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 CORailGHT DEPOSm 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 AN ADDRESS BY 
 
 CLARK PRESCOTT BISSETT 
 
 I) 
 
 PROFESSOR OF LAW 
 UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON 
 SEATTLE, WASHINGTON 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 
 
 CANNELL SMITH CHAFFIN COMPANY 
 
 MDCCCCXVI 
 
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 corrwGHT 1916 
 
 BT 
 CASXEli SMITH CHAFrIX C?lfPAXy 
 
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 SEP -5 1916 
 
 ICIA437555 
 
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To ]VIr. J. D. Farrell, these simple words 
 are dedicated as a token of my respect and 
 affection ; as a slight evidence of mj' ever 
 increasing gratitude for his friendship and 
 generosity towards me when the sky was 
 clouded and the hope of life seemed verj' small. 
 Clark Prescott Bissett 
 
LINCOLN 
 
 Stripped to the soul of every vain conceit, 
 I stand before the record of his deeds. 
 
 O mighty man, so humble and so sweet, 
 
 O heart, so quick to throb for human needs. 
 
 Charles Eugene Banks. 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 The blood of a man is the blood of his 
 ancestors for generations, perhaps for seons. 
 How far back into the dim past must we 
 grope to find the seed blood of such a man as 
 Abraham Lincoln? 
 
 Through what numberless selections, 
 receiving and denying, was that process car- 
 ried on ? How many violations of nature's law 
 by Febellious atoms, brought destruction to the 
 unfit, and cleared the wav for the harmonizing 
 of the fit through these myriads upon mvriads 
 of life channels, until at last the emancipator 
 was born? These are-the thoughts which grip 
 and hold when the character and works of 
 America's greatest soul genius is considered. 
 There is no answer. Deit}*. Who knows all 
 laws and the working of them, is alone cogni- 
 zant of such things. Yet a little knowledge of 
 the course of the stars in their orbits compels 
 the recognition of law in all creation, all utter- 
 ance. Chance is pushed aside immediately the 
 [ 1 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 realm of reason is entered. Nothing is by- 
 chance. If a grain of sand had its conception, 
 before the mists of which the earth is made 
 had cooled, is a Lincoln to come into being by 
 a cast of mortal dice? Was this harmonious 
 representative of all the best in physical, 
 mental, moral and soul endowment of less 
 moment to the Universal Creator than a spar- 
 row, which does not fall to the ground without 
 His notice? Is the genius of a Wagner, who 
 brought together such sublime harmonies, 
 accidental? And did the man who struck the 
 cords of universal rights, universal justice, and 
 universal democracy, have less care from the 
 Father of all life, than His simpler creations? 
 Abraham Lincoln is the name of a combina- 
 tion of Nature's forces in such harmonious 
 union, that the more they were beaten upon, 
 the more they proved their divine metal, the 
 brighter the effulgence they emitted. Pore 
 over all the records of his life, which is one of 
 the simplest and most open that this earth has 
 ever seen, and there is no point of it that shows 
 the least flaw when measured by the Rule of 
 Truth. 
 
 [2 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 An intellectual giant may be developed by 
 culture from an inferior brain and body. A 
 great general, like Napoleon, may be in a sense 
 the product of his environment. A great 
 inventor like Edison may be forced to his 
 highest point by application and the study of 
 science applied to natural law. A great 
 philosopher like Socrates may be developed 
 through the channels of observation and the 
 warmth of his heart. A great financier like 
 Gould or Morgan may be educated to suprem- 
 acy in the school of business, big and little. 
 But a wise lawgiver, like Solomon or Lincoln, 
 is not born of the flesh but of the spirit. Jus- 
 tice, the sense of it even, cannot be put into a 
 man's brain and heart by any process of edu- 
 cation, or environment, or experience. 
 
 The one attribute of Abraham Lincoln that 
 ruled his being like a central sun was Justice. 
 All other attributes circled around it and were 
 governed by it. You may call it Justice or you 
 may call it love. It matters not, for there is 
 no difiference in the quality or quantity of these 
 two words. An earthly being whose motive 
 power is justice will do exactly the same things 
 [ 3 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 under the same circumstances as one whose 
 motive power is love. This statement is capa- 
 ble of proof, from comparison of the two or 
 three figures in the records of the world who 
 have best represented these chief attributes of 
 Deity. 
 
 Lincoln the boy was as just as Lincoln the 
 man. He required no precedent on which to 
 found his reasoning. He was as ready as Solo- 
 mon to give his decision on any vital point and 
 his verdicts were as simple and uncontroverti- 
 ble. Born and reared on the borderland 
 between states that were divided on a question 
 which had reached no decisive solution, 
 through all the ages, outside of religious phi- 
 losophy, he never even debated it in his own 
 mind. A union of states meant the union of the 
 individual, and neither was open to secession. 
 
 An inharmonious intellect was as much at 
 war with itself, in his high temple of thought, 
 as an inharmonious state, or country, or king- 
 dom. He saw in the Union under the Decla- 
 ration of Independence, the Union of the indi- 
 vidual — the harmonious man, capable of self- 
 government, subject to no man's dictation, as 
 [4] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 far as the life, and the freedom to live that life, 
 in the world of justice could be carried: such 
 a thing as human ownership of another human 
 being could not be, in the thought of the child 
 or the man Lincoln. He acknowledged no 
 allegiance to any power on earth. His Creator 
 was his sole and only King. The union of the 
 States was a symbol to him of his union with 
 God. 
 
 Study him as you may, by his own words, 
 by the records made of him through his inti- 
 mates, and by his acts, and you will find no 
 other Lincoln than this. If the times in which 
 he lived brought to light this attribute of jus- 
 tice in all its pure radiance, that does not argue 
 that the times were the cause of it. Not at all. 
 The Union had hundreds of men of far greater 
 educational virtues, far superior culture, far 
 broader experience, and of no less human sym- 
 pathies — Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd 
 Garrison, John Brown, Stephen A. Douglas, 
 his great rival; Salmon P. Chase, Edwin A. 
 Stanton, and the great prime minister, Wil- 
 liam H. Seward ; but none of these had lighted 
 in his soul the lamp of justice. Not one of 
 [ 5 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 them could bring himself to love his personal 
 enemy: much less the enemies of his theory 
 of government. Lincoln proved himself to be 
 compounded of Love and Justice, so absolutely 
 so, that he never judged any man. He may 
 have punished because he himself obeyed the 
 law of justice, but he did not cease to love. 
 
 We talk of democracy, but the world has 
 known but few democrats — perhaps not more 
 than two. To see every human being as an 
 equal before the law of justice is impossible 
 to any merely educated intelligence. 
 
 The eyes that look upon men, as the rain 
 falls, alike on the just and on the unjust, are 
 not subject to the light of libraries. They shine 
 with the light of heaven. No mortal reason 
 can bring a man to this sublime philosophy. 
 Such a state of mind is foolishness to culture. 
 Even religious enthusiasm falls far short of 
 this God-like contemplation of the things of 
 this world. But Abraham Lincoln so saw, so 
 felt, so understood. Black or white, bond or 
 free, friend or enemy, he saw them all in love 
 — "Father, forgive them, for they know not 
 what they do," speaks out boldly in his every 
 [ 6 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 utterance, beams out benignly from his every 
 act. 
 
