Transcripts For CSPAN3 History Bookshelf Richard Carwardine Lincolns Sense Of Humor 20240713

Michael good evening and welcome. My name is michael bishop. The result of a collaboration between our society and the George Washington university, the library is the First Research facility in the Nations Capital devoted to the study of winston churchill. Here students have access to a vast range of primary and secondary materials and interactive touchscreen exhibits and soon displays of original manuscripts and artifacts. And let me take this opportunity to encourage you to join the National Churchill society by visiting our website, www. Winstonchurchill. Org. Him him a few programming notes. I hope youll return to the National Churchill Library Center on march 1 when eliot cohen will discuss his new book, him and him the big stick, the limits of soft power and the necessity of military power. And on april 26, former british secretary david away, now lord owen, who will speak about his book, cabinets finest hour, the hidden agenda of may, 1940. Churchill is claimed as the biggest leader of the 20th century. We will not only explore his life and career, but the very nature of leadership itself. Just as churchill bestrode the last century as a colossus, so did Abraham Lincoln the 19th. The two men were different. One born in a palace and the other in a log cabin. Each was marked by magnanimity and a magnificent sense of humor, qualities that may be linked. Perhaps the ability to see the humor in things makes one more likely to forgive the foibles of others. Examples of churchills humor and wit abound often related to his famed, but sometimes exaggerated fondness for alcohol. With a temperance campaigner, warned strong drink stingeth like the serpent, churchill replied, i have been looking for a drink like that all my life. On another occasion when leasing the house of commons, churchill was scolded boy a female mp who declared, winston, you are drunk. He replied yes, and you are ugly , but tomorrow i shall be sober. [laughter] michael lincolns humor was tending more towards selfdeprecation. He really the tale of an encounter he had with a woman in exclaimed i that believe you are the ugliest man i ever saw. Lincoln apologized and then asked what she would like him to do about it. Him him him she thought for a moment and replied, well, you might stay home. During one of the famed Lincoln Douglas debates, a spectator shouted lincoln was being two faced. Lincoln said, if i had two faces, do you think i would wear this one . Humor was an essential component of his personality and persona. He was a personality and political persona but tonight our guest will explore whether his humor might have been a handicap. Richard carwardine was educated at Corpus Christi and Queens College in oxford and at university of california berkeley. For three decades he taught history at the university of sheffield before being appointed rose professor of American History and institutions at oxford university. And a fellow of Saint Catherines college. He was elected president of Corpus Christi College Oxford in 2010 and served in that post until his retirement last year. He is the author of one of the finest modern by our biographies biographies of the 16th president , lincoln, a purpose of life and power which was awarded the lincoln prize in 2007 and wrote the upcoming lincolns sense of humor on which tonights lecture is based. This year marks the 500th anniversary of Corpus Christi, an occasion being marked in many ways including a new exhibition featuring the colleges manuscript treasures that just opened at the Folder Shakespeare Library on capitol hill. I encourage you all to visit it. Ladies and gentlemen, professor richard carwardine. [applause] richard thank you very much for that warm welcome, michael. Among the arresting displays at the chicago cemetery fair in 1864 was an exhibit labeled the two american humorists. One of the two busts was that of dan rice, the blackface minstrel. You see him in 1859. He appeared before the great union speech before the medical students in philadelphia. No idea of what he lectured on, but we have no idea how much benefit a medical student took from this talk. The other was Abraham Lincoln. You would have core world with world quarreled with the distinction of lincoln as the american humorists. Lincoln was a mood breaker, the first president to make storytelling and laughter tools of the office. No occupant has since matched his talent in this respect, not least because of reputation for too much jocularity has been deemed politically damaging. Roosevelt was judged even by his admirers to be undignified. John f. Kennedy, one of the most amusing men in the highest office and widely admired as a humorist, still held back in news conferences for fear of appearing nonstatesman like. Even ronald reagan, who came closest to lincoln in his skill as a raconteur, was open to the charge that his humor was a substitute for thought. And since he was willing to do anything for a laugh, risked becoming a vaudeville routine. Lincoln by contrast suffered few such inhibitions. Humor was central to lincolns being. And in this talk, i will analyze what made him laugh and the purpose is to which he put his purposes and uses to which he put his jokes and stories. Considering the political consequences, i should indicate as my title suggests that the story is not fully positive. Lincolns sense of humor was unusually capacious. He relished every form of the comic. At one end of the spectrum you he he drew pleasure from tall tales, from absurdity and larger than life characters. At the other, he took cerebral pleasure in the practice of surprises of language. There is no simple taxonomy of lincolns humor, but between these two poles of enjoyment, he appreciated a variety of other forms and happily enjoyed satire and notoriously dirty jokes and stories. Not least like many successful and effective humorists, he knew, as michael explained to you, how to win over an audience by laughing at himself. Lets begin with a few more examples of this habit of selfmockery. For lincoln possessed a