Subject: [HM] A real Lincoln quotation
From: J.M. Plotkin (plotkin@math.msu.edu)
Date: Fri Feb 11 2000 - 08:47:09 EST
> Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 16:45:54 -0500 (EST)
> From: William C Waterhouse <wcw@math.psu.edu>
> Subject: [HM] A supposed Lincoln quotation ...
>
> On Wed, 26 Jan 2000, "Herbert E. Kasube" <hkasube@hilltop.bradley.edu>
> gave a good secondary source for a quotation given by Pat Touhey:
>
> " ...you can never make a lawyer if you do not understand what
> 'demonstrate' means; and I left my situation in Springfield, went
> home to my father's house and stayed there till I could give any
> proposition in the six books of Euclid at sight. I then found out
> what 'demonstrate' means, and went back to my law studies."
> - Abraham Lincoln
>
> It is included in Bill Dunham's The Mathematical Universe
> (page 95).
>
> That was enough for me to track it down. Dunham took it from a book
> called _The Face of Lincoln_, by James Mellon; that book reproduces
> many pictures of Lincoln with writings by and about him. This
> one (p. 67) comes from an account (published 1864) of a train ride
> that Lincoln supposedly shared with the author in 1860. The author
> was John P. Gulliver, a Connecticut minister and later president of
> Knox College.
>
> Unfortunately, despite the seemingly good attestation, the account
> is worthless. The standard book _Recollected Words of Abraham
> Lincoln_, by Don E. Fehrenbacher and Virginia Fehrenbacher,
> introduces the account by calling it "an excellent early example
> of pretended reminiscence at work constructing the Lincoln myth."
> Its final note is this:
>
> "In a devastating critique of this article, Herndon pointed out
> a number of factual errors. For instance, Lincoln never was a
> law clerk and never visited his parents for any extended
> period of time."
>
>
> William C. Waterhouse
> Penn State
>
A real Lincoln quote from the Library of America's two volumes on
Lincoln:
"One would start with great confidence that he could convince any
sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but
nevertheless, he would fail, utterly, with one who would deny the
definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the
definitions and axioms of a free society." ------ Lincoln: letter
to Henry L. Pierce and others 1859
Jacob Plotkin
Michigan State
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