 The books that have been written in an 
 endeavor to express their authors' reflection of 
 this man Lincoln, now make a large library. 
 But not one of them, written as they are out 
 of the best heart's love, compares with the man 
 Lincoln, or begins to shine with his illimitable 
 personality. Records of him are material. He 
 himself was a living flame, burning grandly, 
 but steadily, making plain the smallest fibre 
 of any fact to which its rays were directed. 
 Such a man is beyond description. The noblest 
 mind among men can do no more than to 
 appreciate him to its greatest bent, and then it 
 finds itself only in the borderland of his clear 
 thought. What matter if his boots were 
 unblacked, or his coat ill-fitting. There was 
 not a stain upon his heart, nor a wrinkle in his 
 soul. His simplest sentence is a thunderbolt: 
 his fiercest anathema a blessing. He walks 
 the land today, a spirit of colossal proportions 
 by which men, measured by their words and 
 acts, are the merest pigmies. 
 [ 7 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 ever lost a batdc 
 lus gEmcaSakdp lattcd obIt fow years, and 
 
 war. T irnhi^s woik cadaied from the cradle 
 am iaio dcnu^, aad his batdcs were in the 
 fcigl h iu doads of hsnaa leana, aad he too 
 ■ever lost a bottlcL His loot never took a 
 backward stqiL Hb jiig^nrt never failed. 
 Nciikcr did Ids lopve pale ncM- his josdce repent. 
 Look ^onthat hondj iMctned face hang- 
 stndfvralL Do too doc fed a 
 glow in jomr heart? Do not the 
 in jami l»ain fall into sweet 
 Does not limn niilj show itself in 
 Do not penonal j mb iti ons 
 fade? Do not ^■■■"'"'■** die awar? And is 
 fhcie not yniMlMi^ bom in yonr whole being 
 a conscionsness oi haimonr and sweet secnritr 
 for the eventnal salvation of the peoples of the 
 eaith? Snch is the innoftal inlnrnrr of 
 Abraham Linrffln No other man who crer 
 tiod the earth stands as dose to the heart of 
 the viorld as Abrdiam I inmin sare He who 
 for all III li inil the trarhingp that was 
 to befl^ aemf^ified — *«»g moftals; 
 [«] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 by this cabin-bom son of American pioneers, 
 and whose going out from this life wrought 
 not only a union of the States, but, for that 
 hour of mourning at least, the Union of all the 
 peoples of the earth. 
 
 On February 12th, 1809, a child was bom 
 in whose veins flowed the pure blood of pro- 
 test against ever\" form of despotism and 
 oppression. That child was Abraham Lin- 
 coln. The most exhaustive research, bearing 
 upon his lineage, fails to reveal among his 
 ancestors any one foreign to the Anglo-Saxon 
 race. In him met and commingled the sturdy 
 Puritan Roundhead of Massachusetts and the 
 chivalric cavalier of old Virginia. Back of 
 that, the line leads to the two divisions of 
 England's best blood, facing each other in the 
 historic War of the Roses. Religious coercion 
 on the one hand, and property despotism on the 
 other, had forced the Puritans out of England 
 to the inhospitable shores of Massachusetts; 
 the unfortunate and pleasure-loving debtor 
 children of the cavaliers to the softer climate 
 of the Chesapeake. In this new environment, 
 these different strains of Briton's conquerors 
 [9] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 were again pressed together for self-preserva- 
 tion ; with the Mother Country hounding them 
 from the sea, and hordes of savages threat- 
 ening them by land, the American Colonist 
 wrested freedom from the one, and a princely 
 domain from the other. The Roundheads, 
 moving westward from Massachusetts into 
 Pennsylvania, and thence southward into Vir- 
 ginia, and the cavaliers journeying from the 
 Chesapeake into Kentucky and Tennessee, 
 became one again, after a hundred years of 
 separation, in a race of hardy pioneers; in a 
 new country, which was the immediate refuge 
 of the persecuted and oppressed of all western 
 Europe, wherein English, Dutch, Spanish, 
 French and Portuguese exiles found foothold 
 and clung with the last despairing hope of 
 ultimate freedom. Abraham Lincoln's fore- 
 fathers, paternal and maternal, seem never to 
 have mated outside their tribe. By the process 
 of elimination, the great Emancipator stands 
 out as the purest type of an American, whether 
 he be considered from a standpoint of ancestry 
 or achievement. How many generations of 
 Protestant dissenters, of Puritan idealism, of 
 [ 10 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 final pilgrimage into the savage wilderness, of 
 cavalier glory, passionate love of life, and ulti- 
 mate poverty and woe, were woven and knitted 
 into the strange child-life that Nancy Hanks 
 brought into the world, in the floorless cabin, 
 on the Kentucky frontier! What memories of 
 good fighting on sea and land, of Norsemen 
 with flowing hair shining in the sun, bearing 
 down upon swarthy Franks who met them in 
 the death grapple for territorial supremacy! 
 What subconscious dreams of kingly courts, 
 of brave jousts for love or fame, of holy Cru- 
 sades, of gradual loss of religious and political 
 freedom, of sturdy rebellion, of bloody inter- 
 necine war, of sacrifice and persecution, with 
 the primal principle of self-government, burn- 
 ing forever in the heart! 
 
 When the original seed from which Abra- 
 ham Lincoln sprung is considered, the splen- 
 did manhood and womanhood that culminated 
 in his being, is not so much a matter of won- 
 der: it seems more like the positive demonstra- 
 tion of a scientific fact. 
 
 It is, or seems to be, a provision of nature, 
 that her very greatest children should have the 
 [ 11 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 ven- humblest birth and childhood. The 
 Master of all men was born in a stable and 
 reared amidst poverty and toil. The master 
 of all literature, Shakespeare, was of humble 
 birth, and his early years were passed in 
 obscuritN* and privation. Lincoln, the master 
 of all Republican rulers, was bom to sorrow, 
 privation, toil, and the most meager intellec- 
 tual advantages. His childhood and youth 
 were passed in a region so isolated, and among 
 a people so scattered and poverty stricken, that 
 the record of his life, as he himself declared, 
 can be compressed into a single line of Gray's 
 Eleg>-, 
 
 "The short and simple annals of the poor." 
 That a man who has stamped his genius, his 
 personality', his unexampled mind and char- 
 acter, in large letters upon the golden pages of 
 the world's most sublime and colossal events, 
 and. at the same time, flooded his surroundings 
 with a halo of purit\\ gentleness and immeas- 
 urable love, will always be a matter of aston- 
 ishment and wonder. To penetrate even a 
 little way into his great heart, and see even 
 dimly with his unclouded vision, the under- 
 [ 12 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 lying principle of human life, is to be born 
 again. Nothing short of Divine inspiration 
 can give the measure of his wisdom and uni- 
 versal love. 
 
 If we are to attribute his genius to the evo- 
 lution of blood and birth, we must see in one 
 comprehensive view, the Greek, the Roman, 
 the Gaul, the ancient Hebrew, and the Jew of 
 the first century of the Christian era, the Nor- 
 man, the Saxon, the Celt, and the swiftly 
 sweeping pageantry of western Europe, with 
 all these pouring its best heart's blood into the 
 little Island of Britain, where it is purified 
 in the seething melting pot of struggle for 
 human liberty, to flow out again anew into the 
 settlement of the American Colonies. Here 
 we find it cr\^stallizing in the perfect expres- 
 sion of all human rights, human hopes and 
 human ideals, in the one greatest world's sen- 
 tence: ''We hold these truths to be self-evi- 
 dent, that all men are created equal, that they 
 are endowed by their Creator with certain 
 unalienable rights, that among these are life, 
 liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Fur- 
 ther than this, the mind of man cannot go; 
 [ 13 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 higher it cannot reach; deeper it cannot pene- 
 trate; more just or merciful it cannot be. 
 