very strong sense of selfworth. And as a result, he was able to take a joke at his own expense, joining in the jollity with the utmost innocence and good nature. He made much of his unprepossessing appearance, conscious of his very unusual physical proportions, his height and unusually long limbs, is long legs and very long arms. They considered him an ugly man and he faced that head on, counting himself as the subject of the story, he had an encounter with a stranger in a railroad car. He said excuse me sir, i have an article in my position which belongs to you. Taking a jackknife from his pocket, the man explained this was placed in my hand some years ago with the injunction of i was to keep it until i found a man uglier than myself. I think you are fairly entitled to the property. Lincoln also gave rise, as he was splitting rails, he found himself looking down the gun barrel of a passerby who explained promised to shoot the first man he met who was uglier than himself. Getting a good look at the mans face, lincoln bared his chest, if i am uglier than you, please give way. Blaze away. Lincoln loved the absurd and he loved tall tales. According to noah brooks, he thought the chief characteristic of american humor was its grotesqueness and extravagance. He loved the story of the village drunkard. A lot of drunks in lincolns stories. He got catastrophically intoxicated on a day of heavy rain, staggered down an alley and fell asleep in a bed of mud. Waking as it was getting dark, he sought out the public pump to wash himself. On his way he saw another drunk , leaning over a horse post which he mistook for the pump and took the arm of this man for the handle, which set the occupant to throwing up. He gave himself a thorough washing and made his way to the grocery. As he ended, one of the comrades, horrified by the extreme, what is the matter . He replied, you want to have seen me before i was washed. There may be no surprise lincoln celebrated craftsmanship, economy, energy and color of prose should have loved humorists possibilities of the english language. He discovered particular usages and meanings of words. He smiled at the, as he put it, at the dutchmans expression of somebody tying his dog loose. He took delight in puns. He said in the telegraph office, since it was a fast day, he was pleased to see them working so fast. He memorized phrases, his head, unlike his books, is read. In court proceedings, he knew how to use a pun to his advantage. Lawyer trying to prove an alibi had lincoln shooting back, i have no doubt you have a man to bring a lie by. Puns are designed to elicit groans, and this may have been lincolns aim when he said to seward in washington, a sign for tr strong. Tr strong, but coffee are stronger. A groan. As a selftaught euclidian, lincoln took pleasure in the application of logic and misapplication of logic. He relished the story of the Illinois State treasurer returning home one night inebriated, drawn by red steers. One of the carts wheels came loose. The three steers ran away leaving the man asleep. Early in the morning he roused , himself and looking over the side of the cart and around in the woods, he said if my name is john moore, ive lost a pair of steers. If may name aint john moore, i have found a cart. In a similar vein, lincoln talked about a meeting at the illinois lunatic asylum. It was a chilly building and lincoln wore a hat. As he made his way along, a little lunatic ran out and said, sir, i am surprised you will presume to wear your hat in front of christopher columbus. I am sorry, lincoln replied, removing his hat and moved on. Later on after the meeting with the hat back on his head, lincoln once more met with the man again who approached him, sir, i am astonished you would dare to wear your hat in the presence of general washington. Pray excuse me, general, lincoln said. Less than an hour ago you said you were christopher columbus. That is correct, but that was by another mother. [laughter] Richard Lincoln is alleged to have said wit laughs at everybody and humor laughs with everybody. Because of that, sharp wit was not his most representative mode of humor, but noah brooks was far too sweeping when he said lincoln was witty but not brimful of humor. Lincoln had the capacity for a quick wit. It was observed attorney general edward baits had black hair and a white beard, lincoln thought they could hardly be otherwise. He uses his jaws more than his brain. And one day a delegation called on lincoln. This was after he takes office in 1861. He is bombarded by office seekers. A delegation urged the appointment of a friend of theirs to the post of commissioner of the sandwich islands in hawaii. They emphasized not only his fitness for the post and his poor health, which they said would benefit from the balmy climate of hawaii. The president closed the interview with affected regret. Gentleman, i am sorry to say there are eight other applicants and that place, and they are all sicker than your man. Lincoln enjoyed the dry, ironic and the public wit that he heard in others. Oblique wit that he heard in others. This was the case with the father who said i aint greedy about land. I only want what joins mine. He used a dry wit to deflate arrogance in a german nobleman who desiring a military appointment made much of his distinguished lineage. Lincoln said, that need not trouble you. That will not be in your way if you behave yourself as a soldier. More gentle was the formula he used more than once for a job, the lady says she has two sons who want to work. It is possible. Wanting to work is so rare a merit, it should be encouraged. Most of the stories lincoln told as acquaintances put it politely, would not do exactly for the drawing room. The vulgar and the earthy were a mainstay of his humor, remarked upon by his family, his friends, and his colleagues. Lincoln himself, when asked why dont you write out your stories and put them in a book . He said as if 1000 dead carcasses and a man will shoot everything into his nostrils and said such a book would stink like 1000 privies. Several colleagues emphasized it wasnt the crudity lincoln loved so