Abraham Lincoln | Page 5

and a definite aim have been given to the jarring forces which,
at the beginning of the war, spent themselves in the discussion of
schemes which could only become operative, if at all, after the war was
over; that a popular excitement has been slowly intensified into an
earnest national will; that a somewhat impracticable moral sentiment
has been made the unconscious instrument of a practical moral end;
that the treason of covert enemies, the jealousy of rivals, the unwise
zeal of friends, have been made not only useless for mischief, but even
useful for good; that the conscientious sensitiveness of England to the
horrors of civil conflict has been prevented from complicating a
domestic with a foreign war;--all these results, any one of which might
suffice to prove greatness in a ruler, have been mainly due to the good
sense, the good-humor, the sagacity, the large-mindedness, and the
unselfish honesty of the unknown man whom a blind fortune, as it
seemed, had lifted from the crowd to the most dangerous and difficult
eminence of modern times. It is by presence of mind in untried
emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested; it is by the
sagacity to see, and the fearless honesty to admit, whatever of truth
there may be in an adverse opinion, in order more convincingly to
expose the fallacy that lurks behind it, that a reasoner at length gains
for his mere statement of a fact the force of argument; it is by a wise
forecast which allows hostile combinations to go so far as by the
inevitable reaction to become elements of his own power, that a
politician proves his genius for state-craft; and especially it is by so
gently guiding public sentiment that he seems to follow it, by so
yielding doubtful points that he can be firm without seeming obstinate
in essential ones, and thus gain the advantages of compromise without
the weakness of concession; by so instinctively comprehending the
temper and prejudices of a people as to make them gradually conscious
of the superior wisdom of his freedom from temper and prejudice,--it is
by qualities such as these that a magistrate shows himself worthy to be

chief in a commonwealth of freemen. And it is for qualities such as
these that we firmly believe History will rank Mr. Lincoln among the
most prudent of statesmen and the most successful of rulers. If we wish
to appreciate him, we have only to conceive the inevitable chaos in
which we should now be weltering, had a weak man or an unwise one
been chosen in his stead.
"Bare is back," says the Norse proverb, "without brother behind it;" and
this is, by analogy, true of an elective magistracy. The hereditary ruler
in any critical emergency may reckon on the inexhaustible resources of
*prestige,* of sentiment, of superstition, of dependent interest, while
the new man must slowly and painfully create all these out of the
unwilling material around him, by superiority of character, by patient
singleness of purpose, by sagacious presentiment of popular tendencies
and instinctive sympathy with the national character. Mr. Lincoln's task
was one of peculiar and exceptional difficulty. Long habit had
accustomed the American people to the notion of a party in power, and
of a President as its creature and organ, while the more vital fact, that
the executive for the time being represents the abstract idea of
government as a permanent principle superior to all party and all
private interest, had gradually become unfamiliar. They had so long
seen the public policy more or less directed by views of party, and
often even of personal advantage, as to be ready to suspect the motives
of a chief magistrate compelled, for the first time in our history, to feel
himself the head and hand of a great nation, and to act upon the
fundamental maxim, laid down by all publicists, that the first duty of a
government is to depend and maintain its own existence. Accordingly,
a powerful weapon seemed to be put into the hands of the opposition
by the necessity under which the administration found itself of applying
this old truth to new relations. Nor were the opposition his only nor his
most dangerous opponents.
The Republicans had carried the country upon an issue in which ethics
were more directly and visibly mingled with politics than usual. Their
leaders were trained to a method of oratory which relied for its effect
rather on the moral sense than the understanding. Their arguments were
drawn, not so much from experience as from general principles of right
and wrong. When the war came, their system continued to be
applicable and effective, for here again the reason of the people was to

be reached and kindled through their sentiments. It was one