Earl of Lincoln

“ There is a niche in the temple of fame, a niche near to Washington, which should be occupied by the statue of him who shall save his country. Mr. Lincoln has a mighty destiny. It is for him, if he will, to step into that niche. It is for him to be but a President of the people of the United States, and there will his statue be. But if he chooses to be in these times, a mere sectarian and a party man, that niche will be reserved for some future and better patriot. It is in his power to occupy a place next to Washington-- the founder and the preserver, side by side. ”

“ To see Lincoln, on such great occasions, on an open prairie, the central figure of ten thousand people, every sound but that of his voice hushed to perfect silence, every eye bent upon him, every ear open, eager to catch each word, his voice clear and powerful, and of a key that could be distinctly heard by all the vast multitude; to hear him on such occasions, speaking on the great themes of liberty and slavery, was to hear Demosthenes thundering against Philip ”

“ There is but one other name in American history which can be mentioned with his as that of a peer--the name of Washington. Lincoln was as pure, as just, as patriotic, as the father of his country. He had more faith in the people, and was more hopeful for the future. Both have been so associated with our history that time will only brighten the lustre of their fame. ”

“ It would be difficult to find in history three men more unlike physically and mentally, and yet of greater historic interest or more distinguished ability, than the statesman President, and Grant and Sherman. And, although so entirely unlike one another, each was a type of American character, and all had peculiarities not only distinctively American, but Western. Lincoln's towering form had been given dignity and repose by the great deeds and great thoughts to which he had given such eloquent expression. ”

“ It is the student of a century hence who shall properly place the civil war in American history. But, whatever that place be, there can be no doubt of the position in it of the war President. Like William the Silent, his domination of all about him was a matter not of personal desire, but of [111] absolute and constant growth. There are few more interesting characters in history than Lincoln. There is none who in quite the same manner fits himself so absolutely into his circumstances. ”

“ This was an irksome situation for a warrior; but though his uncle loved, he distrusted him: his projected marriage with the Lady Elizabeth would probably cause him again to be father of an heir to the crown, and knowing that Lincoln possessed, in the young duke of York, a dangerous rival, he refused to allow him to take up arms against Richmond. Lord Lincoln was alone, pacing his large and vaulted hall in deep and anxious meditation. He, who with conscience for his rule, takes, or endeavours to take, the reins of fate into his own hands, must experience frequent misgivings ”

“ No other in American annals has so impressed the people. Said a distinguished statesman from New York, on the day of its delivery, "A century from to-day that inaugural will be read as one of the most sublime utterances ever spoken by man. Washington is the great man of the era of the Revolution. So will Lincoln be of this; but Lincoln will reach the higher position in history."
Four years before, Mr. Lincoln, an untried man, had assumed the reins of government; now, he was the faithful and beloved servant of the people. ”

“ An old acquaintance of the President's visited him at Washington. Each man's wife insisted on the gentleman, her lord, donning gloves. For they were going as a square party out in the presidential carriage, and the Washingtonians would not accept a king as such unless he dressed as a king. Mr. Lincoln, as a shrewd politician, and married man, put his gloves in his pocket, not to don them until there was no wriggling out of the fix ”

“ Lincoln's new duties as President of the United States had not in any wise put him at a disadvantage with his constitutional advisers. Upon the old question of slavery he was as well informed and had clearer convictions and purposes than either Seward or Chase. And upon the newer question of secession, and the immediate decision about Fort Sumter which it involved, the members of his cabinet were, like himself, compelled to rely on the professional advice of experienced army and navy officers. ”

“ The re-appearing of Abraham Lincoln as a living force in the affairs of the world, more than half a century after his death, is one of the striking phenomena of our time. The Lincoln, whose figure moves among us and whose voice we hear again, is still the wise and gentle leader of the people whom his contemporaries knew. ”

“ Lincoln replied, “There is one man in this country who, though little in stature, is a giant in mind, and he has given me much hard work to do.”
Mr. Lincoln’s reply to the committee that visited Springfield on May 19, to notify him of his nomination, and his formal letter of acceptance, dated May 23, avoided all reference to what Mr. Seward had described as “the impending crisis.” In his letter Mr. Lincoln pledged “due regard to the rights of all States and Territories and people of the nation, to the inviolability of the Constitution, and the perpetual union, harmony, and prosperity of all.” ”

“ We may accept, also, the award of Lincoln, who made him major-general for his brilliant service at Chickamauga, and the confidence of Thomas, who offered him the command of an army corps. Great as was his capacity for military service, the judgment of Abraham Lincoln did not err, when it summoned him to the field of labor where his greatest laurels were won. It is the fashion, in some quarters, to lament the decay of statesmanship, and to make comparisons, by no means complimentary, between persons now entrusted with the conduct of public affairs, and their predecessors. ”

“ Ambassador Bryce of England, speaking at Lincoln’s tomb before a vast gathering at the centennial anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, said, “To us in England, Lincoln is one of the heroes of the race from whence we sprung. Great men are the noblest possession of a Nation, and are potent forces in the moulding of national character. Their influence lives after them, and, if they be good as well as great, they remain as beacons lighting the course of all who follow them. They set for succeeding generations the standards of public life. ”

“ It is not generally known that Abraham Lincoln sent a substitute to the war against the South, but such is a fact. During the earlier days of the war it seems to have been the desire of all prominent men in Washington to have a representative in the ranks, and Lincoln was no exception to the rule. ”