much as the storys pertinence and wit. This is probably true. We should remember his immodest stories were more effective to victorian sensibilities than to ours. This is true of the tail he told to a collector of relics. Address aith dress she had worn during the revolutionary war. A braided his hair and asked if she would produce address. She did so and he said i did not say, were you addressed this one lady once more in the time of washington . No doubt she kissed you as i do now. As he did so heartily, the unimpressed owner remarked stranger, if you want to kiss something old, you better kiss ass, its older than my dress. Lincoln is known to joke about anatomy and sexual relations. Persistently asked by cates chase, who had seen him standing next to a wall in an alley what he had been doing, he caved in and said, to tell the truth, i went up the alley to shake hands with a fellow i used to know who stood up for me at my wedding. And when married, lincoln tied in an evening gown, taken in new york, the copies were stamped on the back with an act of congress. She sent one to her husband. They open to the letter, considered the inscription and remarked that is a lie. She never was entered by acts of congress. [laughter] Richard Lincoln took great pleasure in satire. As a young man, he engaged in occasionally reckless or small attacks through anonymous or psedonymous attacks. What was his position . A state office which led to a dual which was aborted at the last minute. After that, lincoln exercised much more control as a satirist. In private amongst his lawyer friends, he would put something on a sarcastic lamps and lost none of his appetite for raising the satirical pieces of others including richard the third or the genius of assault on copperheadism. But the prevailing tone of the humor was that he elected cruelty and malice. His satirical thrusts were restricted to carefully constructed passages in longer speeches, noted in his speeches with douglas area several of those sallies rebuked the little giant for appealing to the douglas. Several of those sallies rebuked the little giant for appealing to the racial antipathies of white illinoisans. The quality of the races, lincoln mocked douglas fallacious logic. He said, i dont understand because i dont want a negro woman for a slave i must want her as a wife. I never had the intention i and my friends would marry negrose if there was no law to keep them from it. As for as the range of his humor, what of its utility . Lincolns irreversible sense of humor was so central to his being and so frequently deployed it naturally prompts the question, what was its purpose . It provided a means of empowerment of imposing himself on others. It also acted as a Health Giving salve. Put simply, lincolns appetite for humor and vulnerability to depression were two sides of the same coin. Laughter was a therapeutic antidote to the grievous low spirits he was prone. Lincoln explained it for not these jokes, i should die. They give vent to my doom and gloom. E was evangelistic on the 22nd of september, 1862, where he unveiled the preliminary emancipation proclamation, the president began reading a short piece by artemis ward. Gentleman, why didnt you laugh . The people were irritated begetting the meeting with this way. Why didnt you laugh . With the strain upon me night and day, if i didnt laugh, i should die. Here the picture is complicated among the least because purpose and function, intent and affect were not one in the same. Lincoln used humor with deliberation, to supply particular outcomes. His levity has been regarded as a productive source of strength, but there were unintended consequences. In the hands of his opponents, lincolns reputation functioned as a weapon that could be turned against him. Humor could be a doubleedged sword. From an early age, his comic stories and mimicry made him welcome and entertaining company. His odd, lanky appearance and bookish appetites might in another young man have been a recipe for social residence but his physical awkwardness seemed not to have troubled him. Rather, he had a strong sense of his self wealth. This social empowerment helped to secure his election as a military captain in the black hawk war. Winning him the respect of fellow congressmen in his washington boardinghouse in the 1850s and make him the smiling target of attention in the illinois eighth circuit. Lincoln relished the role of entertainer and was invigorated by it. Hearing his debates in 1858 with Stephen Douglas, he grew stronger in spirit and body over the course of the campaign in contrast to his opponent. He didnt possess the active ease of movement but had a gift for squeezing the most humor out of his material and building to the climax of a story. Particularly fond of james hacketts rendition of falstaff, he advised on how to deliver a line so if he heard the laugh he knew lincoln was there. Later in life, lincoln would repeat with appreciative glee the description of a type of southwestern orator who mounted the rostrum, threw back his head, shined his eyes, opened his mouth and left the consequences to god. [laughter] richard in sharp contrast, there was little in lincolns own speeches that was not planned and well calculated. His private conversations were rarely lacking in broader intent but designed to cover up and to thwart. Empty thought. His humor at times led in crushing his opponents. More commonly and kindly when used as a means of exercise his common touch and the selfdeprecation, humor could be a weapon of subtle attack. In other ways it was a way of disingenuously planting a selfserving idea into the minds of his heroes. It provided a means of tactical diversion or frustration and had a role in relation to public morale. Above all, however, he used his stories as parables and pointed, accessible and persuasive form of political explanation. Speaking of his crushing of opponents, lincoln occasionally resorted to cruel and aggressive humor, not simply to put his opponents on the defensive, but to eviscerate them and humiliate them. The roasting of forker, as it was called, was one instance of lincoln using his power to hurt, a power which he used to withering effect. This was in his campaign for reelection to the state legislature in 1836 when he spoke before a large crowd in springfield. And his impressive speech, it prompted a response from george forker, a prominent local democrat, that he should be given the stand. Forker was a recent convert from the whig party. And he had been rewarded with a lucrative public office. He had also built the best house in springfield over which he directed a lightning rod, the only one in the place. 