Dear, dear, who can believe it?Dear, dear, who can conceive it?Dear, dear, we scarce can believe thatNever did he tell a lie.O, surely temptation must oft have assailed him,But courage and honor we know never failed him,So let us all follow his wondrous example,And never, no never tell lies.And never, no never, tell lies.
Dear, dear, who can believe it?Dear, dear, who can conceive it?Dear, dear, we scarce can believe thatNever did he tell a lie.
O, surely temptation must oft have assailed him,But courage and honor we know never failed him,So let us all follow his wondrous example,And never, no never tell lies.And never, no never, tell lies.
Third Speaker:A brave and manly boy, he began work early in life, and, in 1748, when only sixteen years old, he was a surveyor of lands, and took long tramps into the wilderness. In 1775 came the Revolutionary War, and he was appointed commander-in-chief of the American Army. In 1787 he was elected president of the convention which framed the constitution of our country.
Fourth Speaker:In 1789 he was chosen first president of the United States. He was re-elected in 1793 and, at the close of the second term he retired to private life at his beautiful and beloved home, Mt. Vernon. He died there, Dec. 14, 1799, honored and mourned by the whole nation, and leaving to the world a life which is a "pattern for all public men, teaching what greatness is and what is the pathway to undying fame," and richly deserving the title, "Father of his country."
All:"First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen," he was second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private life.
Boys Representing Lincoln:Washington was a great and good man, and so, too, was the man whom we delight to honor, whose title, "Honest Abe," has passed into the language of our timesas a synonym for all that is just and honest in man.
First Speaker on the Lincoln Side:Kentucky is proud to claim Abraham Lincoln as one of her honored sons, and she bids me say that he was born in that state in Hardin County, Feb. 12, 1809. Indiana, too, claims him, he was her son by adoption, for, when but seven years old, his father moved to the southwestern part of that state. Illinois also has a claim upon him. It was there that he helped build a log cabin for a new home, and split rails to fence in a cornfield. Afterwards he split rails for a suit of clothes, one hundred rails for every yard of cloth, and so won the name, "The Rail-splitter."
Second Speaker:In 1828 he became a flat-boatman and twice went down the river to New Orleans. In 1832 he served as captain of a company in the Black Hawk War. After the war he kept a country store, and won a reputation for honesty. Then, for a while, he was a surveyor, next, a lawyer, and in 1834 he was elected to the Legislature of Illinois.
Third Speaker:In 1846 he was made a member of Congress, in 1860 he was elected president of the United States.
Fourth Speaker:The Civil War followed, and in 1864 he was elected president for the second term. On April 14 he was shot by an assassin and died on the morning of the 15th.
SONG BY SCHOOL: AIR,John Brown's Body
In spite of changing seasons of the years that come and go,Still his name to-day is cherished in the hearts of friend and foe,And the land for which he suffered e'er shall honor him we know,While truth goes marching on.
In spite of changing seasons of the years that come and go,Still his name to-day is cherished in the hearts of friend and foe,And the land for which he suffered e'er shall honor him we know,While truth goes marching on.
CHORUS
Both Groups Together:To both these men, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, we, the children of the nation, owe a debt of gratitude which we can only repay by a lifetime of work, for God, humanity, and our country. Both have left behind them words of wisdom, which, if heeded, will make us wiser and better boys and girls, and so wiser and better men and women.
Two Boys from the Washington Group:Washington said, "Without virtue and without integrity, the finest talents and the most brilliant accomplishments can never gain the respect or conciliate the esteem of the most valuable part of mankind."
Two Boys from the Lincoln Group:Lincoln said, "I have one vote, and I shall always cast that against wrong as long as I live."
Two Boys from Washington Group:"If to please the people we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work?"
Two Boys from Lincoln Group:Lincoln said, "In every event of life, it is right makes might."
All:O, wise and great!Their like, perchance, we ne'er shall see again,But let us write their golden words upon the hearts of men.
All:O, wise and great!Their like, perchance, we ne'er shall see again,But let us write their golden words upon the hearts of men.
SONG: TUNE"America"
Turn now unto the past,There, long as life shall last,Their names you'll find.Faithful and true and brave,Sent here our land to save.Men whom our father gave,Brave, true, and kind.
Turn now unto the past,There, long as life shall last,Their names you'll find.Faithful and true and brave,Sent here our land to save.Men whom our father gave,Brave, true, and kind.
(Exeunt)
BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT
As the generations slip away, as the dust of conflict settles, and as through the clearing air we look back with keener vision into the Nation's past, mightiest among the mighty dead, loom up the three great figures of Washington, Lincoln and Grant. These three greatest men have taken their places among the great men of all nations, the great men of all times. They stood supreme in the two great crises of our history, in the two great occasions, when we stood in the van of all humanity, and struck the most effective blows that have ever been struck for the cause of human freedom under the law.
