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Your guess: "angels" or "ages?"
08-03-2012, 10:07 AM
Post: #1
Your guess: "angels" or "ages?"
Stanton's death bed quote- what do you think: Now he belongs to the ages or angels? What does the literature mostly support?

Bill Nash
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08-03-2012, 10:14 AM
Post: #2
RE: Your guess: "angels" or "ages?"
I've heard as well as read, both ways, Bill. However, I think that the verbiage "He now belongs to the Ages" is the most oft quoted. With the heightened emotions running throughout the room and the Peterson House entirely, I think that Stanton's words could have been either "Ages" or "Angels"....when that pencil broke, we lost the exact words, but the meaning can be quite the same....

"The Past is a foreign country...they do things differently there" - L. P. Hartley
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08-03-2012, 10:47 AM
Post: #3
RE: Your guess: "angels" or "ages?"
Excellent question, Bill. I'll go with "ages" as I believe John Hay, present at the deathbed, maintained (many years later, however) that Stanton said "ages."
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08-03-2012, 10:57 AM
Post: #4
RE: Your guess: "angels" or "ages?"
I'm sentimental. I'll go this time with what I would like to believe. "Angels"

So when is this "Old Enough To Know Better" supposed to kick in?
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08-03-2012, 10:57 AM (This post was last modified: 08-03-2012 08:27 PM by LincolnMan.)
Post: #5
RE: Your guess: "angels" or "ages?"
Roger: since you mentioned John Hay- I plan on visiting his grave soon. He is buried in Cleveland. I've not been to his grave as yet. I recall that Stanton's quote is inscribed inside Lincoln's tomb. I don't remember if it says ages or angels.

Bill Nash
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08-03-2012, 11:09 AM
Post: #6
RE: Your guess: "angels" or "ages?"
I'm going to guess angels bc that seems more with the Victorian mindset...

“Within this enclosed area a structure to be inhabited by neither the living or the dead was fast approaching completion.”
~New York World 7/8/1865
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08-03-2012, 11:11 AM
Post: #7
RE: Your guess: "angels" or "ages?"
Bill,

I have the picture right in front of me as I'm typing. It says "ages" and so do I.

Best
Rob

Abraham Lincoln in the only man, dead or alive, with whom I could have spent five years without one hour of boredom.
--Ida M. Tarbell

I want the respect of intelligent men, but I will choose for myself the intelligent.
--Carl Sandburg
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08-03-2012, 11:15 AM
Post: #8
RE: Your guess: "angels" or "ages?"
(08-03-2012 11:09 AM)Lindsey Wrote:  I'm going to guess angels bc that seems more with the Victorian mindset...

that's the first time I've been told I have a Victorian mindset...thanks Lindesy

So when is this "Old Enough To Know Better" supposed to kick in?
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08-03-2012, 01:32 PM
Post: #9
RE: Your guess: "angels" or "ages?"
There is a very good article on this topic here.
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08-03-2012, 01:52 PM
Post: #10
RE: Your guess: "angels" or "ages?"
Roger: that is a great article. So it makes a case for "ages" rather than "angels"- if a comment from Stanton like that was made at all!

Bill Nash
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08-04-2012, 07:32 AM
Post: #11
RE: Your guess: "angels" or "ages?"
In either case, the words convey something about the "Lincolns" we've learned to know-the secular Lincoln (reflected in "ages") and the Lincoln that was part of the work of Providence (reflected by "angels"). Both have important implications for our understanding of him.

Bill Nash
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08-04-2012, 01:01 PM
Post: #12
RE: Your guess: "angels" or "ages?"
I feel that "Ages"because he will never be forgotten in History! Angels works also because of what he did for Mankind!
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08-04-2012, 08:21 PM
Post: #13
RE: Your guess: "angels" or "ages?"
I have to go with the Tanner version of angels. James Tanner was there to write down the final moments in the death room, unfortunately, his pencil broke. He may have been listening very intently so he could go back to his room next door and transcribe the events. While I don't know when anyone first recorded Stanton's prophetic words, my money is on James Tanner writing it down immediateley after the event.
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08-08-2012, 09:43 PM
Post: #14
RE: Your guess: "angels" or "ages?"
Lincoln's tomb goes with "ages."

Bill Nash
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08-09-2012, 05:50 AM (This post was last modified: 08-09-2012 06:03 AM by RJNorton.)
Post: #15
RE: Your guess: "angels" or "ages?"
My opinion is "ages." What I find a little surprising is Gideon Welles apparently didn't hear this at all although he was there. Or perhaps he did and chose not to include them. It's not in his diary.

Welles described the scene as follows:

"The room was small and overcrowded. The surgeons and members of the cabinet were as many as should have been in the room, but there were many more, and the hall and other rooms in the front or main house were full… A door which opened upon a porch or gallery, and also the windows, were kept open for fresh air. The night was dark, cloudy, and damp, and about six it began to rain. I remained in the room until then without sitting or leaving it, when, there being a vacant chair which some one left at the foot of the bed, I occupied it for nearly two hours, listening to the heavy groans and witnessing the wasting life of the good and great man who was expiring before me. About 6 A.M. I experienced a feeling of faintness, and for the first time after entering the room a little past eleven I left it and the house and took a short walk in the open air… A little before seven I went into the room where the dying President was rapidly drawing near the closing moments. His wife soon after made her last visit to him. The death struggle had begun. Robert, his son, stood with several others at the head of the bed. He, bore himself well but on two occasions gave way to overpowering grief and sobbed aloud, turning his head and leaning on the shoulder of Senator Sumner. The respiration of the President became suspended at intervals and at last entirely ceased at twenty-two minutes past seven."
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