50 years lincolns senior, he declared the young man would have to be taken down. After waiting with suppressed excitement, lincoln resumed the stand. He acknowledged he was young but his critic should remember, and i quote i am older in years than i am in the tricks and trades of politicians. I desire place and distinction, but i would rather die now than like the gentlemen live to see the day that i would change my politics for an office worth 3,000 a year, and then feel compelled to erect a lightning rod to protect a guilty conscious from an offended god. [laughter] richard over time lincoln learned to be more deft and subtle in sharpening his edge. As a mature politician, he used other means to put his opponents on the back foot. No one was more aware of this then Stephen Douglas himself. He declared he didnt fear lincoln in debating matters of substance but said there is one thing however in which i stand constantly in dread. When lincoln begins to tell a story, i begin to get apprehensive. Every one of his stories seems like a whack on my back. That is exactly the effect of the allegories and anecdotes of which he is a master has upon me. Nothing else disturbs me, but when he begins to tell a story, i feel i am about to be overmatched. In his facetoface engagement with the public, lincoln had stories and jokes that would remind his heroes of his lowly origins, the backwoods in the prairie. It encouraged people to see him as a natural man, lacking artifice, able to farmers and engage with laborists on equal terms. His lifelong identification with selfidentification with plain folk was aligned to his habit of selfdeprecating behavior. There is far more means of securing a laugh than his odd looks. It was also a means of enlisting the audience on the side of the underdog. He used a sort of big man, little man technique. He did it more or less nonstop through his prepresident ial years, not only against forker, but against some of the biggest beasts in illinois. In his wrestling with douglas, he assumed the identity of a modest provincial facing a worldwide renown for the democrats hope for the white house, who enjoyed the very great man status and he himself, lincoln, was only a small man as the irony of the language was there was a diminutive little giant standing next to the elongated lincoln. I mentioned the idea of planting a selfserving idea sometimes disingenuously. The national newspaperman who descended during 1858 in illinois to cover the joint debates with douglas included henry villa of new york. Sheltering together one evening during a thunderstorm, lincoln told the young reporter that he was clerking in a country store, his highest ambition was to be a member of state legislature and since then of course, i have grown some, but my friends have got me into this. I did not consider myself qualified for the United States senate. To be sure, i am qualified but in spite of it all, i am sitting to myself every day, it is too big of a thing for you. You will never get it. Mary insists i am going to be senator and president of the United States, too. With his words, he followed with a roar of laughter with his arms around his knees and shaking all over with mirth at his wifes ambition. Just think, such a sucker as me as president. Lincoln left but his intent was utterly serious. He cunningly dropped into the minds of a eastern reporter that he could be run for the presidency. Lincolns humor also provided a means of diversion. One of his associates judged that in the courtroom, lincoln mostly resulted to stories to shore up, to stiffen a faltering case. He never indulged in fun when he had a great case, one which he believed was right. If his case was weak, he would tell stories, cover his opponents and the witness was ridiculed, keep the court and jury shrieking with laughter. He would smooth the conversation without giving offense. He recognized the sharpness of a refusal or a rebuke could be blunted by an appropriate story. His secretary john hay told in 1863, an internal nuisance of the brooklyn post master with his eyes on the following years president ial election and wondering if lincoln was going to run again fastened himself to the tycoon of president and tried to get into conversation on the subject of the secession. Lincoln quickly put him off with a story of his friend jesse dubois. He was state auditor. An itinerant quack preacher requested a venue for a religious lecture. What is it about, said jessie. The Second Coming of christ, said the person. Nonsense, ruled jessie. If christ went to springfield once and got away, he will be damn careful not to come again. Lincolns humor was a colorful means of instruction and elucidation. He tells charles depew, i have been told i tell a great many stories. I reckon i do. In the long experience, the Common People take them as they run, are more easily influenced and influenced through the medium of broad illustration than in any other way. Lincoln uses stories as so parables. And in the courtroom he used opposite tales to win the confidence of jurys lacking in formal obligation. Exposing the false logic he was reminded of a person who in having trouble closing up a barrel, put a boy inside to hold the head in place. The plan worked well that the cooper drove on the hoops and finished the job, forgetting all about the boy or how he was to be gotten out. The stories and striking images gave lincoln the means of driving home with engaging the economy. When john pope telegraphed washington he had captured 5000 of beauregards men and was marching on the confederates and he would have the rebels in his power. The president said of his opinion, that reminds me, lincoln was always reminded of a story, that reminds me of an old woman who was ill. The doctor came and prescribed medicine for her constipation. Returning the next morning he found her fresh and well and getting breakfast. Asked if the medicine had worked, she confirmed it had. How many bowel movements, the physician inquired. 