BY F. M. BRISTOL
As God appeared to Solomon and Joseph in dreams to urge them to make wise choices for the power of great usefulness, so it would appear that in their waking dreams the Almighty appeared to such history-making souls as Paul and Constantine, Alfred the Great, Washington, and Lincoln.It was the commonest kind of a life this young Lincoln was living on the frontier of civilization, but out of that commonest kind of living came the uncommonest kind of character of these modern years, the sublimest liberative power in the history of freedom. Lincoln felt there, as a great awkward boy, that God and history had something for him to do. He dreamed his destiny. He chose to champion the cause of the oppressed. He vowed that when the chance came he would deal slavery a hard blow. When he came to his high office, he came with a character which had been fitting itself for its grave responsibilities. He had been making wise choices on the great questions of human rights, of national union, of constitutional freedom, of universal brotherhood.
BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
Strange mingling of mirth and tears, of the tragic and grotesque, of cap and crown, of Socrates and Rabelais, of Æsop and Marcus Aurelius, of all that is gentle and just, humorous and honest, merciful, wise, laughable, lovable and divine, and all consecrated to the use of man; while through all, and over all, an overwhelming sense of obligation, of chivalric loyalty to truth, and upon all the shadow of the tragic end.
Nearly all the great historic characters are impossible monsters, disproportioned by flattery, or by calumny deformed. We know nothing of their peculiarities, or nothing but their peculiarities. About the roots of these oaks there clings none of the earth of humanity. Washington is now only a steel engraving. About the real man who lived and loved and hated and schemed we know but little. The glass through which we look at him is of such high magnifying power that the features are exceedingly indistinct. Hundreds of people are now engaged in smoothing out the lines of Lincoln's face—forcing all features to the common mold—so that he may be known, not as he really was, but, according to their poor standard, as he should have been.
Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone—no ancestors, no fellows, and no successors. He had the advantage of living in a new country, of social equality, of personal freedom, of seeing in the horizon of his future the perpetual star of hope. He preserved his individuality and his self-respect. He knew and mingled with men of every kind; and, after all, men are the best books. He became acquainted with the ambitions and hopes of the heart, the means used to accomplish ends, the springs of action and the seeds of thought. He was familiar with nature, with actual things, with common facts. He loved and appreciated the poem of the year, the drama of the seasons.
In a new country, a man must possess at least three virtues—honesty, courage and generosity.In cultivated society, cultivation is often more important than soil. A well executed counterfeit passes more readily than a blurred genuine. It is necessary only to observe the unwritten laws of society—to be honest enough to keep out of prison, and generous enough to subscribe in public—where the subscription can be defended as an investment. In a new country, character is essential; in the old, reputation is sufficient. In the new, they find what a man really is; in the old, he generally passes for what he resembles. People separated only by distance are much nearer together than those divided by the walls of caste.
It is no advantage to live in a great city, where poverty degrades and failure brings despair. The fields are lovelier than paved streets, and the great forests than walls of brick. Oaks and elms are more poetic than steeples and chimneys. In the country is the idea of home. There you see the rising and setting sun; you become acquainted with the stars and clouds. The constellations are your friends. You hear the rain on the roof and listen to the rhythmic sighing of the winds. You are thrilled by the resurrection called Spring, touched and saddened by Autumn, the grace and poetry of death. Every field is a picture, a landscape; every landscape, a poem; every flower, a tender thought; and every forest, a fairy-land. In the country you preserve your identity—your personality. There you are an aggregation of atoms, but in the city you are only an atom of an aggregation.
Lincoln never finished his education. To thenight of his death he was a pupil, a learner, an inquirer, a seeker after knowledge. You have no idea how many men are spoiled by what is called education. For the most part, colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed. If Shakespeare had graduated at Oxford, he might have been a quibbling attorney or a hypocritical parson.
Lincoln was a many-sided man, acquainted with smiles and tears, complex in brain, single in heart, direct as light; and his words, candid as mirrors, gave the perfect image of his thought. He was never afraid to ask—never too dignified to admit that he did not know. No man had keener wit or kinder humor. He was not solemn. Solemnity is a mask worn by ignorance and hypocrisy—it is the preface, prologue, and index to the cunning or the stupid. He was natural in his life and thought—master of the story-teller's art, in illustration apt, in application perfect, liberal in speech, shocking Pharisees and prudes, using any word that wit could disinfect.
He was a logician. Logic is the necessary product of intelligence and sincerity. It cannot be learned. It is the child of a clear head and a good heart. He was candid, and with candor often deceived the deceitful. He had intellect without arrogance, genius without pride, and religion without cant—that is to say, without bigotry and without deceit.
He was an orator—clear, sincere, natural. He did not pretend. He did not say what he thoughtothers thought, but what he thought. If you wish to be sublime you must be natural—you must keep close to the grass. You must sit by the fireside of the heart; above the clouds it is too cold. You must be simple in your speech: too much polish suggests insincerity. The great orator idealizes the real, transfigures the common, makes even the inanimate throb and thrill, fills the gallery of the imagination with statues and pictures perfect in form and color, brings to light the gold hoarded by memory, the miser—shows the glittering coin to the spendthrift, hope—enriches the brain, ennobles the heart, and quickens the conscience. Between his lips, words bud and blossom.
