In the July following Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration, an extra session of Congress was called. In the message then sent in, speaking of secession, and the measures taken by the Southern leaders to bring it about, there occurs the following sentence: “With rebellion thus _sugar-coated_, they have been drugging the public mind of their section for more than thirty years; until, at length, they have brought many good men to a willingness to take up arms against the government,” etc. Mr. Defrees, the government printer, told me that, when the message was being printed, he was a good deal disturbed by the use of the term “sugar-coated,” and finally went to the President about it. Their relations to each other being of the most intimate character, he told Mr. Lincoln frankly, that he ought to remember that a message to Congress was a different affair from a speech at a mass-meeting in Illinois; that the messages became a part of history, and should be written accordingly. “What is the matter now?” inquired the President. “Why,” said Mr. Defrees, “you have used an undignified expression in the message;” and then, reading the paragraph aloud, he added, “I would alter the structure of that, if I were you.” “Defrees,” replied Mr. Lincoln, “that word expresses precisely my idea, and I am not going to change it. The time will never come in this country when the people won’t know exactly what _sugar-coated_ means!” On a subsequent occasion, Mr. Defrees told me, a certain sentence of another message was very awkwardly constructed. Calling the President’s attention to it in the proof-copy, the latter acknowledged the force of the objection raised, and said, “Go home, Defrees, and see if you can better it.” The next day Mr. Defrees took in to him his amendment. Mr. Lincoln met him by saying: “Seward found the same fault that you did, and he has been rewriting the paragraph also.” Then, reading Mr. Defrees’s version, he said, “I believe you have beaten Seward; but, ‘I jings,’ I think I can beat you both.” Then, taking up his pen, he wrote the sentence as it was finally printed. Mr. George E. Baker, Mr. Seward’s private secretary, informed me that he was much amused and interested in a phase of Mr. Lincoln’s character which came under his own observation. It was Mr. Baker’s province to take to the President all public documents from the State Department requiring his signature. During the first few months, Mr. Lincoln would read each paper carefully through, always remarking, “I never sign a document I have not first read.” As his cares increased, he at length departed from his habit so far as to say to the messenger, “Won’t you read these papers to me?” This went on for a few months, and he then modified this practice by requesting “a synopsis of the contents.” His time became more and more curtailed, and for the last year his only expression was, “Show me where you want my name?”