 Here is reached the loftiest conception of 
 life, among a noble and perfected people. 
 That such a state of existence has never been 
 approached upon this earth, does not weaken 
 in the least the force and substance of this 
 highest truth. As the human heart conceived 
 it and gave it form and utterance, so the 
 human heart everywhere and under all cir- 
 cumstances, recognizes the glorious possibility 
 of its final achievement, and the humblest 
 and most ignorant conceive somewhat of the 
 blessed state of life in such a society; and it 
 was the application of this perfect principle 
 of government to all the afifairs of life, that 
 made Abraham Lincoln the foremost figure 
 in his day and which is lifting him higher and 
 higher in the scale of human greatness, as the 
 years go by. 
 
 For every child born into the world, there 
 is a stir in the universe. It cannot be other- 
 wise, if men are souls, and the children of 
 God. Human life attains dignity, as we real- 
 ize this stupendous fact. Each individual 
 [ 14 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 coming and going in the earth-world must 
 have a meaning, must be a definite and authen- 
 ticated note in the composition of life: other- 
 wise, there can be no meaning in the statement 
 on which the government of America is 
 founded. Unless men are born with equal 
 privileges to struggle, and strive, and rise to 
 the heights of their nature, there is nothing 
 either just or merciful in the scheme of things. 
 
 In the drama of today, characters are cast 
 for each part. The story of all human en- 
 deavor, once it has passed into history, shows 
 each incident, each act, to have been well con- 
 sidered, each event to have its correct place in 
 the unfoldment of history, whether it be that 
 of a man or a nation. Each epoch has its cen- 
 tral figure, and over against this mighty genius 
 is set a number of contrasting figures, ambi- 
 tious either to rise with the mighty one, or to 
 overthrow him and triumph above his ashes. 
 
 Such a world-soul was Abraham Lincoln. 
 Into the New-Old Confederation of States, he 
 came to weld them into a political monism, a 
 union indivisable; a government in which 
 each and every individual, born American, or 
 [ 15 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 achieving that relationship through acquired 
 legal citizenship, has equal power in the con- 
 duct of the government, with every other indi- 
 vidual. The advent of this kindly man upon 
 the arena of American politics, when the ques- 
 tion arose as to what kind of a government the 
 United States had, was providential. Under 
 his master hand the Union was firmly estab- 
 lished, the whipping post forever abolished, 
 and four millions of human beings set free. 
 
 Centuries had been preparin-g for such a 
 man. The old Hebrew prophets lived and 
 uttered their unequaled wisdom, that it might 
 leaven the thought and culture of the ages. 
 The lowly Nazarene declared the truth of 
 man's divinity, that the light of liberty might 
 never go out of the world. Into western 
 Europe poured the best blood of all the ancient 
 peoples, and finally in the Island of Britain 
 came the day when the printed Bible was on 
 the table of every family, and the spirit of it 
 became the very life blood of the Anglo-Saxon 
 race. Then when, because of this very book, 
 bitter persecution drove honest men and 
 women to brave the hardships and dangers of 
 [ 16 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 the new world, this same book became the 
 chief corner stone in. the government of the 
 colonies. 
 
 As is so finely said by the learned Doctor 
 Levy: "The advent of men of genius is an 
 inexplicable event. They are the unantici- 
 pated lightning flashes in a wintry sky. They 
 illuminate the horizon like an unexpected 
 Aurora Borealis. They break chains. They 
 loosen fetters. They rend shackles. They 
 depose policy and enthrone principle. They 
 pierce the demons of injustice with the glit- 
 tering sword of right. They are as dew in the 
 heat of conflict, and water to the soul that 
 thirsts. In a word, they are the incarnation of 
 the Spirit of God. Like the breaking of the 
 dawn they come, the bringers of good tidings. 
 They are the heroes of a new era. * * * 
 They sow spiritual seed. They lead many 
 unto righteousness. The cause of God pros- 
 pers in their hands. * * * Upon their 
 shoulders is placed the task of bearing the bur- 
 dens of human suffering. Upon their tragic 
 faces are burned the rugged lines of care. 
 Gaunt and unlovely in appearance, awkward 
 [ 17 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 and often unpolished in speech, unwilling to 
 bend the knee to the Baal of social convention, 
 they are hated and despised of their age. They 
 are the men who hear the voice of God speak- 
 ing from the flaming heights, aye, from the 
 Sinai of the human heart. They are the men 
 who see God in the wilderness; they speak to 
 Him face to face. They follow Him. They 
 cannot turn back. A long-ranged view of 
 humanity is granted them. They cannot be 
 untrue to the heavenly vision. Right and jus- 
 tice, truth and goodness are the accents they 
 hear with the spiritual organ of an inspired 
 imagination. They cannot if they would, be 
 faithless to the eternal music of the spheres. 
 Grim and grave they are, set of jaw and firm 
 of purpose. They can die, but they cannot and 
 will not lie. When in the silent watches of 
 the night others sleep, they hold communion 
 with the spirit of the universe. When others 
 are occupied building fortunes up to the heav- 
 ens, only to hide heaven from the view, they 
 are exploring the elemental truths of human 
 existence and pledging their all in defense of 
 them. 
 
 [ 18 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 "When these men of moral genius have seen 
 from afar the Land of Promise; when God has 
 vouchsafed to them a vision of the City Beau- 
 tiful; when there flashes upon their inner con- 
 sciousness a picture of aNew Jerusalem; when 
 they dream of the City whose name is right- 
 eousness, whose walls are holiness, whose ruler 
 is equity, and whose defense is love; they can- 
 not eat, they cannot sleep, they cannot drink, 
 until they have shared with others that which 
 God has vouchsafed to them. Like lofty 
 mountain peaks, they stand alone. They 
 desire solitude for a time. They speak with 
 God and bring unbreakable tables of right and 
 truth to their fellow men. These men are the 
 salt of the earth. They are the saviours of 
 mankind. Among every race such men are to 
 be found. Wherever God's sun illuminates 
 the earth, there at some time or another, such 
 men have arisen to witness to the light, to be 
 spokesmen for the causes dear to the Heart 
 of God." 
 
 So the genealogy of the great Emancipator 
 should begin with Socrates and touch upon 
 every mountain peak of human love and uni- 
 [ 19 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 Tcml bnMhcikood thnMii^i all tbc igcs. It is 
 ■Qt mu MLppii^ the boads of coascicndous- 
 ■cs^ lo fed tlttt A htjiu m Lnoolii was the 
 Mood biothci of diose lew onhrcisad seers and 
 wlio stand m die white light of 
 ■mI oofilieiiiig lore opoo the Gol- 
 goAas of glo ffioo s maityidooL 
 
 An iMBBai i c uM d s arc hot broken fng- 
 ■cats of aBOBls progress ooward from slime 
 fnan ca[vc aid cabin, to the present 
 ih oofih t is flashed aroond the 
 before the lips that utter it rest 
 Those who have been most 
 to keep complete from root to 
 the family tree, must generally 
 be cati^fed with the efiFon itself. The world 
 kas caaac to search such records for the 
 TV of a pTDDOODCcd character. Nature 
 'rlight in playing tricks with pride 
 -^ Perhaps the All-Father would 
 dren. in this way, their utter 
 Him, and grind it into 
 t& that man has but one 
 
 FiL 
 
 •^ selected and distin- 
 : were a rugged and 
 [20] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 honest race, as the book of his genealogy 
 proves; this plain, simple man of the people 
 might have traced his ancestn* back to the best 
 blood of England. The table of his genealogy- 
 shows this surprising fact, that the Lincoln 
 stock, the branch at least which produced 
 Abraham Lincoln, by some indefinable law. 
 which we must ascribe to Divine Providence 
 (for it is too clear and direct to be the result 
 of chance), kept itself pure to its ancestral 
 stock. Even the same family names recur 
 again and again, generation after generation. 
 Biblical names for the most part with alwavs 
 an Abraham, as though, like the Children of 
 Israel, thev were awaiting the birth of the 
 divinely commissioned to lift humanitv one 
 step higher in the understanding of itself, and 
 make one ray clearer, what are the just and 
 happv relations of men, the one with another. 
 
