About The Negro Question

The story will be remembered, perhaps, of Mr. Lincoln’s reply to a Springfield (Ill.) clergyman, who asked him what was to be his policy on the slavery question.

“Well, your question is rather a cool one, but I will answer it by telling you a story.  You know Father B. the old Methodist preacher?  and you know Fox river and its freshets?  Well, once in the presence of Father B. a young Methodist was worrying about Fox river, and expressing fears that he should be prevented from fulfilling some of his appointments by a freshet in the river.  Father B. checked him in his gravest manner.  Said he—‘Young man I have always made it a rule in my life not to cross Fox river till I get to it.’ And,” said the President, “I am not going to worry myself over the slavery question till I get to it.”  A few days afterwards a Methodist minister called on the President, and on being presented to him, said simply:—“Mr. President, I have come to tell you that I think we have got to Fox river.”  Mr. Lincoln thanked the clergyman and laughed heartily.

One day, it is said, a distinguished New York official was at Washington, and in an interview with the President, introduced the question of emancipation.  “Well, you see,” said Mr. Lincoln, “we’ve got to be mighty cautious how we manage the negro question.  If we’re not, we shall be like the barber out in Illinois, who was shaving a fellow with a hatchet face and lantern jaws like mine.  The barber put his finger in his customer’s mouth, to make his cheek stick out; but while shaving away he cut through the fellow’s cheek and cut off his own finger.  If we don’t play smart about the negro we shall do as the barber did.”

It is greatly to the credit of the President that he has since unlearned many of his Kentucky prejudices on the subject of freedom, and is now able to do what is just and right.

SOURCE: New York Daily Herald, New York, New York, Friday, February 19, 1864, p. 5, and copied from the New York Evening Post, New York, New York, Wednesday, February 17, 1864.