The Quakerism of Abraham Lincoln

QUAKERISM OF LINCOLN63 THE QUAKERISM OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN * By George B. Johnson What humble hands unbar the gates of morn Through which the glories of the new day burst. ABRAHAM LINCOLN was one of the forty million descendants of Friends in the United States. The survival " in him of the best qualities of the religion of that Society, notwithstanding the disownment of his grandfather for marrying a Congregationalist, is thoroughly demonstrated by every act of his public and private life and is beautifully expressed in his letter2 to Eliza P. Gurney, which was reproduced in his own handwriting as part of the program for the summer meeting of the Friends' Historical Association at West Chester, Pennsylvania , on May 20, 1939, and appears as the frontispiece of this Bulletin. This letter was rediscovered in the possession of Deborah Howell Brinton, of West Chester, a cousin of Harriet Howell, who was a niece of Eliza P. Gurney. She graciously granted leave to have that letter printed for the Association and its friends. Chester County was the appropriate place to give to the world this glimpse of the spiritual origin of the religious beliefs of its most distinguished grandson, who has been recognized by Edward Channing in his History of the United States as one of the half dozen greatest men of all human history. This tribute follows his account of Lincoln's emancipation proclamation in 1863, declaring the slaves of those in rebellion against the United States forever free. Anyone who will read Lincoln's letter of September 4, 1864, with attention to his reference to the visits of Friends from Pennsylvania and elsewhere, therein referred to, and with knowledge of the details of that great event in human progress, will recognize the influence of Lincoln's Friendly principles. Mordicai Lincoln, the greatgrandfather of Abraham Lincoln, was a member of Exeter Monthly Meeting of Friends and is buried in the Friends' ceme1 A paper read at the summer meeting of Friends' Historical Association held in the High Street Friends' Meeting House at West Chester, Pennsylvania, May 20, 1939. 2 Now preserved at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 64 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION tery there, near Reading, Pennsylvania. He was a pioneer in the early iron industries of Chester County at Warwick and Coventryville. Abraham Lincoln is known to have been intimately acquainted with and strongly influenced by Jesse Fell, a Friend who went from Chester County to Springfield, Illinois, and became the head of the normal school there ; he induced Lincoln to hold the debates with Douglas and to ask Douglas the fateful question which resulted in the election of Douglas as Senator and later of Lincoln as President. Fell also persuaded Lincoln to write his autobiography, which he sent to Joseph J. Lewis of West Chester, who published it with strong editorial endorsement in Samuel R. Downing's antislavery newspaper in West Chester, which introduced Lincoln to the Eastern newspapers, after his great speech at the Cooper Union in New York. THE Friendly influence of Enoch Lewis, one of the founders of Haverford College, was transmitted to his son, Joseph J. Lewis, of West Chester, Pennsylvania, who fought the Christiana riot cases and other antislavery battles in the State and Federal Courts of Pennsylvania. Lewis's daughter was the first wife of Wayne MacVeagh, whose mother was a second cousin of Lincoln. After the death of his first wife MacVeagh married a daughter of Simon Cameron. Lewis and MacVeagh secured the instructions to the delegates to the Pennsylvania Republican Convention of 1860 for Cameron first and Lincoln second. This gave Lincoln the majority over Seward in the Chicago Convention and resulted in his nomination and election to the Presidency. Joseph J. Lewis became his Commissioner of Internal Revenue and framed the financial system which saved the nation in the Civil War. Lincoln frequently said that if he could find a church which had no creed but the Golden Rule, that church he would gladly join. His religion was broader and deeper than that of any sect. His wife was a member of the Presbyterian Church, in which he was a pewholder, but he frequently attended services in the Methodist...