If you wish to know the difference between an orator and an elocutionist—between what is felt and what is said—between what the heart and brain can do together and what the brain can do alone—read Lincoln's wondrous words at Gettysburg, and then the speech of Edward Everett. The oration of Lincoln will never be forgotten. It will live until languages are dead and lips are dust. The speech of Everett will never be read. The elocutionists believe in the virtue of voice, the sublimity of syntax, the majesty of long sentences, and the genius of gesture. The orator loves the real, the simple, the natural. He places the thought above all. He knows that the greatest ideas should be expressed in the shortest words—that the greatest statues need the least drapery.
Lincoln was an immense personality—firm but not obstinate. Obstinacy is egotism—firmness,heroism. He influenced others without effort, unconsciously; and they submitted to him as men submit to nature, unconsciously. He was severe with himself, and for that reason lenient with others. He appeared to apologize for being kinder than his fellows. He did merciful things as stealthily as others committed crimes. Almost ashamed of tenderness, he said and did the noblest words and deeds with that charming confusion—that awkwardness—that is the perfect grace of modesty. As a noble man, wishing to pay a small debt to a poor neighbor, reluctantly offers a hundred-dollar bill and asks for change, fearing that he may be suspected either of making a display of wealth or a pretense of payment, so Lincoln hesitated to show his wealth of goodness, even to the best he knew. A great man stooping, not wishing to make his fellows feel that they were small or mean.
He knew others, because perfectly acquainted with himself. He cared nothing for place, but everything for principle; nothing for money, but everything for independence. Where no principle was involved, easily swayed—willing to go slowly, if in the right direction—sometimes willing to stop, but he would not go back, and he would not go wrong. He was willing to wait. He knew that the event was not waiting, and that fate was not the fool of chance. He knew that slavery had defenders, but no defense, and that they who attack the right must wound themselves. He was neither tyrant nor slave. He neither knelt nor scorned. With him, men were neither great nor small,—they were right or wrong. Through manners, clothes, titles, rags and race he saw the real—that which is. Beyond accident, policy, compromise and war he saw the end. He was patient as Destiny, whose undecipherable hieroglyphs were so deeply graven on his sad and tragic face.
Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except upon the side of mercy.
Wealth could not purchase, power could not awe this divine, this loving man. He knew no fear except the fear of doing wrong. Hating slavery, pitying the master—seeking to conquer, not persons, but prejudices—he was the embodiment of the self-denial, the courage, the hope, and the nobility of a nation. He spoke, not to inflame, not to upbraid, but to convince. He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. He longed to pardon. He loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks of a wife whose husband he had rescued from death.
Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world.
[Transcriber's Note: Part of this was omitted in original.]
[28]By permission of Mr. C. P. Farrell.
[28]By permission of Mr. C. P. Farrell.
PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
Hurt was the Nation with a mighty wound,And all her ways were filled with clam'rous sound,Wailed loud the South with unremitting grief,And wept the North that could not find relief.Then madness joined its harshest tone to strife:A minor note swelled in the song of lifeTill, stirring with the love that filled his breast,But still, unflinching at the Right's behestGrave Lincoln came, strong-handed, from afar,—The mighty Homer of the lyre of war!'Twas he who bade the raging tempest cease,Wrenched from his strings the harmony of peace,Muted the strings that made the discord,—Wrong,And gave his spirit up in thund'rous song.Oh, mighty Master of the mighty lyre!Earth heard and trembled at thy strains of fire:Earth learned of thee what Heav'n already knew,And wrote thee down among her treasured few!
Hurt was the Nation with a mighty wound,And all her ways were filled with clam'rous sound,Wailed loud the South with unremitting grief,And wept the North that could not find relief.Then madness joined its harshest tone to strife:A minor note swelled in the song of lifeTill, stirring with the love that filled his breast,But still, unflinching at the Right's behestGrave Lincoln came, strong-handed, from afar,—The mighty Homer of the lyre of war!'Twas he who bade the raging tempest cease,Wrenched from his strings the harmony of peace,Muted the strings that made the discord,—Wrong,And gave his spirit up in thund'rous song.Oh, mighty Master of the mighty lyre!Earth heard and trembled at thy strains of fire:Earth learned of thee what Heav'n already knew,And wrote thee down among her treasured few!
[29]By permission of Mrs. Mathilde Dunbar.
[29]By permission of Mrs. Mathilde Dunbar.
