The National Joker

by Thompson, Todd Nathan;

  Later in the year, the Budget editors saw the need to justify their own use of humor during the war. The front page of the November 1861 issue lays out reasons to be jocular during times when the “World” is “in its most serious mood”: “a little comic emollient,” the Budget claims, can “make the great cogwheels move more easily; or, to serve up the same thought in a different shape—a cheerful face and voice are godsends . . . in that great mourning-coach, the Republic.” Lincoln, too, cited as an animus for his humor “the desire to bring cheer to others” during wartime.43 The Budget, then, found itself in the position of claiming the usefulness and even the necessity of what it chided Lincoln for doing.

  Some humor publications avoided such hypocrisy by depicting Lincoln’s levity as a necessary and humane response during a tragic period in American history. One pro-Lincoln joke book—Old Abe’s Jokes, Fresh from Abraham’s Bosom (1864)—rationalizes Lincoln’s humor by contextualizing it within the pressures and responsibilities of his office: “It would be hardly necessary to inform the nation that our President, in the midst of the anxieties of a state of war that continually torture his mind, is wont to find occasional relief in an appropriate anecdote or well-turned jest.” Of course, T. R. Dawley, “Publisher for the Millions” and of this book of Abraham Lincoln jokes, had a particular pecuniary interest in convincing readers that it was safe to laugh, both for the president and for the people. But Old Abe’s Jokes, which combines standard jokes attributed to Lincoln with a biography and several heartwarming stories of Lincoln’s kindness and compassion, goes further than merely apologizing for Lincoln’s humor. This is most evident in the entry “‘Salmon the Solemn,’ vs. Abraham the Jocular.” The comparison attacks Lincoln’s Secretary of Treasury Salmon P. Chase’s underhanded presidential aspirations, describing him as unqualified for the presidency because he was not humorous enough:

  The solemn versus the jocular are brought into curious juxtaposition by the present state of affairs. The committee of “the friends of Mr. Chase,” in their Ohio circular, call Mr. Lincoln “our jocular President.” Against him they set up Mr. Chase, of whom a prominent Boston lawyer said some years ago, “I don’t like the Governor. He is too solemn—altogether too solemn.” More than a year ago, Mr. Lincoln said that he had just discovered that the initials of Salmon P. Chase mean shinplaster currency [a nineteenth-century epithet for bank notes and other paper currency]. Perhaps he will now say that they mean shinplaster candidate. An old Greek rhetorician advises to answer your adversary’s sober arguments with ridicule, and his ridicule with sober argument.44

  This example, more sarcastic retort than joke, seems to equate statesmanship with humor as a way of defending, and reversing, charges that Lincoln’s joking was a sign of his unfitness for office. “This Reminds Me of a Little Joke” (fig. 1.6) attributes to Lincoln the same dialogue line as does “The National Joker” but “This Reminds Me” uses it to opposite effect. That is, instead of figuring Lincoln’s jocularity as crude and misplaced, this image pictures humor as political power, as a gigantic Lincoln holds his Democratic opponent, the diminutive McClellan, in the palm of his hand. Lincoln, the cartoon hints, could afford to joke about his opponents, so long as he fulfilled the duties of his office. As he makes the comment, “This reminds me of a little joke,” Lincoln is seated at his desk, which implies that his verbal play is part of his job as president. McClellan is no more than a tiny plaything, his campaign’s challenge to Lincoln’s reelection a mere “joke.”45

  Bellew, the artist who created this image, also drew “The National Joker” (see fig. 1.3); the cartoons, both of which put the same words in Lincoln’s mouth, appeared during the same month in different periodicals. In crafting two very different Lincoln images—one celebratory and one denunciatory, each using the same line of dialogue—Bellew drew upon the appropriability of visual and verbal signs and the competing political uses to which symbols and utterances can be put.46

  Satire in Circulation: Lincoln as Comic Currency

  A comparison of pro-Lincoln and anti-Lincoln joke books provides another example of how artists and audiences drew (or tried to draw) antithetical conclusions from the same comic evidence. As Zall points out, “Both parties capitalized on his fame for funny stories—Democrats in mockery, Republicans in praise of his homely humanity.”47 What he does not mention is that such “praise” and “mockery” often arose from the same jokes. For example, Old Abe’s Jokes, the anti-Lincoln Lincolniana, or Humors of Uncle Abe (1864, published by Feeks, fig. 1.7), and the seemingly politically neutral Old Abe’s Joker, or Wit at the White House (1863; fig. 1.8) share, almost verbatim, several jokes and “Lincoln stories.” One example, which appears in all three books, is a joke attributed to Lincoln about congressmen. “A Comparison” is from Lincolniana.

  One day as Uncle Abe, and a friend were sitting on the House of Representatives steps, the session closed, and the members filed out in a body. Uncle Abe looked after them with a serious smile. “That reminds me,” said he, “of a little incident when I was a boy; my flat boat lay up at Alton on the Mississippi, for a day, and I strolled about the town. I saw a large stone building, with massive stone walls, not so handsome though, as this, and while I was looking at it, the iron gateway opened, and a great body of men came out.” “What do you call that?” I asked a bystander. “That,” said he, “is the State Prison, and those are all thieves going home. Their time is up.”

