Chapter IV: Part 4

“Who can doubt that Providence put the preposterous notion of a round world into the head of the Genoese sailor? Who can doubt that Providence designed Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant each for his own mission? The Declaration of Independence was the Genesis of American liberty, but the gospel of its New Testament was the Emancipation Proclamation. Until the Emancipation Proclamation the tide of success set strongly against the Union shore. But afterward the soldiers of the Union marched steadily from Chattanooga to Atlanta and from Atlanta to the sea. From the time the flag of liberty became the flag of freedom and the Stars and Stripes no longer floated over slaves, the Union never wavered in its onward march.

“Almost a third of a century has passed away. Blue and gray they lie together beneath the sod. Heroes all, they fell face to face, brother against brother. But through the mingled tears that fall alike upon the dead of both sections, the eyes of all turn toward a new future under the old flag. To the North and South, to the white and the black, Abraham Lincoln was God’s special providence. What is the heritage to us? In his own words, ‘A government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’

“I wish that my voice could reach from one end of the land to the other while I tell what true Americanism is. I come from a State that has as great local necessities, perhaps, as any other. The State of Nebraska put one star into the flag. The great State of New York put another. But when they set them there, they ceased to shine for themselves, but for the whole Union.

“What we need in this country is the Emancipation Proclamation and the Stars and Stripes at every polling place. We need a revival of the American flag. Let it float over every American battlefield, be taught in every public school. Set the Stars of the Union in the hearts of our children and the glory of the Republic will remain forever. It does not matter whether the American cradle is rocked to the music of ‘Yankee Doodle’ or the lullaby of ‘Dixie’ if the flag of the nation is displayed above it, and the American baby can be safely trusted to pull about the floor the rusty scabbard and the battered canteen, whether the inheritance be from blue or gray, if from the breast of a true mother and the lips of a brave father, its little soul is filled with the glory of the American constellation.

“The memory of Lincoln cannot perish. On freedom’s roll of honor the name of Lincoln is written first. His colossal statue stands on a pedestal of the people’s love, and in its protecting shadow, liberty and equality are the heritage of every American citizen.”

LINCOLN ANALYZED.

There is something in Washington or in Lincoln or Grant, that defies analysis. It is a moral elevation, a magnanimity, a nobleness and profoundness of mind. It is force of character and ability by which man is able to meet great emergencies. This is true greatness.

Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. If you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test.

Judged by this standard Abraham Lincoln stands out one of the purest, grandest and noblest characters of all time. Greatness was never more unconscious of itself than it was in him. It consisted in the fact that he made mistakes but rose above them.

Lincoln was a man of marvelous growth. The statesman or the military hero born and reared in a log cabin is a familiar figure in American history; but we may search in vain among our men of honor and fame for one whose origin and early life equaled Abraham Lincoln’s in obscurity and lack of education.

He sprang from the poorest class in the border south. Hard work his early lot; his education a minus factor. In the year of his majority his father moved to Illinois. Here Lincoln began for himself the hard battle of life. He became an ambitious young man. Unquestionably in some mysterious way, he arrived at the conclusion that this world had something far higher for him than neighborhood joker, champion wrestler or prize wood chopper.

A lawyer lent him a copy of Blackstone and he commenced the study of law; was admitted to the bar in 1836; rose rapidly in his profession and became an eminent lawyer. Being more adapted to the part of a jurist than an advocate, owing to the striking uprightness of his character, he applied himself to this branch of his profession, and it may truly be said that his vivid sense of truth and justice had much to do with his effectiveness as a jurist. When he felt himself to be the protector of innocence, the defender of justice, or the prosecutor of wrong, he frequently disclosed such unexpected resources of reasoning, such depth of feeling, and rose to such fervor of appeal as to astonish and overwhelm his hearers, and make his appeal irresistible.

He continued to “ride the circuit,” read books, tell funny stories to his fellow lawyers in the tavern, chat familiarly with his neighbors and become more and more widely known, trusted and beloved among the people of his State for his ability as a lawyer and politician, for the integrity of his character and the ever-flowing spring of sympathetic kindness in his heart. His main ambition was that of political distinction, yet no one, at that time, would have suspected that he was the man destined to lead the nation through the greatest crisis of the century.

Nevertheless, he was growing, indeed, this is one prominent fact in Lincoln’s life--he never ceased growing. As captain in the Black Hawk war, as candidate for the legislature, as storekeeper, postmaster, surveyor and law student, he was always growing.

In 1846 he was elected to congress where he distinguished himself as a humorous speaker and rapidly advanced to the front as a statesman.