BY WALT WHITMAN
Glad am I to give even the most brief and shorn testimony in memory of Abraham Lincoln. Everything I heard about him authentically, and every time I saw him (and it was my fortune through 1862 to '65 to see, or pass a word with, or watch him, personally, perhaps twenty or thirty times), added to and annealed my respect and love at the passing moment. And as I dwell on what I myself heard or saw of the mighty Westerner, and blend it with the history and literature of my age, and conclude it with his death, it seems like some tragic play, superior to all else I know—vaster and fierier and more convulsionary, for this America of ours, than Eschylus or Shakespeare ever drew for Athens or for England. And then the Moral permeating, underlying all! the Lesson that none so remote, none so illiterate—no age, no class—but may directly or indirectly read!
Abraham Lincoln's was really one of those characters, the best of which is the result of long trains of cause and effect—needing a certain spaciousness of time, and perhaps even remoteness, to properly enclose them—having unequaled influence on the shaping of this Republic (and therefore the world) as to-day, and then far more important in the future. Thus the time has by no means yetcome for a thorough measurement of him. Nevertheless, we who live in his era—who have seen him, and heard him, face to face, and in the midst of, or just parting from, the strong and strange events which he and we have had to do with, can in some respects bear valuable, perhaps indispensable testimony concerning him.
How does this man compare with the acknowledged "Father of his country?" Washington was modeled on the best Saxon and Franklin of the age of the Stuarts (rooted in the Elizabethan period)—was essentially a noble Englishman, and just the kind needed for the occasions and the times of 1776-'83. Lincoln, underneath his practicality, was far less European, far more Western, original, essentially non-conventional, and had a certain sort of out-door or prairie stamp. One of the best of the late commentators on Shakespeare (Professor Dowden), makes the height and aggregate of his quality as a poet to be, that he thoroughly blended the ideal with the practical or realistic. If this be so, I should say that what Shakespeare did in poetic expression, Abraham Lincoln essentially did in his personal and official life. I should say the invisible foundations and vertebrae of his character, more than any man's in history, were mystical, abstract, moral and spiritual—while upon all of them was built, and out of all of them radiated, under the control of the average of circumstances, what the vulgar call horse-sense, and a life often bent by temporary but most urgent materialistic and political reasons.
He seems to have been a man of indomitable firmness (even obstinacy) on rare occasions, involving great points; but he was generally very easy, flexible, tolerant, respecting minor matters. I note that even those reports and anecdotes intended to level him down, all leave the tinge of a favorable impression of him. As to his religious nature, it seems to me to have certainly been of the amplest, deepest-rooted kind.
Dear to Democracy, to the very last! And among the paradoxes generated by America not the least curious, was that spectacle of all the kings and queens and emperors of the earth, many from remote distances, sending tributes of condolence and sorrow in memory of one raised through the commonest average of life—a rail-splitter and flat-boatman!
Considered from contemporary points of view—who knows what the future may decide?—and from the points of view of current Democracy and The Union (the only thing like passion or infatuation in the man was the passion for the Union of these States), Abraham Lincoln seems to me the grandest figure yet, on all the crowded canvas of the Nineteenth Century.
[30]By permission of David McKay.
[30]By permission of David McKay.
BY LYMAN ABBOTT
To comprehend the current of history sympathetically, to appreciate the spirit of the age, prophetically, to know what God, by His providence, is working out in the epoch and the community, and so to work with him as to guide the current and embody in noble deeds the spirit of the age in working out the divine problem,—this is true greatness. The man who sets his powers, however gigantic, to stemming the current and thwarting the divine purposes, is not truly great.
Abraham Lincoln was made the Chief Executive of a nation whose Constitution was unlike that of any other nation on the face of the globe. We assume that, ordinarily, public sentiment will change so gradually that the nation can always secure a true representative of its purpose in the presidential chair by an election every four years. Mr. Lincoln held the presidential office at a time when public sentiment was revolutionized in less than four years.... It was the peculiar genius of Abraham Lincoln, that he was able, by his sympathetic insight, to perceive the change in public sentiment without waiting for it to be formulated in any legislative action; to keep pace with it, to lead and direct it, to quicken laggard spirits, to hold in the too ardent, too impetuous, and too hasty ones, and thus, when he signed the emancipation proclamation, to make his signature, not the act of an individual man, the edict of a military imperator, but the representative act of a great nation. He was the greatest President in American History, because in a time of revolution he grasped the purposes of the American people and embodied them in an act of justice and humanity which was in the highest sense the act of the American Republic.
'ADDRESS FOR LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY'
ANONYMOUS
From Cæsar to Bismarck and Gladstone the world has had its soldiers and its statesmen, who rose to eminence and power step by step through a series of geometrical progression, as it were, each promotion following in regular order, the whole obedient to well-established and well-understood laws of cause and effect. These were not what we call "men of destiny." They were men of the time. They were men whose career had a beginning, a middle and an end, rounding off a life with a history, full, it may be, of interesting and exciting events, but comprehensible and comprehensive, simple, clear, complete.