142, she replied. Madam, i am serious, the physician replied. I know you are joking. How many . 142. Madam, i must know. You could not have 142 movements. 142. 140 of them, wind. The story told, lincoln added simply, i am afraid popes captures are 140 of them wind. That close to the cabinets discussion. Given threatening war following the union navy seizure following envoys from the british ship, lincoln town himself with the support of only found himself with the support of only one member of the cabinet, saying it reminded him of a drunk who stumbled into a church and fell asleep in the front row. He slumbered on as they asked who are on the lords side and the congregation replied by rising en masse. When they said, who is on the devils side, the sleeper stood, and seeing the minister stood up. I dont understand the question, but i will stand by you, person, to the last. It seems to me we are in a hopeless minority. [laughter] lincolns supporters seized on his studied use of humor to show how an occupant of the white house could remain a genial man of the people. As the president faced the wartime office, his supporters said his telling stories was a larger appreciation of his moral character. Proadministration newspapers drew attention it the president s latest story. Lincoln secretary had a warm relationship with many journalists. He provided them with examples of the president s wit. Lincolns humor helped cast him as the representative american. The ladies, womens rights activists Caroline Healy dole rebuke to those fine ladies of the womens loyal league who we are intelligent but not cultivated people. Mr. Lincoln fairly represents our average attainment and has never written a letter the humble of his constituents cant understand. Our divine master you a little bit of classic lore, historic legend, but he did know how to tell a simple instructive story. Commercial interests exploited this benign reading of lincolns humor in jokes and stories, but supposedly very rarely originating with the president. At the whites house, asked what could be more natural to associate with quips wanton wiles which fine, full flavored joke . Advertisements for old age jokes fresh from abrahams was bosom showed the bearded man entertaining a group of folk. Authentic life of Abraham Lincoln captured him in his recognizable storytelling posture with his hand around his knee, going up to his face. It was in this spirit of appreciation William Brian offered a commentary on a wide array of lincolns jokes and stories. If the intention was to show these were the mark of a purposeful genial and wise commander in chief. An early contribution to the president ial campaign, the caller aimed to remind how the tortured mind of a suffering, patient president found occasional relief in an appropriate anecdote turned jest. His atrocious puns brought him delight. In addition to the therapeutic value, stories and means are a way to rebuke who wasted his time with trivial requests. Beneath his levity was a stratum of ethical rock. In setting up the values of his storytelling, they were responding to his opponents disdain for a chief magistrate whose taste in jokes made him unfit to his position. Already berated him for his democrats hadalready berated him for his smutty jokes. Moment of his nomination they ridiculed the , candidate of him nothing favorable could be said except that he once drove oxon, went barefooted, split rails, is a possibly good lawyer, tells a smutty story in good style and is the ugliest man in the west. During the crisis of winter of 1861, the president elect determined jocularity provided much ammunition for those to keen those keen to deem him politically out of his depth. Harpers weekly on the eve of the inauguration presented our president ial merry man, holding a drained glass in his hand while engaged in an exchange of wit and humor with a set of rough, inebriated companions, as a funeral hearse marking the death of the union passes by. You can see through the window. Throughout the four yours of the war, confederates and the union seized on his humor as a stick with which to beat him. With the war taking its early toll in 1861, an embittered confederate supervisor drew lincoln as a jester in the comedy of death sharing the stage with an array of soldiers resembling the unions high command. The common charge was his appetite for low jokes masked principal, using humor to mask his deficiencies and his jokes measured his cruel disregard for the victims of war. The heartless buffoon was an occurring theme. The powerful harpers weekly cartoon, columbia confronts her children. Published shortly after the grievous union losses at fredericksburg. You can see a female figure with her arm outstretched, pointing at lincoln, standing outside the War Department between Edwin Stanton and Joseph Hooker and asking, where are my 15,000 sons murdered at fredericksburg . Lincoln answers, this reminds me of a little joke but props and outraged interruption, go tell your joke at springfield. Another cartoon cast him as manager, lincoln. The sole figure on an antistage, he is ingratiating but smiling impresario with a pistol, sword and the other debris of a wretched army at his feet. Ladies and gentlemen, he announces, i regret to say the tragedy, entitled the army of the potomac, has been withdrawn and i substituted three new factors. A further common accusation involves with lincoln the incapable buffoon, was lincoln the fanatic who indulged a love of sadistic and dictatorial policies. These were cruel and unfunny jokes played by a tyrant who took pleasure in his disregard for the constitution. Emancipation, suspension of habeas corpus, black troops, the draft, reconstruction military rule, were evidence