Tough Love: The Day Abe Lincoln Told His Brother to Get a Job

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Before he was president, before he was a national symbol, Abraham Lincoln was a brother trying to keep his family afloat — and sometimes that meant saying the hard thing.

Most of us picture Abraham Lincoln as the patient statesman, the melancholy poet, the man who carried the weight of a nation. But long before the White House, Lincoln was something far more ordinary — a brother trying to keep his family afloat. And sometimes that meant saying "no".

In 1851, his stepbrother John D. Johnston wrote asking for money. It wasn’t the first time. Johnston had a pattern: a crisis, a plea, a promise to reform, and then another crisis. Lincoln had helped before, but this time he answered with one of the bluntest letters he ever wrote.

You are not lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether since I saw you, you have done a good whole day's work in any one day. [1]

He didn’t call Johnston lazy. He called him an idler — someone who didn't hate work, but never quite managed to do a full day of it. Lincoln diagnosed the problem with surgical precision: a habit of wasting time, a habit, Lincoln said, that would shape Johnston’s life and, more importantly, the lives of his children.

It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it; easier than they can get out after they are in. [1]

Then came the tough love.

Lincoln refused to send the $80. Instead, he offered a deal: for every dollar Johnston earned between now and May, Lincoln would match it. Ten dollars a month in wages would become twenty. It was generous, but conditional — help tied to effort, not escape.

Now if you will do this, you will soon be out of debt, and what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again. [1]

And he wasn’t shy about the stakes. When Johnston said he’d “almost give his place in Heaven” for the money, Lincoln shot back that Johnston valued Heaven very cheaply. It’s frontier sarcasm at its finest, delivered with affection and exasperation in equal measure.

Then Lincoln turned to the promise Johnston was dangling — the offer to deed him the land if he couldn’t repay the loan. To Lincoln, it wasn’t just a bad idea; it was illogical on its face.

You say if I furnish you the money you will deed me the land . . . Nonsense! If you cant now live with the land, how will you then live without it?

What makes the letter remarkable isn’t the scolding. It’s the clarity. Lincoln believed that habits become destiny. He believed that work was dignity, not punishment. And he believed that enabling someone’s worst patterns was a form of unkindness.

Then, just as the letter reaches its sternest point, he softens the ground beneath it.

You have always been kind to me, and I do not now mean to be unkind to you… if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more than eight times eighty dollars to you. [1]

It’s a striking pivot — the moral firmness giving way to reassurance. Lincoln wanted Johnston to hear the truth without mistaking it for contempt. He wasn’t punishing him; he was trying to preserve him.

And then comes the signature that tells the whole story.

Affectionately

Your brother

A. Lincoln

Johnston wasn’t his blood brother. He was the son of the man who married Lincoln’s widowed mother. Yet Lincoln signs with warmth, loyalty, and a kind of chosen kinship. Even after the lecture, even after the exasperation, he wants Johnston to know the relationship is intact — that respect and affection remain.

This wasn’t the president speaking. It was the brother who had watched Johnston drift for years and finally drew a line — not out of anger, but out of hope that Johnston might still change course.

It’s a rare glimpse of Lincoln without the marble pedestal: practical, unsentimental, loyal, and deeply responsible. A man who understood that sometimes the most loving thing you can do is help someone break the habits that are holding them back.

Profound advice from the archives of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller.

Mac

[FYI: A transcript of the letter in its entirety is posted below the Works Cited section.]

📚 Works Cited

[1] Lincoln, Abraham. “To Thomas Lincoln and John D. Johnston.” 24 December 1848. In The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 2, pp. 81–82. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953.

Here's a transcript of the entire 1848 letter.

Dear Johnston: Your request for eighty dollars, I do not think it best, to comply with now. At the various times when I have helped you a little, you have said to me "We can get along very well now" but in a very short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now this can only happen by some defect in your conduct. What that defect is I think I know. You are not lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether since I saw you, you have done a good whole day's work in any one day.

You do not very much dislike to work; and still you do not work much, merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it.

This habit of uselessly wasting time, is the whole difficulty; and it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children that you should break this habit. It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it; easier than they can get out after they are in. You are now in need of some ready money; and what I propose is, that you shall go to work, "tooth and nails" for some body who will give you money [for] it. Let father and your boys take charge of things at home---prepare for a crop, and make the crop; and you go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get. And to secure you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you, that for every dollar you will, between this and the first of next May, get for your own labor, either in money, or in your own indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dolla[rs] a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for your work. In this, I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines, in Calif[ornia,] but I [mean for you to go at it for the best wages you] can get close to home [in] Coles county. Now if you will do this, you will soon be out of debt, and what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again. But if I should now clear you out, next year you will be just as deep in as ever. You say you would almost give your place in Heaven for $70 or $80. Then you value your place in Heaven very cheaply for I am sure you can with the offer I make you get the seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months work. You say if I furnish you the money you will deed me the land, and, if you dont pay the money back, you will deliver possession. Nonsense! If you cant now live with the land, how will you then live without it? You have always been [kind] to me, and I do not now mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more than eight times eighty dollars to you. Affectionately Your brother A. LINCOLN