Abraham Lincoln | Page 3

FOR THE PEOPLE." He conceded the people to be the
Government. Their will was above the opinion of secretaries and
generals. He recognized their right to dictate the policy of the
administration. Their majesty was ever before him as an actual
presence. On the 11th of February, 1861, he said, in Indianapolis, "Of
the people when they rise in mass in behalf of the Union and the
liberties of their country, it may be said, 'The gates of hell shall not
prevail against them,'" and again, "I appeal to you to constantly bear in
mind that with you, and not with politicians, not with the President, not
with office-seekers, but with you rests the question, Shall the Union and
shall the liberties of this country be preserved to the latest generation?"
Again, on that memorable journey to Washington, he said, "It is with
you, the people, to advance the great cause of the Union and the
Constitution." "I am sure I bring a true heart to the work. For the ability
to perform it, I must trust in that Supreme Being who has never
foresaken this favored land, through the instrumentality of this great
and intelligent people." In his first Inaugural he said: "This country,
with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it." "The Chief
Magistrate derives all his authority from the people." "Why should
there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is
there any better or any equal hope in the world?"
These sentences were utterances of a faith within him. In the people he
had faith. He saw them only lower than the King of kings, and they
were to be trusted and obeyed.
Yet this man who thus trusted and honored the people, who so
reverenced their authority, and bowed before their majesty, has been

called "tyrant," "usurper," by men who now would make the world
forget their infamy by putting on badges of woe, and who seek to wash
out the record of their slander by such tears as crocodiles shed! Out
upon the miserable dissemblers!
When the people had spoken, he bowed to their mandate. When it
became necessary to anticipate their decision, he did so, calmly trusting
their integrity and intelligence. He considered their wishes in the
constitution of his cabinet, in the choice of military commanders, in the
appointment of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States,
and in the measures he recommended to Congress.
The people proved worthy of the trust. They promptly took every loan
asked for the relief of the treasury and sustained the national credit.
They answered all his calls for men. They sprang into the ranks,
shouting
"We are coming, Father Abraham."
They cheerfully laid down life at his word. So far from this conflict
proving a republic unfit to make war, or that for its prosecution there
must be intensely centralized authority, it has demonstrated that a
democracy trusted, is mightier than a dictatorship.
III. His third towering landmark was THE RIGHT OF ALL MEN TO
FREEDOM. And here with his practical sense and acute vision he rose
to a higher, and I think a healthier, elevation than that of many heroic
antislavery leaders. They were anti-slavery. Their lives were spent in
attack. They sought to destroy a system; they told its wrongs and
categoried its iniquities.
He knew that light, let in, will cast out darkness, and that kindled
warmth will drive out cold. He knew that freedom was better than
slavery, and that when men see that it is so, they will decree freedom
instead of slavery. He therefore entered the lists FOR FREEDOM. He
spoke of its inestimable blessings, and then unrolling the immortal
Declaration of Independence claimed that, with all its dignity and all its
endowments, liberty is the birthright of ALL MEN. He taught the

American people that the inalienable right of all men to liberty was the
first utterance of the young Republic, and that her voice must be stifled
so long as slavery lives. In his Ottawa speech he said: "Henry Clay--my
beau-ideal of a statesman--the man for whom I fought all my humble
life, once said of a class of men who would repress all tendencies to
liberty and ultimate emancipation, that they must, if they would do this,
go back to the era of our independence and muzzle the cannon which
thunders its annual joyous return; they must blow out the moral lights
around us, they must penetrate the human soul and eradicate there the
love of liberty, and then, and not till then, could they perpetuate slavery
in this country."
He laid his spear in rest and went forth with armor on, the champion of
freedom. He claimed she should walk the world everywhere,
untrammeled and free to