The inspired men are fewer. Whence their emanation, where and how they got their power, and by what rule they lived, moved and had their being, we cannot see. There is no explication tothese lives. They rose from shadow and went in mist. We see them, feel them, but we know them not. They arrived, God's word upon their lips; they did their office, God's mantle upon them; and they passed away God's holy light between the world and them, leaving behind a memory half mortal and half myth. From first to last they were distinctly the creations of some special providence, baffling the wit of man to fathom, defeating the machinations of the world, the flesh and the devil until their work was done, and passed from the scene as mysteriously as they had come upon it; Luther, to wit; Shakespeare, Burns, even Bonaparte, the archangel of war, havoc and ruin; not to go back into the dark ages for examples of the hand of God stretched out to raise us, to protect and to cast down.
Tried by this standard and observed in an historic spirit, where shall we find an illustration more impressive than in Abraham Lincoln, whose life, career and death might be chanted by a Greek chorus as at once the prelude and the epilogue of the most imperial theme of modern times.
Born as low as the Son of God in a hovel, of what real parentage we know not; reared in penury, squalor, with no gleam of light, nor fair surroundings; a young manhood vexed by weird dreams and visions, bordering at times on madness; singularly awkward, ungainly, even among the uncouth about him; grotesque in his aspects and ways, it was reserved for this strange being, late in life, without name or fame or ordinarypreparation, to be snatched from obscurity, raised to supreme command, and entrusted with the destiny of a nation.
The great leaders of his party were made to stand aside; the most experienced and accomplished men of the day, men like Seward and Chase and Sumner, statesmen famous and trained, were sent to the rear; while this comparatively unknown and fantastic figure was brought by unseen hands to the front and given the reins of power. It is entirely immaterial whether we believe in what he said or did, whether we are for him or against him; but for us to admit that during four years, carrying with them such a pressure of responsibility as the world has never witnessed before, he filled the measure of the vast space allotted him in the actions of mankind and in the eyes of the world, is to say that he was inspired of God, for nowhere else could he have acquired the enormous equipment indispensable to the situation.
Where did Shakespeare get his genius? Where did Mozart get his music? Whose hand smote the lyre of the Scottish plowman? and stayed the life of the German priest? God alone; and, so surely as these were raised up by God, inspired by God was Abraham Lincoln, and, a thousand years hence, no story, no tragedy, no epic poem will be filled with greater wonder than that which tells of his life and death. If Lincoln was not inspired of God, then were not Luther, or Shakespeare, or Burns. If Lincoln was not inspired by God, then there is no such thing on earth as specialprovidence or the interposition of divine power in the affairs of men.
BY FREDERIC HARRISON
The great struggle which has for ever decided the cause of slavery of man to man, is, beyond all question, the most critical which the world has seen since the great revolutionary outburst. If ever there was a question which was to test political capacity and honesty it was this. A true statesman, here if ever, was bound to forecast truly the issue, and to judge faithfully that cause at stake. We know now, it is beyond dispute, that the cause which won was certain to win in the end, that its reserve force was absolutely without limit, that its triumph was one of the turning-points in modern civilization. It was morally certain to succeed, and it did succeed with an overwhelming and mighty success. From first to last both might and right went all one way. The people of England went wholly that way. The official classes went wholly some other way.
One of the great key-notes of England's future is simply this—what will be her relations with that great republic? If the two branches of the Anglo-Saxon race are to form two phases of one political movement, their welfare and that of the world will be signally promoted. If their coursesare marred by jealousies or contests, both will be fatally retarded. Real confidence and sympathy extended to that people in the hour of their trial would have forged an eternal bond between us. To discredit and distrust them, then, was to sow deep the seeds of antipathy. Yet, although a union in feeling was of importance so great, although so little would have secured it, the governing classes of England wantonly did all they could to foment a breach.
A great political judgment fell upon a race of men, our own brothers; the inveterate social malady they inherited came to a crisis. We watched it gather with exultation and insult. There fell on them the most terrible necessity which can befall men, the necessity of sacrificing the flower of their citizens in civil war, of tearing up their civil and social system by the roots, of transforming the most peaceful type of society into the most military. We magnified and shouted over every disaster; we covered them with insult; we filled the world with ominous forebodings and unjust accusations. There came on them one awful hour when the powers of evil seemed almost too strong; when any but a most heroic race would have sunk under the blows of their traitorous kindred. We chose that moment to give actual succour to their enemy, and stabbed them in the back with a wound which stung their pride even more than it crippled their strength. They displayed the most splendid examples of energy and fortitude which the modern world has seen, with which the defence of Greeceagainst Asia, and of France against Europe, alone can be compared in the whole annals of mankind. They developed almost ideal civic virtues and gifts; generosity, faith, firmness; sympathy the most affecting, resources the most exhaustless, ingenuity the most magical. They brought forth the most beautiful and heroic character who in recent times has ever led a nation, the only blameless type of the statesman since the days of Washington. Under him they created the purest model of government which has yet been seen on the earth—a whole nation throbbing into one great heart and brain, one great heart and brain giving unity and life to a whole nation. The hour of their success came; unchequered in the completeness of its triumph, unsullied by any act of vengeance, hallowed by a great martyrdom.
