Josiah Gilbert Holland

“ Lincoln's history. It flashes a strong light upon the path he had already trod, and illuminates every page of his subsequent record. Men have wondered at his abounding charity, his love of men, his equanimity under the most distressing circumstances, his patience under insult and misrepresentation, his delicate consideration of the feelings of the humble, his apparent incapacity of resentment, his love of justice, his transparent simplicity, his truthfulness, his good will toward his enemies, his beautiful and unshaken faith in the triumph of the right. ”

“ Bateman, I am not a Christian--God knows I would be one--but I have carefully read the Bible, and I do not so understand this book;" and he drew from his bosom a pocket New Testament. "These men well know," he continued, "that I am for freedom in the territories, freedom everywhere as far as the Constitution and laws will permit, and that my opponents are for slavery. They know this, and yet, with this book in their hands, in the light of which human bondage cannot live a moment, they are going to vote against me. ”

“ Lincoln had become the most important man on the continent. Parties were given in his honor, autograph hunters beset him everywhere, and office-seekers met him on the right hand and on the left. That he felt at home in this new life is not probable, but he had the good sense to put on no airs, and to undertake no change of his manners in meeting men and women. From the day of his election to the day of his death, he was the same unpretending man that he was when he first entered Springfield to practice law. ”

“ Nothing pained him more than the thought that a man professing the religion of Jesus Christ, and especially a man who taught the religion of Jesus Christ, should be opposed to him. He felt that every religious man--every man who believed in God, in the principles of everlasting justice, in truth and righteousness--should be opposed to slavery, and should support and assist him in the struggle against inhumanity and oppression which he felt to be imminent. ”

“ Lincoln's cause and principles, they traduced him and his associates upon the ticket. Mr. Lincoln was called the "Illinois ape," and this, not by the rabble, but by the leaders of public opinion; while Mr. Hamlin was actually believed by many southern people to be a mulatto, through the representations of presses and politicians. Every falsehood that could sting the southern mind to malignity and resentment against the North, and make detestable the man whom the North was about to elect to the presidency, was shamelessly uttered. ”

“ The result of the election was great popular rejoicing at the North, great exasperation at the South, great fear and trembling among compromisers of both sections, and a general conviction that the crisis so long threatened was actually upon the nation. Among the republicans there was this feeling: that they had fairly, on an open declaration of principles and policy, and strictly according to the provisions of the Constitution, elected a president; and that if, for this, the South was determined to make war, the contest might as well come first as last. ”

“ It was rare that he exhibited what was religious in him; and he never did this at all, except when he found just the nature and character that were sympathetic with that aspect and element of his character. A great deal of his best, deepest, largest life he kept almost constantly from view, because he would not expose it to the eyes and apprehension of the careless multitude. ”

“ It is only by tracing these separate streams of impression back to their fountain that we are able to arrive at anything like a competent comprehension of the man, or to learn why he came to be held in such various estimation. Men caught only separate aspects of his character--only the fragments that were called into exhibition by their own qualities. ”

“ Lincoln; for it is rare indeed that any man is nominated for the presidency with the same moral certainty of an election which attached to his prospects. It was almost universally believed, both at the North and the South, that he would be elected; and he was treated like a man who already had the reins of power in his hands. ”

“ Such a nature and character seem full of contradictions; and a man who is subject to such transitions will always be a mystery to those who do not know him wholly. Thus no two men among his intimate friends will agree concerning him.
The writer has conversed with multitudes of men who claimed to know Mr. Lincoln intimately; yet there are not two of the whole number who agree in their estimate of him. The fact was that he rarely showed more than one aspect of himself to one man. He opened himself to men in different directions. ”

“ Lincoln this incident, which, in her mind, had doubtless taken the form of prophesy. Mr. Lincoln placed the honest creature at her ease, chatted with her of old times, and dismissed her in the most happy and complacent frame of mind.
The interviews of this character were almost numberless, constantly intermingled with grave conversations with statesmen and politicians concerning the campaign in progress, and the condition and prospects of the country. The future was very dark. Threats of secession grew louder and deeper. Steps towards treason were bolder with every passing day. ”

“ Indeed, this was so entirely what they desired that they would have regarded the election of Mr. Douglas as a calamity, although it may well be doubted whether they would have been deterred from their disunion schemes by his election. They took pains to poison the public mind by every possible expedient. They identified the cause of the republicans with the John Brown raid into Virginia, with everything that was offensive to the pride of the South in Helper's "Impending Crisis," with "abolitionism" which was the most disgusting and dangerous sin in the pro-slavery catalogue of sins. ”

“ Oppressed with great responsibilities, absorbed by the most profound problems relating to his own spirit and destiny, brought into sympathetic relation with the woes of the world, and living much in the very depths of a sadness whose natural fountain had been deepened by the experience of his life, he found no relief except by direct and entire translation to that other channel of his life which lay among his shallowest emotions. ”

“ The effect of this conversation upon the mind of Mr. Bateman, a Christian gentleman whom Mr. Lincoln profoundly respected, was to convince him, that Mr. Lincoln had, in his quiet way, found a path to the Christian stand-point--that he had found God, and rested on the eternal truth of God. As the two men were about to separate, Mr. Bateman remarked: "I have not supposed that you were accustomed to think so much upon this class of subjects. Certainly your friends generally are ignorant of the sentiments you have expressed to me." He replied quickly: "I know they are. ”

“ One thing was remarkable in these receptions--his attention to the humble and the poor. No poor, humble, scared man ever came into his house toward whom his heart did not at once go out with a gush of noble sympathy. ”

“ Lincoln's intercourse with men, it may be said that men who knew him through all his professional and political life have offered opinions as diametrically opposite as these, viz: that he was a very ambitious man, and that he was without a particle of ambition; that he was one of the saddest men that ever lived, and that he was one of the jolliest men that ever lived; that he was very religious, but that he was not a Christian ”

“ It is doubtful whether the clergymen of Springfield knew anything of these experiences. Very few of them were in political sympathy with him; and it is evident that he could open his heart to no one except under the most favorable circumstances. The fountain from which gushed up so grand and good a life was kept carefully covered from the eyes of the world. ”