 "The color of tiie groond was in him. The rrd earth : 
 The rang md odor of ike prand tUogs — 
 The rectitadc and la yimnr of Ar reds; 
 The ^^^itf«. of Ac -wrind that shakes the com : 
 Tbc cew ir age of tbe bard that dares the sea : 
 The justice of dbe raia tkat kves all leaves : 
 The phy of snow tkat Indes all scars : 
 [21 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 The loving kindness of the wayside well ; 
 The tolerance and equity of light 
 That gives as freely to the shrinking weed 
 As to the great oak flaring to the wind — 
 To the grave's low hill as the Matterhorn 
 That shoulders out the sky." 
 
 As an epoch of human history becomes 
 remote, there is visible, to the eyes of those 
 who see, the figure of some man who is recog- 
 nized as its great embodiment. The golden 
 age of Greece is summed up in Pericles. 
 Julius Cssar was the supreme expression of an 
 age of power and law. The great Cromwell 
 interpreted the English protest against every 
 form of despotism. At this distance from the 
 sixties, and that great, sad struggle, it is appar- 
 ent that the colossal form rising above all oth- 
 ers, is the weird figure of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The story of that boy as he grew to man- 
 hood is now a household legend, cherished in 
 every American home: a chore boy at seven- 
 teen, six feet four in his stockings — when he 
 had any; a rail splitter; a farm hand; a clerk 
 in the country store of Denton-Ofifut & Com- 
 pany, at New Salem; so honest that when one 
 day he took six cents over much from a cus- 
 [ 22 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN" 
 
 tomer, he could not go to bed until that even- 
 ing, after his day's work, he walked three 
 miles into the country to pay back the money; 
 a champion wrestler; a story teller, enchanting 
 the village with his droll tales; a captain in 
 the Black Hawk War; a member of the 
 unlucky firm of Berry & Lincoln, the latter of 
 whom sprawled on the store counter, or on the 
 grass in the orchard, reading Blackstone, while 
 his dissolute partner drank whiskey; a bank- 
 rupt, whose store had winked out and left him, 
 so he said, with the national debt of eleven 
 hundred dollars on his hands; a postmaster, 
 carrying the mail around in his hat; a deputy 
 surveyor, whose instruments were sold for 
 debt; an almost desperate lover, grieving for 
 Ann Rutledge; a candidate for the legislature, 
 and not a very promising one either, in a 
 mixed green coat, flax and tow linen panta- 
 loons, a straw hat and pot metal boots, a 
 wardrobe hardly up even to the Sangamon 
 County standard. Fortunately the good peo- 
 ple of his country knew that clothes do not 
 make men, and they soon discovered that in 
 intelligent capacity and in loftiness of purpose 
 [ 23 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 he exceeded all the candidates. Of his experi- 
 ence as a legislator; of his triumphs during his 
 twenty-five years' practice at the Illinois bar; 
 of his famous speech at the Springfield con- 
 vention, when, as he put it, willing to go down, 
 linked to the truth in the advocacy of what 
 was just and right, he said: "A house divided 
 against itself cannot stand. I believe this gov- 
 ernment cannot endure permanently half slave 
 and half free. I do not expect the Union to 
 be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall. 
 But I do expect it will cease to be divided"; 
 and of his nomination and election to the 
 Presidency, I need not here speak in detail. 
 It is enough to say that in all these, we find 
 the same man, shrewd, sturdy, unconventional, 
 svmpathetic, always eager to play fair, with a 
 keen sense of humor, but with the deep under- 
 tone of melancholy, which does not allow us 
 to forget the mother buried in the forest clear- 
 ing. As Mr. Pillsbur\' says: "How strange 
 and startling are the dramatic shifts of scene 
 and circumstance that attend the unfolding of 
 this unique character. The forlorn backwoods 
 boy turns out to be the appointed head of a 
 [ 24 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 great nation, in a crisis affecting the fate of the 
 world. The obscure country lawyer reveals 
 in a phrase what a people is waiting to hear, 
 and becomes in a day the prophet of a cause. 
 The uncouth westerner from the prairies, 
 unpracticed in arms, or in statescraft, outmas- 
 ters the statesmen, outwits the diplomatists, 
 gives the generals their plan of campaign. 
 The unlettered man of the people speaks lofty 
 eloquence soon to become classic. The raw 
 politician, who never held public power for a 
 day, takes the helm of state, when the ship is 
 already on the rocks, when all the pilots and 
 captains stand helpless and appalled, to bring 
 her in safety and triumph through the storm. 
 The awkward clown, reviled and lampooned 
 over two continents, in four years is canonized 
 by mankind. Without training, without exter- 
 nal attractions, without worldly advantage, 
 this child of poor frontier folk makes his way 
 out of the wilderness to fix for all time the eyes 
 of the world upon him, as a leader of the peo- 
 ple, the liberator of the slave, the deliverer of 
 his country, and in another turn of the kalei- 
 doscope, to be numbered with the glorious 
 [ 25 ] 
 
 y 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 company of the martyrs and with Thy saints 
 in glory everlasting." 
 
 When the Republican convention met in 
 Chicago in 1860, the name of Abraham Lin- 
 coln was not much known beyond the narrow 
 confines of his own state. He had gained cer- 
 tain prominence in his debates with Douglas, 
 but he had been rejected by the state in his 
 fight for the senatorship. Here again was a 
 case where the stone which the builders 
 rejected was destined in the Providence of 
 God to become the head of the corner — and 
 to a great majority of the men composing the 
 Republican party, he was not thought to be a 
 serious presidential possibility. The name 
 which was most prominently before the Re- 
 publicans was that of William H. Seward of 
 New York. He was the recognized leader of 
 the Republican party, and, speaking broadly, 
 the country expected him to receive the nom- 
 ination. That Seward expected to be nom- 
 inated is beyond question. He had resigned 
 from the United States Senate, and had gath- 
 ered his friends around him, in his home at 
 Auburn, and was awaiting the message which 
 [ 26 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 should announce to him that he was the stand- 
 ard-bearer of the then new Republican party. 
 The result of that convention we all know. 
 The message announcing Seward's nomination 
 did not come, but, instead, a message came 
 bearing the startling intelligence that Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, the country lawyer of Illinois, 
 had been chosen. But even after Lincoln was 
 nominated, a large percentage of the Repub- 
 licans felt that the choice of the convention 
 was an unwise one, and that, after all, Seward 
 w^as the only man worthy of the full confidence 
 of the party. They reasoned: "Seward is a 
 tried and trusted statesman, his long and useful 
 experience as Governor of New York, and as 
 Senator from that State, have given ample 
 executive and legislative experience," and, as 
 they themselves said: "The nomination of 
 Lincoln was the triumph of unobjectionable 
 mediocrity over greatness, which had of neces- 
 sity, during a long series of public services, 
 raised up many enemies to itself." 
 
