Abraham Lincoln | Page 3

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 bless the lowest as well as the highest. It was not right and never could be made right, to forbid working lawfully that all men might be free. Slavery debased--freedom lifted up. Slavery corrupted, freedom purified. Freedom might be abused, but slavery was itself a colossal abuse.
He was no dreaming visionary, but stated with commanding clearness the doctrine of equality before the law, or