Abraham Ortelius

“ Many a Southern man cried out in his heart that his people had been robbed of their best friend in their humiliation and distress, when Abraham Lincoln was struck down. It was as if the tender affection which his countrymen bore him had inspired all nations with a common sentiment. All civilized mankind stood mourning around the coffin of the dead President. ”

“ There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice—the demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity. ”

“ The crowd rushing and eddying to and fro, the night, the yells, the pale faces, many frightened people trying in vain to extricate themselves, the attacked man, not yet freed from the jaws of death, looking like a corpse ”

“ The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think; From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink; To the life we are clinging they also would cling; But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing. ”

“ The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living 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. ”

“ Slavery may or may not be established in Nebraska. But whether it be or not, we shall have repudiated—discarded from the councils of the nation—the spirit of compromise; for who, after this, will ever trust in a national compromise? The spirit of mutual concession—that spirit which first gave us the Constitution, and which has thrice saved the Union—we shall have strangled and cast from us forever. And what shall we have in lieu of it? The South flushed with triumph and tempted to excess; the North, betrayed as they believe, brooding on wrong and burning for revenge. ”

“ Lincoln is popular—the strongest man the opposition have,—is nearly fifty years old—six feet two—slightly stoop-shouldered—very muscular and powerful—dark eyes—a quizzical, pleasant, raw-boned face—tells a a story better than anybody else—is a good lawyer—and is what the world calls a devilish good fellow.—He would have been senator before, had not Trumbull's superior cunning overreached him. But, in dignity, intellect and majesty of mind it is not pretended that he is Douglas's equal. ”

“ 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 freedom. ”

“ No doubt Thomas Lincoln made Abraham's cradle and Nancy Lincoln spun the cloth for his first garments. They raised their own corn, dried their own fruit, hunted their own game, raised their own pork and beef. It was the hard life of the pioneer where every man provides for his own needs. ”

“ The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne, The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn, The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap, The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep, The beggar who wandered in search of his bread, Have faded away like the grass that we tread. ”

“ Alas, who can realize that Henry Clay is dead! Who can realize that never again that majestic form shall rise in the council-chambers of his country to beat back the storms of anarchy which may threaten, or pour the oil of peace upon the troubled billows as they rage and menace around! Who can realize that the workings of that mighty mind have ceased, that the throbbings of that gallant heart are stilled, that the mighty sweep of that graceful arm will be felt no more, and the magic of that eloquent tongue, which spake as spake no other tongue besides, is hushed hushed for ever! ”

“ Tell me, thou mighty deep, Whose billows round me play, Knows't thou some favored spot, Some island far away, Where weary man may find The bliss for which he sighs; Where sorrow never lives And friendship never dies? ”

“ Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you. ”

“ They died, ay, they died: we things that are now, That walk on the turf that lies over their brow, And make in their dwellings a transient abode, Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road. ”

“ For Lincoln the man, patient, wise, set in a high resolve, is worth far more than Lincoln the hero, vaguely glorious. Invaluable is the example of the man, intangible that of the hero.
And, though it is not for us, as for those who in awed stillness listened at Gettysburg with inspired perception, to know Abraham Lincoln, yet there is for us another way whereby we may attain such knowledge—through his words—uttered in all sincerity to those who loved or hated him. ”

“ Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around, and together be laid; And the young and the old, and the low and the high, Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie. ”

“ That the two people who endured its hardships and made in spite of them a home where a boy could conceive and nourish such ideals and enthusiasms as inspired Abraham Lincoln from his early years should have their names darkened by unfounded suspicions is a cruel injustice against which every honest and patriotic American ought to set his face. ”

“ The descendants of Abraham were flattered by the opinion that they alone were the heirs of the covenant, and they were apprehensive of diminishing the value of their inheritance by sharing it too easily with the strangers of the earth. ”

“ Lincoln's powerful arguments carried conviction everywhere. His moral nature was thoroughly aroused his conscience was stirred to the quick. Unless slavery was wrong, nothing was wrong. Was each man, of whatever color, entitled to the fruits of his own labor, or could one man live in idle luxury by the sweat of another's brow, whose skin was darker? He was an implicit believer in that principle of the Declaration of Independence that all men are vested with certain inalienable rights the equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ”

“ Abraham Lincoln, in reply to Senator Douglas' speech of Friday evening. . . . . The war has begun. The first fire has been exchanged by the two contestants. Those who will read the speech we publish today, will perceive that the Little Giant is already wounded in several vital parts. In sound, manly argument, Lincoln is too much for him. ”

“ Trumbull Elected—The Anti-Nebraska Sentiment of Illinois Vindicated
The Senatorial election took place on yesterday. . . . . Abraham Lincoln had by far the largest number of votes on the first votes [ballot] : but it having become apparent that he could not be elected, his friends to a man, with his entire approbation, united on a candidate that could be, and was, elected. Every vote Judge Trumbull received came from anti-Nebraska and anti-Douglas men. ”

“ Who can realize that freedom's champion, the champion of a civilized world and of all tongues and kindreds of people, has indeed fallen! Alas, in those dark hours of peril and dread which our land has experienced, and which she may be called to experience again, to whom now may her people look up for that counsel and advice which only wisdom and experience and patriotism can give, and which only the undoubting confidence of a nation will receive? ”