 "The result of the Chicago convention," 
 wrote the committee to Seward, "has been 
 more than a surprise to the Republicans of 
 [ 27 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 New York. That you who have been the 
 earliest defender of Republican principles — 
 the acknowledged head and leader of the 
 party, who have given directions to its move- 
 ments and form and substance to its acts — that 
 you should have been put aside upon the nar- 
 row ground of expediency, we can hardly 
 realize or believe. Whatever the decision of 
 this, or a hundred other conventions, we rec- 
 ognize in vou the real leader of the Republi- 
 can party; and the citizens of every State and 
 of all creeds and parties, and the history of 
 our country will confirm this judgment." 
 
 It is but just, however, to say that despite 
 this feeling, Seward did not even for a moment 
 forget his allegiance to the great principles of 
 his party, and threw himself heart and soul 
 into the campaign and worked with a vigor 
 and eloquence which did much to accomplish 
 the glorious results, and yet withal, the opinion 
 of the great prime minister regarding Lincoln 
 had not changed. He still considered him a 
 weak and untried man, and his personal letters 
 of this period revealed the startling fact that 
 he (Seward) regarded himself as the only per- 
 [ 28 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 son capable of preserving the Union, and his 
 acceptance of the portfolio of State was in 
 view of the necessity of some strong and able 
 hand to guide the destinies of the incoming 
 administration. Lincoln was deeply sensible 
 of this criticism, and he felt the estimate in 
 which he was held by the great men of his own 
 party. There is a note of sadness in his tone as 
 he leaves Springfield for Washington on the 
 11th day of February, 1861, which, in part at 
 least, is to be accounted for by his knowledge 
 of the mental attitude of his associates in the 
 tremendous undertaking which was before 
 him: 
 
 "My friends: No one, not in my situation, 
 can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this 
 parting. To this place and to the kindness of 
 these people, I owe everything. Here I have 
 lived a quarter of a century, and have passed 
 from a young man to an old man. Here my 
 children have been born, and one is buried. I 
 now leave, not knowing when, or whether 
 ever, I may return, with a task before me 
 greater than that which rested upon Washing- 
 ton. Without the assistance of that Divine 
 [ 29 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 Being Who ever attended him, I cannot suc- 
 ceed. With that assistance, I cannot fail. 
 Trusting in Him Who can go with me, and 
 remain with you, and be everywhere for good, 
 let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. 
 To His care commending you, as I hope in 
 your prayers you will commend me, I bid you 
 an affectionate farewell." 
 
 Washington had at least the confidence and 
 respect of his associates in his great struggle, 
 but this brave, lonely soul left his home in the 
 simple village to assume responsibilities so tre- 
 mendous and overwhelming, and yet without 
 the full measure of the confidence and respect 
 of those who were jointly interested with him 
 in the notable endeavors — and how won- 
 drously did he, step by step, overcome the 
 prejudices of his fellows, until they were at 
 least ready, all, to bow the knee, and proclaim 
 him master. Passing over the attempt of Sew- 
 ard to revise the inaugural address by leaving 
 out the clause : "to hold, occupy and possess the 
 property and places belonging to the govern- 
 ment," and his bitter and forceful attempts to 
 prevent "bread being sent to Anderson," which 
 [ 30 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 was the President's expression for sending 
 relief to Fort Sumpter — we come to one of the 
 most remarkable events in our histor}^, namely, 
 a member of the official family of the Presi- 
 dent, demanding in a letter that the President 
 surrender the management of the government 
 to him. This, Mr. Seward did in a memoran- 
 dum, entitled, "Some Thoughts for the Presi- 
 dent's Consideration." This letter is after all 
 one of the most extraordinary pieces of effront- 
 ery ever uttered. This remarkable document 
 asserts that the administration, after a month, 
 is without a policy, foreign or domestic. In 
 closing, after advising that explanations were 
 to be demanded of England, Spain, France 
 and Russia, and if some satisfactory answers 
 were not received, then war should be de- 
 clared, he says: 
 
 "Whatever policy we adopt, there must be 
 energetic prosecution of it. For this purpose, 
 it must be somebody's business to pursue and 
 direct it, incessantly. Either the President 
 must do it himself, and be all the while active 
 in it, or devolve it upon some member of his 
 cabinet. Once adopted, all debates on it must 
 [ 31 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 end, and all agree and abide. It is not in my 
 especial province; but I neither seek to evade 
 or assume responsibility." 
 
 To this, the President replied that the 
 domestic policy of the administration was to 
 be found in the inaugural address, and that 
 the foreign policy was contained in the circu- 
 lars and instructions already issued to minis- 
 ters and the like, all in perfect harmony, with- 
 out even a suggestion that we had no foreign 
 policy. Upon the closing proposal, that the 
 responsibility must rest somewhere, and abso- 
 lute authority be given some one, Mr. Lincoln 
 said: 
 
 "I remark that if this must be done, I must 
 do it. When a general line of policy is 
 adopted, I apprehend there is no danger of its 
 being changed without good reason, or con- 
 tinue to be a subject of unnecessary debate; 
 still upon points arising in its progress, I wish 
 and suppose I am entitled to have the advice 
 of all the cabinet." 
 
 Am I not right in saying that if Mr. Sew- 
 ard's "Thoughts for the President's Consid- 
 eration," is a remarkable document, that Lin- 
 [ 32 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 coin's reply is thrice remarkable? Has the 
 world another parallel of such magnanimity? 
 As Alonzo Rothschild says : ^'Having quietly 
 settled the question of supremacy, Mr. Lincoln 
 put the ^Thoughts' away among his personal 
 papers, where they remained until his private 
 secretaries, years after both statesmen had 
 passed from the scene, published them to an 
 astonished world. Excepting Mr. Nicolay, 
 nobody else apparently knew of their exist- 
 ence, for the one to whom they were addressed 
 never, it is believed, spoke of them, not even to 
 the Secretary of State himself. If that gentle- 
 man, when he received his answer, had any 
 lingering doubts as to the President's superi- 
 ority over him, they must have been dismissed, 
 when he realized how entirely Mr. Lincoln 
 disdained to take advantage of a weapon, 
 which in the grasp of most politicians would, 
 under the circumstances, have been used to 
 destroy the maker. If ever a public man held 
 a formidable rival in the hollow of his hand, 
 here was an instance of it. Yet Gulliver set- 
 ting down unharmed the Liliputian who had 
 tormented him, behaved not more gently than 
 [ 33 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 did the President toward his presumptuous 
 minister." 
 
 Thus ended Mr. Seward's dream of domin- 
 ation. Thus began the revision of his opinions. 
 Thus began the common understanding, which 
 grew day by day into a love, and finally a 
 veneration and reverence until with old 
 Adam, Seward was wont to cry out: 
 
 "Master, go on, and I will follow thee 
 To the last gasp with faith and loyalty." 
 
 With a grace peculiarly his own, Seward 
 adapted himself to the new conditions, his 
 every action thereafter seems to say: 
 
 "Pardon, I beseech you 
 Henceforward I am ever ruled by you." 
 
 How quickly sometimes conditions change. 
 Not many months after the incidents referred 
 to, a change had come over the general senti- 
 ments of the country, and many dissatisfied 
 Republicans in New England sought to dis- 
 credit Mr. Seward in the eyes of the Presi- 
 dent. In fact, in September, 1862, a commit- 
 tee called on Mr. Lincoln, representing not 
 only the dissatisfied Republicans of New 
 York, but five New England Governors also. 
 [ 34 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 They practically demanded such a change of 
 policy as could but result in the dismissal of 
 Mr. Seward from the cabinet. The President, 
 perceiving that their criticism was based upon 
 personal feeling, dismissed them with this 
 short and forceful sentence : "You gentlemen, 
 to hang Mr. Seward, would destroy the gov- 
 ernment." Later in the same year at a caucus 
 of Republican Senators, it was voted to de- 
 mand that Seward be dismissed, but even with 
 such powerful enemies, Lincoln's fidelity and 
 love for his great Prime Minister did not fal- 
 ter; he defended him in season and out of 
 season, and retained him as his friend and 
 colleague unto the end. 
 