BY JOHN VANCE CHENEY
The hour was on us; where the man?The fateful sands unfaltering ran,And up the way of tearsHe came into the years,Our pastoral captain. Forth he came,As one that answers to his name;Nor dreamed how high his charge,His work how fair and large,—To set the stones back in the wallLest the divided house should fall,And peace from men depart,Hope and the childlike heart.We looked on him; "'Tis he," we said,"Come crownless and unheralded,The shepherd who will keepThe flocks, will fold the sheep."Unknightly, yes; yet 'twas the mienPresaging the immortal scene,Some battle of His warsWho sealeth up the stars.Not he would take the past betweenHis hands, wipe valor's tablets clean,Commanding greatness waitTill he stand at the gate;Not he would cramp to one small headThe awful laurels of the dead,Time's mighty vintage cup,And drink all honor up.No flutter of the banners bold,Borne by the lusty sons of old,The haughty conquerorsSent forward to their wars;Not his their blare, their pageantries,Their goal, their glory, was not his;Humbly he came to keepThe flocks, to fold the sheep.The need comes not without the man;The prescient hours unceasing ran,And up the way of tearsHe came into the years,Our pastoral captain, skilled to crookThe spear into the pruning hook,The simple, kindly man,Lincoln, American.
The hour was on us; where the man?The fateful sands unfaltering ran,And up the way of tearsHe came into the years,
Our pastoral captain. Forth he came,As one that answers to his name;Nor dreamed how high his charge,His work how fair and large,—
To set the stones back in the wallLest the divided house should fall,And peace from men depart,Hope and the childlike heart.
We looked on him; "'Tis he," we said,"Come crownless and unheralded,The shepherd who will keepThe flocks, will fold the sheep."
Unknightly, yes; yet 'twas the mienPresaging the immortal scene,Some battle of His warsWho sealeth up the stars.
Not he would take the past betweenHis hands, wipe valor's tablets clean,Commanding greatness waitTill he stand at the gate;
Not he would cramp to one small headThe awful laurels of the dead,Time's mighty vintage cup,And drink all honor up.
No flutter of the banners bold,Borne by the lusty sons of old,The haughty conquerorsSent forward to their wars;
Not his their blare, their pageantries,Their goal, their glory, was not his;Humbly he came to keepThe flocks, to fold the sheep.
The need comes not without the man;The prescient hours unceasing ran,And up the way of tearsHe came into the years,
Our pastoral captain, skilled to crookThe spear into the pruning hook,The simple, kindly man,Lincoln, American.
[31]By permission of 'The Interior,' Chicago.
[31]By permission of 'The Interior,' Chicago.
BY J. P. NEWMAN
Human glory is often fickle as the winds, and transient as a summer day, but Abraham Lincoln's place in history is assured. All the symbols of this world's admiration are his. He is embalmed in song; recorded in history; eulogized in panegyric; cast in bronze; sculptured in marble; painted on canvas; enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen, and lives in the memories of mankind. Some men are brilliant in their times, but their words and deeds are of little worth to history; but his mission was as large as his country, vast as humanity, enduring as time. No greater thought can ever enter the human mind than obedience to law and freedom for all. Some men are not honored by their contemporaries, and die neglected. Here is one more honored than any other man while living, more revered when dying, and destined tobe loved to the last syllable of recorded time. He has this three-fold greatness,—great in life, great in death, great in the history of the world. Lincoln will grow upon the attention and affections of posterity, because he saved the life of the greatest nation, whose ever-widening influence is to bless humanity. Measured by this standard, Lincoln shall live in history from age to age.
Great men appear in groups, and in groups they disappear from the vision of the world; but we do not love or hate men in groups. We speak of Gutenberg and his coadjutors, of Washington and his generals, of Lincoln and his cabinet: but when the day of judgment comes, we crown the inventor of printing; we place the laurel on the brow of the father of his country, and the chaplet of renown upon the head of the saviour of the Republic.
Some men are great from the littleness of their surroundings; but he only is great who is great amid greatness. Lincoln had great associates,—Seward, the sagacious diplomatist; Chase, the eminent financier; Stanton, the incomparable Secretary of War; with illustrious Senators and soldiers. Neither could take his part nor fill his position. And the same law of the coming and going of great men is true of our own day. In piping times of peace, genius is not aflame, and true greatness is not apparent; but when the crisis comes, then God lifts the curtain from obscurity, and reveals the man for the hour.