“ He saw what no man could dispute, but he failed to see what might have been seen.
To some minds the world is all life, a soul beneath the material; but to Mr. Lincoln no life was individual that did not manifest itself to him. ”

“ For, that this was not the language of one who doubts, Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, is a witness, (Romans 4:19,) who denies that Abraham considered his body now dead, or the barren womb of Sarah, or that he staggered through unbelief; ”

“ Lincoln is no match for him, before the people. Every canvass for the last twenty years has found these two champions of their respective parties side by side with each other, and often addressing the same audience, and Mr. Lincoln never asked any favor of his adversary. He does not now. If Mr. Douglas really felt his superiority, those who know him will be slow to believe that he would not take advantage of it. He, however, shows the white feather, and, like a trembling Felix skulks behind the appointments of the emasculate Democratic State Central Committee! ”

“ A new edition of the speeches made by Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln in the set debate during the Illinois senatorial canvass of 1858 would seem a worthy and appropriate part of the general commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of that event. While the campaign was local in its inception, it became national in its significance and in its results. ”

“ The issues as brought out in the debate, especially in the speech of Douglas at Freeport, widened, if they did not open, the breach between him and the southern Democrats, made a split in the convention of 1860 a foregone conclusion, and thereby paved the way for Republican success and the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. ”

“ Douglas was aggressive, confident in himself, and evidently bent on crushing his opponent. Mr. Lincoln seemed at first too modest and undemonstrative. But as he went on and forgot himself, and apparently his party, in his interest in grand principles, he rose in dignity, till he seemed more the embodiment of Justice, Freedom and Love of Humanity, than a mere man. He was lost in the grandeur of the cause, and stood unselfishly for the rights of all men, in all ages. ”

“ God created man, and placed before him both good and evil, and left him free to choose for himself. That was the origin of the Nebraska bill." As he said this, Lincoln looked the picture of good nature and patience. As Douglas concluded, the smile which lurked in the corners of Lincoln's mouth parted his lips, and he replied, "Well, then, I think it is a great honor to Judge Douglas that he was the first man to discover that fact." ”

“ Lincoln headed the list of Illinois electors for Fremont and Dayton. During the campaign, Douglas took the stump for Buchanan and Lincoln for Fremont. After the defeat of Fremont, Lincoln said in a speech at a banquet in Chicago: "In the late contest we were divided between Fremont and Buchanan. Can we not come together in the future? Let bygones be bygones; let past differences be as nothing; and with steady eye on the real issue, let us re-inaugurate the good old 'central ideas' of the republic. We can do it. The human heart is with us; God is with us." ”

“ But it seems, from the difference between the two versions of Lincoln's speech, that the Republicans have a candidate for the Senate of whose bad rhetoric and horrible jargon they are ashamed, upon which before they would publish it, they called a council of "literary" men, to discuss, re-construct and re-write; they dare not allow Lincoln to go into print in his own dress; and abuse us, the Times, for reporting him literally. ”

“ Since the campaign was to be waged against Senator Douglas, Lincoln devoted a large part of his speech to showing the unfitness of the Illinois senator to lead Republicans in their attempt to check the growing territorial power of the slaveholding dynasty, and to ridiculing the pretended greatness of the senator. "They remind us," said he, "that he is a great man and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let that be granted. But 'a living dog is better than a dead lion.' Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion, for his work, is at least a caged and toothless one. ”

“ On motion of one of the Peoria delegates, the motto was amended to read—"Illinois Is for Abraham Lincoln," which brought down the House with three times three and three extra.—Springfield Journal.
The Republican enemies of Long John in Chicago thought they had put a nail in his coffin by preparing this banner, and the result is that they think they have effectually killed off his Senatorial aspirations by the above proceeding. Another move is to nominate E. Peck and Kriessman for the legislature from North Chicago, and Meech and Scripps from South Chicago. ”

“ University of Indiana, the subject of this sketch trained himself in the art of phonography and in 1856 opened an office in Chicago and established himself as a court and newspaper shorthand reporter, the first expert stenographer permanently located in that city. His work as a stenographer first brought him into the notice of Abraham Lincoln, then practicing law, and later as a newspaper reporter in reporting the campaign speeches of Lincoln and other prominent orators of the day, including Douglas, Logan, Lovejoy, and indeed of all the great speakers of the Middle West of that time. ”

“ Abe Lincoln, the late President of the United States of America, was born on the 12th of February, 1809, in Hardin County, in the State of Kentucky. His grandfather, who emigrated from Virginia to the above State, was slain by the Indians in 1784. Thomas Lincoln, father of the President, and Nancy Hawks, his mother, were natives of Virginia. The opportunities for education enjoyed by Abraham were few and far between, for at an early age his father needed his assistance in clearing the forest, and making it a fitting dwelling place for man. ”

“ When President Lincoln visited the army of the Potomac, a captain with a face cut and slashed in all directions, complained of the great want of ambulances and the consequent sufferings of the wounded. “I will do my best,” replied Abe, “to supply the deficiency,” and then, turning to another, he remarked that “the captain had no right to complain of the number of his (s) cars.” ”