 Well might Emerson say: ''His heart was 
 as great as the world, but there was no room 
 in it to hold the memory of a wrong." Well 
 indeed might Longfellow, writing to his 
 friend, say: "To understand the heart of the 
 President, is to know the beauty of the Heart 
 of the Son of Man." 
 
 Rising in the House of Commons, when the 
 news of the death of Lincoln reached England, 
 Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, said: 
 [ 35 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 "Whatever the various or varying opinions, in 
 this House, and in the country generally, on 
 the policy of the late President of the United 
 States, all must agree that in one of the severest 
 trials that ever tested the moral qualities of 
 man, he fulfilled his duty with simplicity and 
 strength." 
 
 He mastered the great men about him, not 
 because he was President. His mastery was of 
 another kind; great enough to confess his own 
 wrong, great enough to follow the advice of 
 his associates; great enough also, in the last 
 analysis, to remain firm when he was con- 
 victed of the righteousness and justice of his 
 opinion, against any or all of his advisers and 
 friends; great enough to overlook personal 
 insults and repeated disrespect, if the cause of 
 union and liberty were to be aided thereby. His 
 relation not only with Secretary Seward, but 
 also with Secretaries Chase and Stanton, 
 exhibits enough of the magnanimous nature of 
 this mountain-hearted man to give us a broad 
 understanding of the stupendous fact, that the 
 law of love was the dominating and all pow- 
 erful trait in the character of Abraham Lin- 
 [ 36 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 coin. Other men who have won distinction in 
 the annals of our history, may lay claim to 
 greatness by reason of their intellectual attain- 
 ments; by reason of indomitable force of their 
 characters; but Lincoln stands alone as the one 
 man who, in the midst of strife and disaster, 
 in the midst of treachery and treason, in the 
 midst of backbiting and calumny, stood and 
 wielded his influence, not by the force of his 
 position, but by the compelling power of love, 
 and I trust I may not be accused of any sacri- 
 legious or irreverent remark, when I tell you 
 that his character more nearly resembles the 
 character of Him Who was the Saviour of 
 mankind, than the character of any other man 
 noted in the history of our country. It has 
 been repeatedly said that Lincoln was only an 
 echo; that the great men about him ruled and 
 dominated him; that he was the creature of 
 his cabinet. The controversy between Mont- 
 gomery Blair and General Halleck is an 
 instance of his matchless magnanimity. 
 
 Mr. Blair, as Postmaster General, had made 
 some disparaging remarks concerning the 
 army, and General Halleck resented these 
 [ 37 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 remarks. His case was taken up by Secre- 
 taries Stanton and Chase, and they endeavored 
 to secure Mr. Blair's removal from the cab- 
 inet. When the matter was brought to the at- 
 tention of the President, and he was appealed 
 to, to dismiss Mr. Blair from the cabinet, he 
 prepared the following address, which he 
 delivered to his ministers: 
 
 "I must myself be the judge how long to 
 retain and when to remove any one of you 
 from his position. It would greatly pain me 
 to discover any of you endeavoring to procure 
 another's removal, or in any way to prejudice 
 him before the public. Such endeavor would 
 be a wrong to me, and much worse, a wrong to 
 the country. My wish is that on this subject 
 no remark be made, or questions asked by any 
 of you here or elsewhere, now or hereafter." 
 
 This address has somewhat the tone of a 
 schoolmaster lecturing a class of unruly boys, 
 and, to any candid mind, must put to rest for- 
 ever the insinuation that he was anything but 
 the master giving his explicit and imperative 
 directions to his subordinates. 
 [ 38 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 This little address should be read by all who 
 are misled into the belief that Lincoln was not 
 an authority in the administration that bears 
 his name. And, moreover, there is, even in 
 this address, forceful and powerful as it is, the 
 gentle element of love which pervades every- 
 thing that came from his majestic pen. 
 
 Lincoln did not approve of the disparaging 
 remarks which were made by Mr. Blair, but 
 he felt that they were not sufficient in them- 
 selves to make it necessary for him to inflict 
 upon Mr. Blair the humiliation of being asked 
 to leave the cabinet, and he was unwilling to 
 injure the feelings of this very good and patri- 
 otic man, unless the question at issue was a 
 vital one. 
 
 This same characteristic is most wonder- 
 fully shown in the letter which he writes to 
 General Hooker. In giving General Hooker 
 the command of the Army of the Potomac, 
 Lincoln had many misgivings, and he was par- 
 ticularly anxious that Hooker should under- 
 stand that he had been guilty of gross unkind- 
 ness to his superior officers, but despite the 
 fact, the administration was willing to give to 
 [ 39 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 him all the support that was possible to give a 
 commanding officer. He writes : 
 
 "General, I have placed you at the head of 
 the Army of the Potomac. Of course, I have 
 done this upon what appears to me to be suf- 
 ficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you 
 to know that there are some things in regard 
 to which I am not quite satisfied with you. 
 
 "I believe you are a brave and skillful sol- 
 dier, which, of course, I like. I also believe 
 you do not mix in politics with your profes- 
 sion, in which you are right. You have confi- 
 dence in yourself, which is a valuable, if not 
 an indispensable quality. You are ambitious, 
 which, within reasonable bounds, does good 
 rather than harm; but I think during General 
 Burnside's command of the army you have 
 taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted 
 him as much as you could, in which you did a 
 great wrong to the country, and to a most 
 meritorious and honorable brother officer. 
 
 "I have heard in such a way as to believe it, 
 
 of you recently saying that both the army and 
 
 the government needed a dictator. Of course, 
 
 it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have 
 
 [ 40 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 given you the command. Only those generals 
 who gain successes can set up dictators. What 
 I now ask of you is military success, and I will 
 risk the dictatorship. 
 
 "The government will support you to the 
 utmost of its ability, which is neither more or 
 less than it has done and will do for all com- 
 manders. I much fear that the spirit that you 
 have aided to infuse into the army of criticis- 
 ing their commanders, and withholding the 
 facts from them, will now turn upon you. I 
 shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. 
 Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive 
 again, could get any good out of an army while 
 such a spirit prevails in it. 
 
 "And now, Hooker, beware of rashness! 
 Beware of rashness! But with energy and 
 sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us 
 
 victories." 
 
 Can anyone read this letter without an over- 
 whelming sense of the greatness of this man, 
 Abraham Lincoln? Can anyone read this let- 
 ter without having a glimpse at least of the 
 great love which ruled and governed the life 
 of Abraham Lincoln, and caused him to reach 
 [41 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 out his strong hand to this impetuous, hasty, 
 and wilful, fighting Joe Hooker, and say, 
 "Hooker, my son, beware of the pitfalls that 
 you yourself have dug, and in God's name go 
 forward and give us victories, depending all 
 the while upon my faithful assistance, even 
 though your own folly may have caused the 
 trouble"? 
 
 At this distance, it is difficult for us to 
 understand that, prior to Lincoln's second 
 election, there were grave doubts expressed 
 by many of the country's most prominent men 
 as to whether or not Lincoln could be renomi- 
 nated and re-elected. During the great popu- 
 lar depression which prevailed just before the 
 Democratic party made its presidential nomi- 
 nation in 1864, and when the campaign of the 
 Republicans lagged with indescribable lan- 
 guor, the military situation was dark and 
 cloudy. 
 