Lincoln stands forth on the page of history, unique in his character, and majestic in his individuality. Like Milton's angel, he was an original conception. He was raised up for his times. He was a leader of leaders. By instinct the common heart trusted in him. He was of the people and for the people. He had been poor and laborious; but greatness did not change the tone of his spirit, or lessen the sympathies of his nature. His character was strangely symmetrical. He was temperate, without austerity; brave, without rashness; constant, without obstinacy. His love of justice was only equalled by his delight in compassion. His regard for personal honor was only excelled by love of country. His self-abnegation found its highest expression in the public good. His integrity was never questioned. His honesty was above suspicion. He was more solid than brilliant; his judgment dominated his imagination; his ambition was subject to his modesty, and his love of justice held the mastery over all personal considerations. Not excepting Washington, who inherited wealth and high social position, Lincoln is the fullest representative American in our national annals. He had touched every round in the human ladder. He illustrated the possibilities of our citizenship. We are not ashamed of his humble origin. We are proud of his greatness.
Whenever the people of Lincoln's neighborhood engaged in dispute; whenever a bet was to be decided; when they differed on points of religion or politics; when they wanted to get out of trouble, or desired advice regarding anything on the earth, below it, above it, or under the sea, they went to "Abe."
Two fellows, after a hot dispute lasting some hours, over the problem as to how long a man's legs should be in proportion to the size of his body, stamped into Lincoln's office one day and put the question to him.
Lincoln listened gravely to the arguments advanced by both contestants, spent some time in "reflecting" upon the matter, and then, turning around in his chair and facing the disputants, delivered his opinion with all the gravity of a judge sentencing a fellow-being to death.
"This question has been a source of controversy," he said, slowly and deliberately, "for untold ages, and it is about time it should be definitely decided. It has led to bloodshed in the past, and there is no reason to suppose it will not lead to the same in the future.
"After much thought and consideration, not to mention mental worry and anxiety, it is myopinion, all side issues being swept aside, that a man's lower limbs, in order to preserve harmony of proportion, should be at least long enough to reach from his body to the ground."
"In the days when I used to be 'on the circuit,'" said Lincoln, "I was accosted in the cars by a stranger, who said:
"'Excuse me, sir, but I have an article in my possession which belongs to you.'
"'How is that?' I asked, considerably astonished.
"The stranger took a jack-knife from his pocket. 'This knife,' said he, 'was placed in my hands some years ago, with the injunction that I was to keep it until I found a man uglier than myself. I have carried it from that time to this. Allow me now to say, sir, that I think you are fairly entitled to the property.'"
Lincoln was a strong believer in the virtue of dealing honestly with the people.
"If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens," he said to a caller at the White House, "you can never regain their respect and esteem.
"It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time."
"I was speaking one time to Mr. Lincoln," said Governor Saunders, of Nebraska, "of a little Nebraskan settlement on the Weeping Waters, a stream in our State."
"'Weeping Water!'" said he.
"Then with a twinkle in his eye, he continued.
"'I suppose the Indians out there call it Minneboohoo, don't they? They ought to, if Laughing Water is Minnehaha in their language.'"
Just previous to the fall of Vicksburg, a self-constituted committee, solicitous for the morale of our armies, took it upon themselves to visit the President and urge the removal of General Grant.
In some surprise Mr. Lincoln inquired, "For what reason?"
"Why," replied the spokesman, "he drinks too much whisky."
"Ah!" rejoined Mr. Lincoln, dropping his lower lip. "By the way, gentlemen, can either of you tell me where General Grant procures his whisky? because, if I can find out, I will send every general in the field a barrel of it!"
Dr. Jerome Walker, of Brooklyn, told how Mr. Lincoln once administered to him a mild rebuke. The doctor was showing Mr. Lincoln through the hospital at City Point.
"Finally, after visiting the wards occupied by our invalid and convalescing soldiers," said Dr. Walker, "we came to three wards occupied by sick and wounded Southern prisoners. With a feeling of patriotic duty, I said: 'Mr. President, you won't want to go in there; they are only rebels.'
"I will never forget how he stopped and gently laid his large hand upon my shoulder and quietly answered, 'You mean Confederates!' And I have meant Confederates ever since.
"There was nothing left for me to do after the President's remark but to go with him through these three wards; and I could not see but that he was just as kind, his hand-shakings just as hearty, his interest just as real for the welfare of the men, as when he was among our own soldiers."
The compiler of the "Dictionary of Congress" states that while preparing that work for publication in 1858, he sent to Mr. Lincoln the usual request for a sketch of his life, and received the following reply:
"Born February 12, 1809, in Hardin Co., Kentucky.
Education Defective. Profession a Lawyer. Have been a Captain of Volunteers in Black Hawk War. Postmaster at a very small office. Four times a member of the Illinois Legislature, and was a member of the Lower House of Congress.
Yours, etc.A. Lincoln."
(Speech at Peoria, Ill., October 16, 1854)
This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert zeal, for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injusticeof slavery itself; I hate it because it deprives our republic of an example of its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity; and, especially, because it forces so many really good men among ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticising the Declaration of Independence and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.
The doctrine of self-government is right,—absolutely and eternally right,—but it has no just application, as here attempted. Or, perhaps, I should rather say, that whether it has such just application depends upon whether a negro is not, or is, a man. If he is not a man, in that case he who is a man may, as a matter of self-government, do just what he pleases with him. But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction of self-government to say that he, too, shall not govern himself?