“ Lincoln survived the war he would have been either willing or able to withstand the oppressions of the malicious and revengeful men in his cabinet and in Congress in their determination to further punish the people of the already prostrate and bleeding South, to which condition of affairs he had done so much to contribute. ”

“ For at last it is true of both North and South, in Lincoln's own pathetic words, that 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.
The most striking characteristic of Lincoln's character was his honesty. Some men are naturally secretive: Lincoln was naturally open as sunshine. The exact fact, truth in the hidden parts, openness, these were the innermost fibre of his being. ”

“ This man was Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, the record of whose life, at once important, eventful, and tragic, it is pleasant to recall.
There are, in my judgment, at least four men associated with the period of the civil war, who, in their early lives, their struggles, their training, and their future callings, ought forever to command the admiration of this people: Lincoln, the lowly, the exalted, the pure man in rude marble, the plain cover to a gentle nature, the giant frame and noble intellect ”

“ The repeal of the Missouri Compromise roused Lincoln from retirement, and stimulated him to the utmost exertion of his powers. He now prepared to enter the arena as the great champion of freedom. He had bided his time. He had waited until the harvest was ripe. With unerring sagacity he realized that the day for the triumph of freedom was at hand. He entered upon the conflict with the deepest conviction that the perpetuity of the republic required the extinction of slavery. So adopting as his motto, "A house divided against itself cannot stand," he girded himself for the contest. ”

“ Lincoln was back in Washington the next day. Another day, and by a sweeping order he created a new army for the protection of Washington, and placed in command of it, a western general who was credited with a brilliant stroke on the Mississippi. (31) No one will now defend the military genius of John Pope. But when Lincoln sent for him, all the evidence to date appeared to be in his favor. His follies were yet to appear. And it is more than likely that in the development of Lincoln's character, his appointment has a deep significance. ”

“ The effect it had upon the people satisfied all present that it was a waste of words to talk in Illinois of any other man than Abraham Lincoln for President.
No public man had less of the demagogue than Mr. Lincoln. He never mentioned his humble life, or his manual labor, for the purpose of getting votes. He knew perfectly well that it did not follow because a man could split rails, that he would make a good statesman or President. ”

“ Your letter of the 5th inst. was handed me a few days since by General Gist. I fully concur with you in the opinion that Lincoln will be elected President, and that a full and free interchange of opinion between the Executives of the Southern States, and especially of the Cotton States, should be had as to what ought to be done and what will be done by them to protect the interest and honor of the slave-holding States in the event he should be elected.
My opinion is, that the election of Lincoln alone is not sufficient cause for a dissolution of the Union ”

“ Lincoln resembled Franklin more than Washington. By his origin, his arch good nature, his ironical good sense, and his love of anecdotes and jesting, he was of the same blood as the printer of Philadelphia. But it is nevertheless true that in less than a century, America has passed through two crises in which its liberty might have been lost, if it had not had honest men at its head; and that each time it has had the happiness to meet the man best fitted to serve it. If Washington founded the Union, Lincoln has saved it. ”

“ In 1841 Harrison died and John Tyler succeeded to the Presidency, and William R. King, of Alabama, was elected acting Vice-President by the Senate; but no one supposed that the Union was in danger. In fact, at the very time Mr. Fillmore uttered this idle charge, the state of things in the United States disproved it. Mr. Pierce, of New Hampshire, and Mr. Bright, of Indiana, both from free States, are President and Vice-President, and the Union stands and will stand. You do not pretend that it ought to dissolve the Union, and the facts show that it won't ”

“ In February, 1860, not long before his nomination for the Presidency, Lincoln made several speeches in Eastern cities. To an Illinois acquaintance, whom he met at the Astor House, in New York, he said:
"I have the cottage at Springfield, and about three thousand dollars in money. If they make me Vice-President with Seward, as some say they will, I hope I shall be able to increase it to twenty thousand, and that is as much as any man ought to want." ”

“ It is fit that the first considered attempt by an Englishman to give a picture of Lincoln, the great hero of America's struggle for the noblest cause, should come at a time when we in England are passing through as fiery a trial for a cause we feel to be as noble. It is a time when we may learn much from Lincoln's failures and success, from his patience, his modesty, his serene optimism and his eloquence, so simple and so magnificent. ”

“ In the morning Lincoln held a Cabinet meeting, at which General Grant was present. The [Pg 114] question of reconstruction, of making one whole out of the divided halves, was discussed. Some of the Cabinet were anxious to wreak vengeance on the South, to execute the leaders of the rebellion. Such was not Lincoln’s view.
“Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and union.”
His noble patriotism could still say to the South, “We are not enemies, but friends.” His life was now even more precious to the South than to the North. ”

“ In the White House, as in his simple home in Springfield, Mr. Lincoln was the same plain, unaffected, unpretentious citizen. He won the admiration and affection of even the most punctilious of the foreign diplomats by the tenderness of his nature and the touching simplicity of his demeanor.... He was, in mind and heart, the very highest type of development of a plain man. He was a born leader of men, and the qualities that made him a leader were of the plain, common-sense type.... Lincoln had one great advantage over all the chief statesmen of his day. ”

“ Abraham Lincoln was born to a very humble station in life, and his early surroundings were rude and rough, but his ancestors for generations had been of that tough fiber, and vigorous physical organization and mental energy, so often found among the pioneers on the frontier of American civilization. His forefathers removed from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, in the first half of the seventeenth century; and from Pennsylvania some members of the family moved to Virginia, and settled in the valley of the Shenandoah, in the county of Rockingham, whence his immediate ancestors came to Kentucky. ”