  Old Abe’s Jokes offers the same story, called “Old Abe on the Congressmen”: the only differences are in wording. Lincoln is, more reverentially, called “the President” and then “Abraham” and is credited with a “sardonic” smile as he tells the story. The version in Old Abe’s Joker, also called “Old Abe on the Congressmen,” follows that in Old Abe’s Jokes almost exactly but makes it more immediate by beginning “The other day.”48 Such repetition, like Bellew’s multipurpose caption, shows that critics and supporters used essentially the same version of Lincoln to chastise or celebrate him. It is the introductory matter that distinguishes these joke books as pro-Lincoln, anti-Lincoln, or neutral; the jokes themselves are the same. These productions, it seems, utilize Lincoln as a marketing tool and a well-known reference point to connect popular humor to national politics.

  A parallel instance of the same Lincoln jokes being offered with different political intentions occurred in February 1864, when the New York Post printed multiple columns of “Several Little Stories by or about President Lincoln.” The New York Herald immediately mocked the Post (which had not yet endorsed Lincoln’s reelection) by reprinting “Several Little Stories,” with the subhead, “The Presidential Campaign: The First Electioneering Document. The Evening Post Out in Favor of ‘Old Abe.’”49 The same Lincoln jokes were used as column filler but also as sallies in a politically tinged, internecine newspaper war. Once again, it is the introductory material, not the jokes themselves, that announces the particular political stance.

  Lincoln’s persona was also widely circulated as cultural currency entirely without political affiliation. Popular-culture producers took advantage of Lincoln’s zest for humor to sell books, pamphlets, almanacs, prints, and other products. Old Abe’s Joker, or Wit at the White House, for instance, uses Lincoln’s name in its title and his image on its cover yet includes no more than ten Lincoln jokes or stories in the entire book (the joke discussed above being one example). The book’s preface as much as admits this, asking, “What could be more natural than to associate with ‘quips and cranks and wanton wiles,’ the name of one who so greatly enjoys and successfully perpetrates the fine old, full-flavored joke[?]”50 In essence, the joke book does no more than “associate” apolitical jokes with Lincoln’s name. Uncle Abe’s Comic Almanac, 1865 (1864) similarly leverages Lincoln’s fame as a satirist-statesman without entering the satiric fray at all. Here again, Lincoln is featured in the title and on the cover, but the comic almanac contains no mention of Lincoln or even of the still-raging Civil War.

 
; As Lincoln and his humorous stories were appropriated for different purposes by parties at all points on the ideological spectrum of mid-nineteenth-century America, so, too, did Lincoln engage in politically motivated cultural appropriations. Symbols, of course, “can be seized . . . and turned against those who last appropriated them,” and Lincoln was astutely aware of the importance of redefining the content of cultural symbols. This is precisely what he did, for example, after the fall of Richmond in the spring of 1865, when a crowd gathered outside the White House and shouted for the president. Lincoln emerged at the window, told the crowd that he would forgo a speech, and, instead, asked the band to play the “captured” tune of “Dixie.” He jokingly justified his request: “I have always thought ‘Dixie’ one of the best tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted yesterday that we fairly captured it. [Applause.] I presented the question to the Attorney General, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it is our lawful prize. [Laughter and applause.] I now request the band to favor me with its performance.” In making this request—note especially his tongue-in-cheek uses of the terms “appropriate,” “captured,” and “lawful prize”—Lincoln displayed his highly developed consciousness of the ideological importance of cultural symbols and especially their openness to ironic appropriation and redefinition. This was not a one-time effusion in response to good news from the front; rather, Lincoln throughout his political career operated through oppositional reoccupation of prevailing symbols and sly deflection of criticisms. As this shows, the “fluidity” of symbols does not render them meaningless or undecidable. On the contrary, “the undecidability of discourse is always, at least in certain hands, very much to the political point . . . because its undecidability makes it always open to interested appropriation.”51 Lincoln himself was an “interested” appropriator and made shrewd political use of the fluidity of the affective content of traditional political symbols.