When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs himself, and also governs another man, that is more than self-government—that is despotism.
What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
The master not only governs the slave without his consent, but he governs him by a set of rules altogether different from those which he prescribesfor himself. Allow all the governed an equal voice in the government; that, and that only, is self-government.
Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature—opposition to it, in his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.
Repeal the Missouri Compromise—repeal all compromise—and repeal the Declaration of Independence—repeal all past history—still you cannot repeal human nature.
I particularly object to the new position which the avowed principles of the Nebraska law gives to slavery in the body politic. I object to it, because it assumes that there can be moral right in the enslaving of one man by another. I object to it as a dangerous dalliance for a free people,—a sad evidence that feeling prosperity, we forget right,—that liberty as a principle we have ceased to revere.
Little by little, but steadily as man's march to the grave, we have been giving up the old for the new faith. Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration that for some men to enslave others is a 'sacred right of self-government.' These principles cannot stand together. They are as opposite as God and Mammon.
Our republican robe is soiled and trailed in thedust. Let us purify it. Let us turn and wash it white, in the spirit, if not in the blood, of the Revolution.
Let us turn slavery from its claims of 'moral right' back upon its existing legal rights, and its arguments of 'necessity.' Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it, and there let it rest in peace.
Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and the practices and policy which harmonize with it. Let North and South—let all Americans—let all lovers of liberty everywhere, join in the great and good work.
If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union, but shall have so saved it, as to make and to keep it forever worthy of saving. We shall have so saved it that the succeeding millions of free, happy people, the world over, shall rise up and call us blessed to the latest generations.
I defy anyone to show that any living man in the whole world ever did, prior to the beginning of the present century (and I might almost say prior to the beginning of the last half of the present century), declare that, in his understanding, any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade theFederal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories.
To those who now so declare, I give, not only 'our fathers who framed the government under which we live,' but with them all other living men within the century in which it was framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be able to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with them.
I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do so would be to discard all the lights of current experience, to reject all progress, all improvement. What I do say is, that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better than we.
Let all who believe that 'our fathers, who framed the government under which we live,' understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now, speak as they spoke, and act as they acted upon it.
It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great confederacy shall be at peace, and in harmony, one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill-temper.
Even though the Southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider theirdemands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can. Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them.
Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation. But can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national Territories, and to overrun us here in these free States?
If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored—contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man; such as a policy of 'don't care' on a question about which all true men do care; such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance; such as invocations to Washington imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.
Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty, as we understand it.
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States, that by the occasion of a Republican administration, their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed, and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you.
I do but quote from one of those speeches, when I declared that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery, in the States where it exists."
I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. Those who nominated and elected me did so with the full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them. I now reiterate these sentiments, and in doing so, I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming administration.
I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations, and with no purpose to construe theConstitution or laws by any hypercritical rules; and, while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional.
It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a president under our national constitution. During that period, fifteen different and very distinguished citizens have in succession administered the executive branch of the government. They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with this scope for precedent, I now enter upon the same task, for the brief constitutional term of four years, under great and peculiar difficulties.
I hold, that in the contemplation of universal law and the Constitution, the union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our national Constitution, and the Union will endure forever.
To those, however, who really love the Union may I not speak? Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be well to ascertain why we do it?Will you hazard so desperate a step while any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from? Will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?
All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right plainly written in the Constitution has been denied? I think not. Happily, the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this.
All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guarantees and prohibitions, in the Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of reasonable length contain, express provision for all possible questions.
Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by National or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.
From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the government must cease. There is no alternative for continuing the government but acquiescence on the one side or the other.
If the minority will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which, in turn, will ruin and divide them; for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such a minority. For instance, why should not any portion of a new confederacy, a year or two hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it?
All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this. Is there such perfect identity of interest among the States to compose a new union as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed secession? Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy.
Physically speaking, we cannot separate; we cannot move our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them.
Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, youcease fighting, the identical questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.
Why should there not be patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of nations with His eternal truth and justice be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.
By the frame of government under which we live, this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years.
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon the whole subject—nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time, but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power if it wanted to change either. If it were admittedthat you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulties.
In your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it.
I am about to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle field and patriot grave, to every loving heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
The Administration, during the early months of the war for the Union, was greatly perplexed as to the proper mode of dealing with slavery, especially in the districts occupied by the Union forces. In thesummer of 1862, when Mr. Lincoln was earnestly contemplating his Proclamation of Emancipation, Horace Greeley, the leading Republican editor, published in his paper, the New York Tribune, a severe article in the form of a letter addressed to the President, taking him to task for failing to meet the just expectations of twenty millions of loyal people. Thereupon Mr. Lincoln sent him the following letter:—
Executive Mansion, Washington,August 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley.
Dear Sir:I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through the New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right. As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it in the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the National authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be "The Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is noteither to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less, whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause; and I shall do more, whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free.
Yours,A. Lincoln.