of , this warped sense of humor. Disgusted by the president s racial policies, john sieber told him to crack your low jokes, mr. Lincoln. Put your feet down and trample them out of the world. Let me turn to the campaign of 1864. The voices of complaint about the National Joker in the white house became a vehement cause of condemnation during the year. The themes of the argument didnt falter and administration presses and other platforms asserted with more aggression and imaginative color than ever. The election contest was joined in the opening weeks of the year. Brians positive appreciation of lincolns humor, i mentioned in the pages of the evening post, drew from james Gordon Bennetts New York Herald the headline the president ial campaign, the first electioneering document. The claim that it was the first electioneering document was teasing and disingenuous. Brian was lukewarm and have been responding to an assault on lincoln, the smutty joker, already launched in the pages of the herald. Republicans delivered the nomination to john fremont, then it ran a long article. General fremont takes the president ial field, not a smutty joker. Setting out the generals claims as a military leader and emancipator, the herald followed each positive statement with the bold refrain, fremont is not a smutty joker. The maverick bennett wanted the party to choose the general or some other candidate and astonish all europe over the all the rebellion and prevent us from having a smutty joker for our next president. In the funniest of fun, and harpers weekly, the radical cartoonist frank below cast lincoln as a circus joker who is reminded of a joke and another little story. In one he stands grinning under three wartime scenes, this one the hospital, the battlefield, and liberty consumed by flames, each pointing the grotesque contrast between unpresident ial levity and horror. Setting the tone for the democrats assault on lincoln was the cover of lincolniania. Humors of uncle abe, a certain joe miller, published by a ravaged copperhead. Action hands the lover of the english joke smith drives a wedge labeled joke into a log that is splitting into north and south. The rail splitter and the side splitter here becomes the union splitter. Democrats insinuated this into each of the key campaigning themes of 1864. The perverted racial radicalism, its assault on Civil Liberties and its demoralizing influence. None was more challenging than the charge of lincolns shocking levity in the summer of numbing military slaughter. Chicago times said the campaign in virginia was a white house conclave. The bottle went freely round. Mr. Lincoln was in his best raiment, and a joke and smutty jokes followed each other in quick succession. The theme of lincoln as the widow maker, entertaining her with little stories, became a Democrat Campaign staple. Nothing gave the attackers greater power than the accusation that in 1862, lincoln had shattered sanctity by asking to hear a vulgar comic song while touring the field. This took place after the fight with bodies yet warm in their graves. Accompanied by George Mcclellan and another officer, lincoln drove over the field as heavy details of men were burying the dead. As they neared the old stonebridge where the bodies were piled highest, lincoln the marshall on the knee and said give us that song about picayune butler. Mcclellan has never heard it. With a shudder, the general protested not now, i would prefer to hear it some other place and time. The story has seen various forms. A popular africanamerican banjo song often performed by blackface minstrels, picayune butler coming to town, concerned his pervasive appetite. Democrats hammered message in music and graphic satire. Described by the National Campaign songster, aid make crack this bloody jokes but the smoke from men that die like butchered cattle. The guns grow cold, make crack his stories. Your name is greater and linked with our brightest glories. 1864 campaign gave this political cartoonist unbridled opportunity to explore lincolns compulsive jesting. Columbia demands her children go back one. Too much. There you go. Columbia demands her children, and angry columbia points to a discomforted president and says, give me back my 50,000 sons, which elicits a feeble diversionary response. The fact is, by the way, that reminds me of the story. Another cartoon running the machine has lincoln laughing uproariously at his own jokes while the new secretary of the treasury turns out greenbacks. After mcclellans nomination, this cartoon characterized the democratic candidate as hamlet contemplating lincolns laughing had on the palm of his laughing head on the palm of his hand and a fellow of infinite jest. Where be your jibes now . And here is a sinister portrayal by matt morgan in the british magazine fun, columbias nightmare, inspired by the nightmare. The cartoon shows lincoln as a smirking, semitic demon. Seated upon a recumbent maiden. And this one offer the best target of graphic attack. It is potent, a poorly executed but still arresting cartoon headed the commander in chief and conciliate the soldiers vote on the battlefield. It puts lincoln in the center, holding a tartan cap, a reminder of the disguise he is said to have worn when cutting short his journey to washington as president elect. Bodies are on the field when an officer turns to a wounded soldier. This signaled his distress by holding a hand to his eyes. He demonstrates as the president demands, now marshall, sing us picayune butler or Something Else that is funny. Lincoln loyalists took along the group of this bogus story on the public imagination. Repaired to reply to the press, lincoln thought he was too bellicose and decided to try his own hand at it. The statement over this, lincoln rebutted the also count. While traveling on an ambulance from antietam to the generals quarters, the president said, he wrote the president asked me to sing a sad song which he has heard me often sing. And then someone, i do not think it was the president , asked me to sing Something Else i had two or three Little Things of which back to you butler was one of