  Lincoln seems not only to have been the object of humorous circulation but also, at times, its source. His secretary John Hay, who spread administration opinions by writing as a “special correspondent” for newspapers from Washington, D.C., to St. Louis, Missouri, likely provided some of the “Several Little Stories” (discussed above) to the New York Post. Hay also corresponded often with his friend Colonel Charles Graham Halpine (aka the satiric poetic persona Miles O’Reilly), an officer and humor columnist for the New York Herald, offering gossip and humorous anecdotes for Halpine’s satires. For example, Hay wrote Halpine in August 1863 seeking inside information on the political mood in New York City: “I know of no man upon whose statements I can so entirely rely as upon yours about New York matters. I wish you would write me as fully as you can about the real feeling and sentiment there about the conscription: What sort of a party the News represents, if any at all and what is the real strength of factions there. Your communications shall be held strictly confidential as to yourself and only used for the information of the President in any case.” Halpine, in return, wanted humorous anecdotes and bon mots from the president and other administration officials to include in his columns, most famously his O’Reilly satires, printed first in the New York Herald and then in book form as The Life and Adventures, Songs, Services, and Speeches of Private Miles O’Reilly (1864). These poems make use of Lincoln’s love of wit as a touchstone and raison d’être for the narrative of the fictional Irish poet O’Reilly. According to the story tying together the O’Reilly songs, O’Reilly was a navy seaman arrested for printing and disseminating one of his songs, most of which are military satires lampooning officers, battles, and the like. But, the story goes, Lincoln pardoned O’Reilly upon witnessing his performance in the Oval Office of “Sambo’s Right to Be Kilt,” a song about African American troops in the Union army. O’Reilly then produced a “thank-you” song for Lincoln that both praised and teased him.

  Though thraitors abused him vilely,

  He was honest an’ kindly, he loved a joke,

  An’ he pardoned Miles O’Reilly

  . . .

  If you ain’t the handsomest man in the world

  You’ve done handsome by me, an’ highly;

  And your name to postherity will go down

  Arm in arm wid Miles O’Reilly.52

  For Halpine, having a satirist in the White House gave a kind of official sanction to satirize the war, as symbolized in Lincoln’s pardon. Such satirists brought the “National Joker” into their productions as a fellow comedian, part of the joke. This affinity with other satirists is another reason why the Lincoln image was so difficult to assail satirically.

  Halpine was particularly interested in hearing from Hay how administration officials had responded to the O’Reilly satires, hoping to incorporate those reactions into subsequent pieces. This demonstrates the close connections between the Lincoln’s administration and satires on it, as well as the sometimes inextricable nature of satiric fictions and their real-life referents. Halpine couched his request to Hay in purely political terms on November 18, 1863.

  Private Miles is about to visit Washn. And be introduced to the Prest., of whom for reelection (vide Herald passim) he is a warm and devoted supporter. Have you any annecdote [sic] you could give me of what anybody said about Miles? . . . Any annecdote [sic] from the Presdt. if new would be worth its weight in gold. . . . I promise if you help me in this my hour of need that OReilly will be discreet and give you no cause to blush for him. . . . Can you give me any fresh saying or annecdote [sic] of the Prest. No matter what it may be, it can be worked in. Anything like his “plowing round the stumps that couldn’t be either grubbed or burnt out,” with which I commenced my article on Jim Lane and the Kansas Missouri troubles some five or six weeks ago. Mr [James Gordon] Bennet wishes the next OReilly paper on the Presidency and to be a strong political & Irish document for Mr. Lincoln.

  In this letter Halpine sought new material—specifically, Lincoln anecdotes and his administration’s reaction to previous satires—for his O’Reilly series, which he promised Hay he would use to promote instead of denigrate the president during the upcoming campaign. In his response, Hay reported his attempts to secure new material for Halpine by “skulking in the shadow of the Tycoon, setting all sorts of dextrous [sic] traps for a joke, telling good stories myself to draw him out and suborning [secretary John] Nicolay to aid in the foul conspiracy.” He then offered one Lincoln bon mot but encouraged Halpine “not to use it” because the anecdote was “blasphemous” and might “hurt the ‘Quaker vote.’” Halpine used it anyway.53 Whether Hay was serious in his caution to Halpine, their friendship seems to have facilitated a pipeline of humorous anecdotes from Lincoln to the press. Hay’s and Halpine’s letters reveal a symbiotic political relationship: each seeking insider information from the other, Halpine requesting “authentic” Lincoln material to enliven his satires and Hay working to preserve his boss’s dignity in the press and simultaneously circulating his humor, thus augmenting Lincoln’s reputation as a joker while leveraging it for voter appeal and to broadcast political points.

  Possibly, the most trenchant example of Lincoln’s circulation of himself as comic currency is on display in “The President’s Last, Shortest, and Best Speech” (Lincoln’s title), in which he leveraged his reputation as a humorist in order to illustrate to a national audience why the war was being fought. Noah Brooks recalled that Lincoln sent for him, handed him a short speech, and said, “Here is one speech of mine which has never been printed, and I think it worth printing. Just see what you think.” Brooks duly had the anecdote printed in the Washington, D.C., Daily Chronicle on December 7, 1864. The story, in its entirety, appears as follows:

  On thursday of last week two ladies from Tennessee came before the President asking the release of their husbands held as prisoners of war at Johnson’s Island. They were put off till friday, when they came again; and were again put off to saturday. At each of the interviews one of the ladies urged that her husband was
a religious man. On saturday the President ordered the release of the prisoners, and then said to this lady “You say your husband is a religious man; tell him when you meet him, that I say I am not much of a judge of religion, but that, in my opinion, the religion that sets men to rebel and fight against their government, because, as they think, that government does not sufficiently help some men to eat their bread on the sweat of other men’s faces, is not the sort of religion upon which people can get to heaven!”