Lincoln was a statesman in the truest and grandest sense of the word. He was a type of honesty and moral integrity. He had a conscience “void of offense toward God, and toward men.” A lover of the truth and men learned to trust him. He was just and for that reason would not put upon others that which he would not put upon himself. He studied the questions of the day and founded his opinions on truth and justice.

It was not until 1854 when the slavery question had been thrust into politics as the paramount issue, that Lincoln’s powers were aroused to their fullest capacity. He plunged into arduous study of the question, in its legal, historical and moral aspects, until his mind became a complete arsenal of argument.

Now he was able to cope with any political antagonist. The time had come when the Republican party required a man to put forward as their standard bearer one who would be equal for the coming election.

They found in Lincoln all the antecedents of his life to be such as to produce in him the rarest qualifications for the Presidency, to which he was now called by his party. It was during this canvass that he first revealed, in his great debates with Stephen A. Douglas, the full scope of his originality and genius. Subsequent to this combat of giants, he was duly elected President.

No President, before or since, ever took his seat under such difficulties. The situation which confronted him was appalling; secession of the Southern States was fully organized, and less than a month before his inauguration seven of them had already seceded.

During his inaugural address he declared his fixed purpose to uphold the Constitution and preserve the integrity of the Union. It was his policy to ignore the action of the seceded States as a thing in itself null, void and of no effect.

Lincoln was the man whom Providence placed at the head of the nation in the supreme hour of its destiny. When he assumed the reins of government he was surrounded by traitors. The government was without army, without navy, without credit. He spoke, and two millions of men sprang, as from the ground. He breathed, and the bosom of the ocean was covered with ships of war. He placed his hand upon Wall street and the credit of the government was secured. He surrounded himself with the best and truest counselors of the time.

He signed his name and the shackles fell from the limbs of four million of slaves. His was a greatness for the time. He was the Moses of a new dispensation--called of God to lead the hosts of captives out of the bondage house of their oppression. Like his great prototype he was not permitted to see the land of promise. He led the people safely through, but he was not allowed to guide them across the Jordan.

On the morning of April 15, 1865, God called Abraham Lincoln away from mortal sight.

Measured by what he did as a statesman and leader, he stands head and shoulders above all rulers of men in the annals of the six thousand years of Human History.

While a “solitary stripe remains in our banner,” while a “single star is blazoned on its field of blue,” so long will the deeds, the heroism and the loyalty of Abraham Lincoln be told to generations yet unborn.

THE RELIGION OF THE PRESIDENTS.

George Washington was a communicant of the Episcopal Church.

Thomas Jefferson was a member of no church. He was a deist.

John Adams was a Unitarian.

James Madison was an Episcopalian.

James Monroe was an Episcopalian.

John Quincy Adams was a Unitarian.

Andrew Jackson became a member of the Presbyterian Church after the death of his wife.

Martin Van Buren regularly attended the Dutch Reformed Church at Kinderhook, N. Y., but was not a member.

William Henry Harrison was a communicant in the Episcopal Church. His pew in Christ Church, Cleveland, Ohio, bore his silver plate for years after his death.

John Tyler was a member of the Episcopal Church.

James K. Polk never united with any denomination. While he was President he attended the Presbyterian Church out of deference to his wife’s wishes. On his death-bed he was baptized by a Methodist preacher, an old friend and neighbor.

Zachary Taylor was an attendant of the Episcopal Church, and is said to have been a member.

Millard Fillmore was a Unitarian.

Franklin Pierce was a Trinitarian Congregationalist.

James Buchanan was a Presbyterian.

Andrew Johnson was not a member, but attended the Presbyterian Church.

Abraham Lincoln belonged to no church, but usually attended the Presbyterian services.

Ulysses S. Grant attended the Methodist Church, but was not a member.

Rutherford B. Hayes was a Methodist.

James A. Garfield was a member of the Church of the Disciples.

Chester A. Arthur was an Episcopalian.

Grover Cleveland joined the Presbyterian Church after his marriage.

Benjamin Harrison is a member of the Presbyterian Church.

William McKinley is a member of the Methodist Church.

Transcriber’s Note

On page 53 the line “men then in vogue he remarked how much” was omitted completely from the original printing; it has been restored by comparison with another edition.

On page 114 the line “emancipated a race. When Abraham Lin-” was printed, in the original, in the middle of an unrelated paragraph several pages earlier; it has been moved to where it belongs.

In the Table of Contents an entry has been added for the story “A Clergyman Who Talked But Little”, omitted in the original.

A few other minor printing errors, of punctuation, spelling, page numbering, etc., have been corrected without note.