them. But the place was not the will battlefield. The time was 16 days after the battle. There were no bodies. It had not rained. Nobody made objection to the singing. On reflection, lincoln decided not to release his account, telling him, you know, this is the truth and the whole truth about the affair, but i like to appear as an apologist from an act of my own which i know is right. The democrats assault on his levity during the dark summer of 1864 did nothing to improve the president s reelection prospects. Him him as the political weather changed and confidence in his reelection group, war democrats joined republicans in rebutting copperhead calumnies. The Chicago Convention has left democrat no choice between Jefferson Davis with all of his crimes and Abraham Lincoln with all of his faults. Call him the joker, the chicago party, the democrats are trying to make this war the ghastliest joke of the continental century. That tactic he said was laughing at your own arrogance and coward behavior. In keeping with the changed mood, posted cartoons, sympathetic to the National Union party, turned the joke against the democratic nominee. Mcclellan tries to ride two horses, played on the equine metaphor that lincoln had put into play with history of an old dutch farmer who remarked to a companion it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams. In this cartoon, little mac is a starspangled circus rider struggling to stay a foot. The president looks on, and unsmiling and serious. Mcclellan has one hand on the footing of a war charger straining for action and is typed in the other action by a horse labeled is tugged in the other direction by a horse labeled piece. He says i cant manage them. Lincoln says you tried to ride them on the peninsula, but it didnt work. It drew deep division between mcclelland and the peace wing of his party. And there was a harpers weekly cartoon of mcclellan as a little napoleon sitting on the palm of lincolns cupped hand. The president addresses him and turns the laugh against his opponent. This reminds me of a little joke. It is impossible to determine precisely how lincolns repetition as a joker shaped political Balance Sheet in 1864. The administrations supporters included many who found the president s levity to be distasteful but indicates the matter was not decisive. His opponents believed it offered Great Electoral opportunity. Their focus on the cruel and smutty joker during the final weeks of the campaign shouldnt be seen simply as a measure of increasing desperation. Since the relish for the issue had been evident well before their hopes went into decline. Lincoln too well understood how his reputation for levity could expose him to misrepresentation. And electoral damage. It was only after careful election he opted not to respond publicly to the bogus antietam story. In time, after his death, his reputation as the peerless president ial story spinner, joke teller and ready wit came to take on a character fully benign. That wasnt the reality during the dark and deadly days of war. Thank you. [applause] michael we have time for just a couple of questions. If you would like one, come to the microphone here. And also we have copies of the prized awardwinning biography, lincoln available on the table over there. Richard i would buy one. [laughter] hello. Out of all the lincoln jokes, what is your favorite . Richard there are too many. This is not one i have thought about. Thank you for asking. Academicost of my studying american popular religion. The one i told about the drunk who says ill stand with you. I think were in a hopeless minority is one of my favorite. So there are several of that genre that i like. I think one i find particularly attractive because its so deft and so gentle and so shows lincoln so quick on his feet is the story of lincoln in the hospital where there was a young woman at the bedside of the soldier who had been wounded. And she this about him asks i have to say hes been shot through the chest. She asks where were you wounded . Ant e says i was wonded at etm. And she persists. And ling is aware of whats going on. She turns to lincoln for some help. So he talks to the soldier privately and comes back to the young lady and says, young lady, the bullet that hit him would have missed you. Ive long thought that lincolns skill at telling offcolored jokes was the real engine of his early career. Is that a fair guess . I think it probably is. As i said, we have to be careful about what we mean by offcolor jokes today many of them would not be seen to be quite so crude as they were thought to be at the time. A number of his stories were collected later by Carl Sandberg and theyre in a cashe of lincoln off colored jokes in the library. I think his audience mostly his audiences were male. So when he was working as a young man in when he was on the stump, when certainly when he was a lawyer meeting with other lawyers and the people of the locality and hotels, the court, in the circuit, as they tour around, these would have been all male accompanying. And im pretty confident that in those settings a lot of the stories would have been a conceptual. Of i think lincoln was right when he said with accumulate lat ively, in the sense that i think the weight of his humor and story telling in those early years at least would have been of this kind. But he did not like dirty stories for their own sake. They would to be fair. Maybe in those story telling competitions that other lawyers, that might have been the case. But for lincoln what really gave, and what his friends said of him, what really gave the stories their attraction to lincoln was that pertnens, their capacity, with the wit and applicability to a particular setting. So yes he was a smutty joker but there was a purpose to that wit. What was your source materials . Because so much of the history of lincoln was pieced together many, many years later from interviews of people that had known him many years later and much is sort of apock fl, invented. And so in terms of all of these things how reliable is the hume you are that youre articulating . Are thats a very good question. Of