 Lincoln began to share in the prevailing 
 impression, that he would not be re-elected. 
 Then his enemies circulated the absurd rumor 
 that the President and his cabinet, being sure 
 of defeat at the polls, would willingly help on 
 [ 42 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 the ruin that they were not able to avert. 
 
 With these things in view, Mr. Lincoln, 
 on the 23 rd of August, wrote the following 
 memorandum: 
 
 "This morning, and for some days past, it 
 seems exceedingly probable that this ad- 
 ministration will not be re-elected. Then it 
 will be my duty to so co-operate with the 
 President-elect as to save the Union between 
 the election and the inauguration, as he will 
 have to secure his election on such grounds 
 that he can not possibly save it afterwards." 
 
 What can the carping critic say now of the 
 politician Lincoln? Politician he truly was; 
 but the primary difference betv^een a politi- 
 cian and a statesman is the essential motive 
 which moves them to action, and in the midst 
 of a dark hour, when it seemed that his coun- 
 try was determined not to appreciate the effort 
 which he was making to save and preserve the 
 integrity of the Union, he puts aside his own 
 ambition, an ambition worthy of the best 
 American, and pledges to himself and Al- 
 mighty God, that whatever he does must be 
 done to the end of saving and preserving the 
 [ 43 ] 
 
ABIL^HAM LINCX>LN 
 
 ibid dvnng liis enture life, this spirit 
 raied a^d gwutd ha cvay acttoa. 
 
 Amdcrrm is bB nvaiiplis, this qmit never 
 liof QBC iBancMt ocscricn hin. Jkncr he hjtd 
 beoi trivBsifihsMdNp' ic-dodBd to die Prcsi- 
 dcacy, hb cacmics diwiiinid — the most 
 popivcrfal man is Ac Uutcd Stales — the whole 
 ii<ofld liagii^ his inaisc; he is called iqion oa 
 to MWi I a serenade. On one 
 svfpsin icqnDse: 
 ^ am thankfnl to God for this appioval of 
 the people, hnt iHiilc deefihr giaiefnl ffM- this 
 of their confidence in me, if I know my 
 heait, my gratitndr is free from any taint 
 of |n iwinal uimnjrli I do not impugn the 
 of anyone opposed n> me. It is no 
 -iiqih over juijum, bat I 
 ffwcA-L' ^inr for this evidence 
 
 of Ac pt : : rind by free gov- 
 
 Agyi- : .^:^: __ ^-.^ .^rcr to another 
 
 And 
 
 may not all have a 
 : - aoooHr::- rf :-: 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 to save our common country? For my own 
 part, I have striven, and shall strive to avoid 
 placing any obstacle in the way. So long as 
 I have been here, I have not willingly planted 
 a thorn in any man's bosom. While I am duly 
 sensible to the high compliment of a re-elec- 
 tion, and duly grateful, as I trust to Almighty 
 God, for having directed my countrymen to 
 a right conclusion, as I think, for their good, 
 it adds nothing to my satisfaction that any 
 other man may be disappointed by the result 
 
 ''May I ask those who have not differed 
 with me, to join me in the same spirit toward 
 those who have : and now let me close by ask- 
 ing three hearty cheers for our brave soldiers 
 and seamen, and for their valiant and success- 
 ful commanders.'' 
 
 If ever there was a time in the history of the 
 life of Abraham Lincoln, when he might have 
 been expected to hold in his magnanimous 
 heart some resentment of feeling, some sense 
 of personal triumph over his enemies, it was 
 at this time : and yet, the whole burden of his 
 speech, the whole burden of his words, the 
 whole burden of his hopes, his aspirations, 
 [45 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 was to the end that under God he might be 
 the humble instrumentality in preserving the 
 Union of these states. 
 
 The world's history has no parallel — a vic- 
 torious champion reaching out his hands to 
 the enemies who had slandered and reviled 
 him, and saying to them, "Let us forget all 
 personal hate and rancor, all personal bitter- 
 ness and evil speaking. Nay, let us forget our- 
 selves, and lose ourselves in the great endeavor 
 to preserve our common country." 
 
 What other President can you name whose 
 magnanimous spirit would have prompted 
 him to write to his commanding general in 
 the field, as Lincoln wrote to Grant: 
 
 "My Dear General: I do not remember 
 that you and I have met personally. I write 
 this now as a grateful acknowledgment of an 
 almost inestimable service you have done the 
 country. I write to say a word further. When 
 you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I 
 thought you should do what you finally did, 
 march the troops across the neck, run the bat- 
 teries with the transports and go below. 
 * * * When you dropped below and took 
 [46] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 Port Gibson, Grand Gulf and vicinity, I 
 thought you should go down the river and 
 join General Banks, and when you turned 
 northwest, east of the Big Black, I thought it 
 was a mistake. I now wish to make the per- 
 sonal acknowledgment that you were right, 
 and I was wrong. Yours very truly, A. 
 Lincoln." 
 
 I presume it is a fair and reasonable state- 
 ment, that the world's history has no parallel 
 for simplicity of action; the commander-in- 
 chief of an army, willingly writing to his 
 subordinates in the field, saying ''This is to 
 acknowledge that you were right, and I was 
 wrong," typifying again, as it does, that the 
 ever-favored object of the heart of Abraham 
 Lincoln was the country, the nation, the union, 
 the preservation of these, placed before his 
 own personal feelings and considerations. 
 
 If I should attempt this morning to quote 
 the almost innumerable letters of condolence 
 and sympathy which this man found time to 
 write to the bereaved and stricken families of 
 the country, the evening sun would set before 
 I had been fairly started. But I want you to 
 [ 47 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 bear with me in one instance at least, in order 
 that I may illustrate again this spirit of gentle 
 kindliness which pervaded his every action: 
 
 "Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Mass. Dear Madam : 
 I have been shown in the files of the War De- 
 partment a statement of the Adjutant General 
 of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of 
 five sons who have died gloriously on the field 
 of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must 
 be any words of mine which should attempt to 
 beguile you from a grief of a loss so over- 
 whelming, but I cannot refrain from tender- 
 ing to you the consolation that may be found 
 in the thanks of the Republic they died to 
 save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may 
 assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and 
 leave you only the cherished memory of the 
 loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must 
 be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon 
 the altar of your country. 
 
 "Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 
 Abraham Lincoln." 
 
 Ah, what might have been accomplished by 
 the man whose heart could dictate so match- 
 less a letter of human sympathy as this, 
 [ 48 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 had he been spared us in the days of 
 reconstruction! 
 
 Sublime was the personality of the man 
 whose every action was one of gentleness, and 
 whose very heart beat responsive to the sighs 
 and to the sorrows of all mankind. This spirit 
 was even comprehended by the great leaders 
 of the Southern Confederacy, for it was Jef- 
 ferson Davis who said: 
 
 "Next to the destruction of the Confederacy, 
 the death of Abraham Lincoln was the darkest 
 day the South has ever known, and as I grow 
 older, I am not sure but that the death of 
 Lincoln was a greater calamity even than the 
 surrender of Lee's army." 
 
 As I said before, I now repeat — What might 
 have been accomplished had he been spared 
 to us to mould and fashion the sentiment 
 which was to rule and govern the nation in the 
 reconstruction period? The dark and terrible 
 days through which this nation passed during 
 the reconstruction period, I believe would 
 have been very different had Lincoln been 
 spared to us. 
 
