln when they both served together in the House of Representatives prior to the war. “He was warm hearted; he was generous; he was magnanimous, ‘with malice toward none, with charity for all.'”

As Stanton declared at Lincoln’s death bed, with tears in his eyes, “He was one for the ages.”

All of that being said, it is my hope these Lincoln stories might inspire you when you find yourself confronted with insults. With Lincoln as an example, perhaps you might find yourself coming up with a few jests that can be employed as insults come your way, just to lighten things up a bit. And perhaps you might find yourself considering the wisdom of looking to see if there is any merit imbedded in any nasty phrased comment, kind of like what Lincoln did when he declared that he better step over to discuss the matter with Stanton after Stanton had thrown an insult at him.

Let me add, now, some personal advice. If you find, as a result of a nasty remark, that you need to spend a little time experiencing waves of distress in the pit of your stomach, take all the time that you need. Meanwhile, consider writing about what you might wish to say to the insulter. And by all means, avoid falling into the trap that an insult can define you as bad.

In closing today’s post, I shall leave you with some words by Rudyard Kipling that appears as part of his poem titled “If.” They seem to me to capture some of the essential character of Abraham Lincoln:

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise,

….

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!