course theres always that real tension between wanting to claim authenticity for the really good shoke. Joke. But there are two ways of answeric that question. One is theres a very good comppendium of lincoln stories but paul. In fact two compendia, who serious scholars of lincolns humor didnt really write about him in a way in which i have done it. More for encyclopedic. There are stories we know lincoln told because theyre in his own hand or reported in his own speeches. There are stories that his immediate contestimony prears, those who worked with him, wrote down at the time and reported at the time. Then there are those that are told after his deds by those close to lincoln. And then you get more remote from there, from the scripture of authority as it were into the early 20th century where you get people talking about stories that they heard or parents heard lincoln tellnd you have to question the authorities tiss. There are quite a number of those memoirs of lincolns political contestimony prears and lincoln contestimony prears through the 1800s and 1900s are a source at which of course one uses with discretion. William herndon as you may be aware after lincolns death was so appalled by the things that were being claimed about lincoln particularly with respect to his religion that he said about accumulating materials from those who had nonal lincoln in indiana and illinois. St of these are stop in 1860 but we get a flavor from those in some of the ways in which lincoln was appreciated, certainly several tales told by people who were there at the time. I think one can honorably take those as being authentic. But youre right there is this issue of the apockful and wanting one story i havent told, which i might much like, i didnt know whether to include it in the book or not. In the end i did. Its too good to leave out but im not absolutely certain it can be proven. Can you give ause bit of the social and cultural context about what was considered smutty in that time period . And were there any gestures or phrases that would be considered dirty or Something Back then that we wouldnt know about today . Are you asking me to swear . No. The answer is i think that the material that would have been considered vulgar, smutty, dirty, would have to do with sexual relations, would have to do with bodily functions. Those are the two main ones. And in the sense what has changed . But i think there were ways of alluding to it in the mid 19th century, more discreetly alluding to it but would still have been considered vulgar whereas today we can make those sorts. The description of the paintings that whatever, however the hands were being held there was considered a dirty gesture back in the day in germany and so im wondering in the 18 40s, 250s, 60s there was we use a middle finger maybe they have another jessstur that meant the same thing. Good question. I dont know. I dont know the answer to that. Thank you. Thank you for coming. You mentioned sandberg as a source of lincoln jokes. Were those within does he include those . Or is this unique . I didnt catch. He has or sandbergs jokes. No. I got those i was directed to that cashe of papers which sandberg had used by birm. No surprise. Michael is such a generous scholar, whenever he finds things that he thinks fellow scoplars could use. Does it seem to ring true . I think so. David where lincoln tells this story of a man who is so trusting of his wife that he bets that she would not succumb to the overtures of another. Hes becomes aware, standing outside the door of their bedroom in all his innocence, and so he wraps on the door and then the wife replies in a rhyming a rough poem and lincoln told this to david davis and to a couple of others. And it was while he was president. If the public a knew you were telling stories like this, it would just be the end so i think from that remark it has authenticity. Some of the others that are reported you think well they sound plausible. I think in the sense it doesnt matter where a particular joke is authentic or not. What we can be clear about is that there is sufficient authenticity in that spread of stories than to represent one of the styles of humor that lincoln indudged in. But there was an occasion where lincoln got very angry with someone who came in, lincoln was exhausted, someone wanted to tell him a story and it was a filthy story. He said thats terrible. That man just disgusts me. Thats not funny. It has to have wit. There has to be a surprise, there has to be a point about it. Thank you very much. [applause] i remember recent references to locker room talk which apparently a certain personal had really hard time getting over recently. Is there any idea or was there any female reaction to this . Did women ever get to hear this . Mayy lincoln . Was there ever anything like that . I dont know. Intrigues me. I dont know how many of these jokes abraham shared with ary. I take the analogy that youre raising. I would just repeat what i said earlier, i think in limbs cases it was not lincolns case it was not crudety for its own sake. It didnt it certainly didnt nothing that suggests hat lincoln spoke in a way that demeend women. I think almost all of the targets of his humor are male. I have to think about that, preachers theyre or whether theyre drunks or the foibles of humankind that hes pointing to expose. I agree with what was said earlier, the sense of humor, people with a sense of humor having an appreciation of the foibles of human kind. And that bridges me with certain humility. And while lincoln was not a humble person, there is humility in his relationships with people. So lincoln was in that sense a conventional lockerroom person. [applause] american histly tv. Event coverage, eye witness accounts, archival films, lectures and College Classrooms and visits to museums and historic places. All weekend every weekend on span 3. Next Patrick Charles Senior Historian for the United States air force talked about the history of the nra including changes in gun control and views on the second amendment. This interview was recorded at the annual American Historical Association meeting