 The great, magnanimous heart of that 
 [ 49 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 matchless leader of men was big enough and 
 commanding enough in its strength and power 
 to have moulded the disintegrated and scat- 
 tered elements of the Southern Confederacy 
 into a compact and perfect whole, and the 
 story of the prodigal son might again have 
 been repeated, and the father might have cried 
 out to his children: "Come, you have deserted 
 my parental roof; you have rebelled against 
 my paternal authority; you have risen up in 
 insurrection and rebellion; you have spent 
 your substance in riotous living; you have 
 caused the blood of your brothers, my chil- 
 dren, to flow like water; you have cost us bil- 
 lions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of 
 precious lives; but with it all, I cannot forget 
 that you are my children; and while you are 
 even yet a great way off from the spirit of sub- 
 missive obedience, nevertheless I will gather 
 up my remaining strength and I will go out 
 in the highways and meet you, and say, 'Come 
 again unto your father's house, to a table that 
 is spread for you, and there shall be great re- 
 joicing, not because of the triumph of our 
 arms, not because we have succeeded by force 
 [ 50 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 and power in crushing out this rebellion, but 
 because I recognize in you my offspring and 
 my child.' " 
 
 I cannot better express myself than in the 
 immortal words of Dr. Storrs, when he says: 
 
 "When he took the reins of Government, 
 the finances of the country seemed hopelessly 
 deranged, and after many years of peace, it 
 was difficult to raise money at unprecedented 
 interest, for its daily use; and when he died, 
 after such expenditures as no man dreamed 
 of, through four long years of devastating 
 war, the credit of the Republic was so firmly 
 established that foreign markets were clamor- 
 ous for its bonds. 
 
 "When he came to Washington, the Navy, 
 at the command of the Government, was scat- 
 tered almost beyond recall, to the ends of the 
 earth, and was even ludricrously insufficient 
 for instant needs. He left it framed in iron^ 
 instead of oak, with wholly new principles 
 expressed in its structures, and large enough 
 to bind the continent in blockade; while it 
 made the national flag familiar on every sea 
 with commerce courses. 
 [ 51 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 "He found an army remotely dispersed, 
 almost hopelessly disorganized by the treach- 
 ery of its officers, with hardly enough of it left 
 to furnish a bodyguard for his march to the 
 national capitol. He left half a million men 
 in arms, after the losses of fifty campaigns, 
 with valor, discipline, arms and generalship 
 unsurpassed in the history of the world. 
 
 "He found our diplomacy a byword and a 
 hissing in most of the foreign courts. He 
 made it intelligent, influential, respected, 
 wherever a civilized language is spoken. 
 
 "In his moral and political achievements at 
 home he was still more successful. He found 
 the arts of industry prostrated, nay, almost 
 paralyzed, by the arrest of commerce, the 
 repudiation of debts, the universal distrust. 
 He left them so trained, quickened and devel- 
 oped, that henceforth they are secure amid the 
 world's competition. 
 
 "He came to Washington through a people, 
 morally rent and disorganized, of whom it was 
 known that a part at least were in full accord 
 with disloyal plans. He laid heavy taxes; he 
 drafted them into armies; he made no effort 
 [ 52 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 to excite their admiration; he seemed to throw 
 down even the ancient monument of their 
 personal liberty. 
 
 "He went back to his grave through the 
 very same people, so knit into one, by their 
 love for each other, and their reverence for 
 him, that the cracking of the continent could 
 hardly part them. 
 
 "At his entrance on his office, he found the 
 leaders of the largest, fiercest and most con- 
 fident rebellion known in history, apparently 
 in all things superior to himself in capacity, 
 in culture, in political experience, in control 
 over men, in general weight with the country 
 itself. 
 
 "And, when he was assassinated, he left 
 them so utterly overthrown and discomfited 
 that they fled over sea; a power it had taken 
 thirty years to mature — a power that put 
 everything in the contest, money, men, har- 
 bors, homes, churches, cities, states them- 
 selves, and that fought with a fury never sur- 
 passed in the world's history, he not only 
 crushed but extinguished in four years. 
 
 "He found a race immeshed in bondage 
 [ 53 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 which had lasted already two hundred years, 
 and had been compacted and confirmed by 
 invention and commerce, by arts, legislation, 
 by social usage, and even by religion; he pre- 
 tended no special fondness for the race; he 
 refused to make war on its behalf; but he took 
 it up cheerfully in the sweep of his plans, and 
 left it a race of free workers and soldiers. 
 
 "He came to the capitol of an empire, 
 severed by what seemed to the world, eternal 
 lines, with sectional interest and irremovable 
 hatreds, forbidding reconstruction; he left it 
 the capitol of an empire, so restored that the 
 thought of its division was henceforth an ab- 
 surdity; with its untiy more complete than 
 that of Great Britain; with its ancient flag 
 and unchanging rule supreme again from sea 
 to sea, and from Gulf to Great Lakes. 
 
 "Nay, he found a nation who had lost in a 
 measure its primitive faith in the grand ideas 
 of its own constitution; and he left that nation 
 so instructed and renewed, so aware of its 
 supremacy of principles over force, so con- 
 nected to the justice and the liberty which its 
 founders had valued, that the era of his power 
 [ 54 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 was the era of its new birth; that our history 
 will be nobler and more luminous forever for 
 his inspiration. 
 
 "Public achievement is not his only memor- 
 ial. His influence has come 'like the clear 
 shining after rain,' on the personal character 
 of the people he ruled. He educated a nation 
 into a gentleness more strange than its skill, 
 and more glorious than its valor. 
 
 "Through his personal spirit he restrained 
 and exalted the temper of a continent — and 
 our letters are nobler, our art more spiritual, 
 our philanthropy more generous, our very 
 churches more honest and free, because of 
 what we learned of him. The public estimate 
 of honesty is higher, the sense of the power 
 and grandeur of character is more intimate in 
 men's minds, — we know what style of man- 
 hood America needs, and in her progress, tends 
 to produce. He has given us a fresh and 
 deeper sense of that eternal Providence, which 
 was his daily bulwark. 
 
 "Not to our country alone has his work 
 been confined — across the sea extends his 
 mighty influence. It verberates this hour 
 [ 55 ] 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 around the great world, and despotic institu- 
 tions are less secure and absolute; the progress 
 of liberty throughout the great world is more 
 rapid and sure by reason of what he wrought. 
 The nations of the world are nearer unto God 
 because he lived; the human race itself has 
 been lifted heavenward toward the gates of 
 mingled gold and pearl that wait to swing on 
 silent hinges into the age of freedom and uni- 
 versal peace." 
 
 "I praise him not; it were too late; 
 
 And some innative weakness there must be 
 
 In him who condescends to victory 
 Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, 
 Safe in himself as in a fate. 
 
 So always firmly he : 
 He knew to bide his time, 
 
 And can his fame abide, 
 Still patient in his simple faith sublime. 
 
 Till the wise years decide. 
 Great captains, with their guns and drums, 
 
 Disturb our judgment for the hour, 
 But at last silence comes ; 
 
 These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, 
 Our children shall behold his fame. 
 
 The kindly-earnest, brave, farseeing man. 
 Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, 
 
 New birth of our new soil, the first American." 
 [ 56 ] 
 
SIX HUNDRED COPIES OF THIS BOOK 
 WERE PRINTED AT THE PRESS OK 
 WOOD AND WOOD. LOS ANGELES 
 UNDER DIRECTION OF EARLE C. WOOD 
 AUGUST, NINETEEN HUNDRED SIXTEEN