In all Lincoln’s writings, even his most important state papers, his chief desire was to make himself clearly understood by the common reader.  He had a great aversion to what he called “machine writing,” and used the fewest words possible to express his meaning.  He never hesitated to employ a homely expression when it suited his purpose.  In his first message the phrase “sugar-coated” occurred; and when it was printed, Mr. Defrees, the Public Printer, being on familiar terms with the President, ventured an objection to the phrase—­suggesting that Lincoln was not now preparing a campaign document or delivering a stump speech in Illinois, but constructing an important state paper that would go down historically to all coming time; and that therefore he did not consider the phrase “sugar-coated” as entirely a becoming and dignified one.  “Well, Defrees,” replied Lincoln, good-naturedly, “if you think the time will ever come when the people will not understand what ‘sugar-coated’ means, I’ll alter it; otherwise, I think I’ll let it go.”

On the same subject, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe says:  “Our own politicians were somewhat shocked with his state papers at first.  ’Why not let us make them a little more conventional, and file them to a classical pattern?’ ‘No,’ was his reply, ’I shall write them myself. The people will understand them.’  ’But this or that form of expression is not elegant, not classical.’ ‘The people will understand it,’ has been his invariable reply.  And whatever may be said of his state papers as compared with the classic standards, it has been a fact that they have always been wonderfully well understood by the people, and that since the time of Washington the state papers of no President have more controlled the popular mind.  One reason for this is that they have been informal and undiplomatic.  They have more resembled a father’s talk to his children than a state paper.  They have had that relish and smack of the soil that appeal to the simple human heart and head, which is a greater power in writing than the most artful devices of rhetoric.  Lincoln might well say with the apostle, ’But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge, but we have been thoroughly made manifest among you in all things.’  His rejection of what is called ’fine writing’ was as deliberate as St. Paul’s, and for the same reason—­because he felt that he was speaking on a subject which must be made clear to the lowest intellect, though it should fail to captivate the highest.  But we say of Lincoln’s writing, that for all true manly purposes there are passages in his state papers that could not be better put; they are absolutely perfect.  They are brief, condensed, intense, and with a power of insight and expression which make them worthy to be inscribed in letters of gold.”